Archive of Our Own ^beta

The one downside to having most of your family live outside of the country are the vast amounts of weddings you get invited to. The costs are high, it’s a pain to travel, and when you get there you’re at the will of the engaged couple. Kaoru knows this all too well, and dreads going to weddings - in fact, he often elects to stay home rather than waste the time and money to go to a wedding for someone he hasn’t talked to since he was ten. 

This has worked for him for the most part - until, that is, he receives the wedding invitation from his cousin. His cousin who, until she went to college when Kaoru was twelve, lived in Okinawa with her family and is like a big sister to him. There’s no excuses for him to give now, and he only feels slightly annoyed that he has to travel to South Korea for the wedding. 

“It’s happening in about two weeks from now, so we’ll fly everyone out the week before, and we can all hang out and catch up for a bit before having to have the wedding!” his cousin, Chiyoko, says excitedly over their Facetime call as she fills Kaoru in on last minute details. “We’re planning on having everyone stay a couple of days after the wedding too, so people don’t have to leave immediately. It’s all expenses paid - since Jae-hyun has family coming from all over the world, he figured it’d be best if we just paid for it.” The benefits to being exorbitantly rich, Kaoru thinks to himself - Chiyoko did well marrying a well-known author and being a renowned surgeon herself. 

“That sounds reasonable,” Kaoru responds, nodding to himself as he takes a sip of his tea. It certainly will make it easier to travel there, and takes some of the burden off of himself having to pay for plane tickets, a hotel room, meals throughout the day, the spa that he will most definitely be using, and - 

“Are you going to bring your boyfriend?” 

Kaoru can’t help it - it surprises him so much that he chokes on his tea. After coughing hard enough that both Chiyoko and Carla, his fluffy white cat curled up at his side, become concerned, he clears his throat. “My boyfriend?” he asks, voice still a bit raw.

“Don’t you have one? Your mom said something about it…that you had been seeing someone. I was really excited when I heard - I always worried you wouldn’t find anyone, since you’re even more of a workaholic than me, so I was hoping I could meet him at the wedding.” After a moment, Chiyoko frowns at him. Despite being miles apart, Kaoru can feel the disappointment radiating from the other side of the screen. 

Damn it. Damn his mother for telling her that, and for getting her hopes up. Said boyfriend, Ainosuke, had broken up with Kaoru a year ago, and while Kaoru had admittedly not made that big of a deal out of it to his parents in order to make it not seem like a big deal to himself, and also because he didn’t want them to know, he definitely thought they would have figured out that something was wrong when he stopped talking about his ex. His shitty, horrible, piece of trash ex, who dropped him for seemingly no reason and left for the mainland. And now Chiyoko was expecting him to bring a man with him, and while he could tell her the truth, knowing how much she had been looking forward to meeting a supposed boyfriend makes him pause. Then, for once, his mouth moves before his brain can stop him:

“I - yes - I do have one.”

Fuck!

Chiyoko’s face lights up immediately at the news, and she grins brightly and claps her hands together. “Perfect! I’ll make sure to include him in the preparations, too!” Her smile softens, and she leans forward a bit. “I’m really happy for you, Kaoru,” she says, voice gentle, and Kaoru’s heart wrenches in his chest. Why didn’t I just tell her the truth?! “I hope he’s good to you, or I’ll have to put him in his place.”

Despite it all, that makes Kaoru huff a small laugh, even as his brain is beginning to run a mile a minute. “I know you would.” 

After Chiyoko yawns and admits she’s about to pass out after a long, stressful day at work, Kaoru closes his laptop slowly and gingerly pushes it away from himself on his coffee table. The weight of what he’s done catches up to him at the same time. 

It’s Wednesday night. If he flies out next Friday, and the wedding is the Friday after, then that means he has little over a week to find someone who would be willing and stupid enough to pretend to be his boyfriend for a whole week in a foreign country. The problem is, Kaoru doesn’t have anyone that comes to mind. Asking a client would be extremely unprofessional and he doesn’t have many friends - those he does have wouldn’t be appropriate to ask for a slew of different reasons. 

Maybe he could just suck it up and admit that he lied. Maybe he could just not go to the wedding. Maybe he could change his name, cut off all his hair, and move to Europe in order to avoid the ensuing embarrassment that will most definitely come with his mistakes being revealed.

Kaoru can’t help it - the only thing he can do is grab the nearest pillow to him, press it firmly to his face, and scream.

Unfortunately, his worries are lost on Kiriko, who finds the entire ordeal incredibly hilarious, cliche, and the exact type of shit Kaoru would get himself into. Really, he should have expected this reaction from her, but it still stings. 

“I get it, alright? I’m the dumbest person you’ve ever met and you think I should have my Master’s degree revoked,” he says sarcastically, crossing his arms with a huff as they walk. Kiriko takes her dog for a walk every day, and Kaoru sometimes tags along - especially when he’s single. Which he very much is, right now, which is very much a huge fucking problem. “What was I supposed to say?”

“I don’t know, maybe that you don’t have a boyfriend and your mom was misremembering?” she replies. While steering her dog away from sniffing a random person’s leg, she says, “Really, it would have been easy. Yeah, she would’ve felt disappointed, but it would’ve been brief and you wouldn’t have lied to her. And then you could go alone.” Kiriko looks over at him then with a smile. “Or not completely alone, since I’m coming too and will bug the shit out of you.”

Kaoru frowns, exasperated. “But now I can’t go back on it. It would be worse if I did now, because then it’d be that much more obvious that I lied to her, and that I don’t talk to my parents as much as she probably thinks I do.” 

“Hmm…” Kiriko’s brows pinch together as she looks ahead, squinting at the sun beating down over them. Even though it’s only May, it’s already gotten warm in Okinawa, and both of them can feel a sweat coming on. “Maybe you could ask Kojiro.”

There are only so many times Kaoru can be taken by surprise in a 24 hour period, which Kiriko seems to not care about whatsoever. His iced coffee gets stuck in his throat, and he manages to not choke himself to death in the middle of a park. “ What?” he asks, almost incredulously. 

“What do you mean what? You two are best friends! Besides, you already act like you’re dating anyways.” At that, his eyes go comically wide and Kiriko gives him a look. “Don’t look at me like that! Everyone says you’re like an old married couple! I’m just pointing it out - you could ask him to be your fake boyfriend for a week, he gets to take a damn break for once, and it’s not like he’s some random stranger you have to take time to get acquainted with.” She nods, as if deciding on the plan for Kaoru without his input. “I think that’s what you should do. Plus, everyone likes him. He’s the kind of guy that grandmas love. So it’s not like people would be mean to him.”

“You and I both know my family will judge him for not being a doctor, or a lawyer, or a politician. That was the whole reason they liked Ainosuke,” he says, voice a little bitter at the end. “They’ll judge him about everything he’s ever done. I can hear it now. ‘Why does he not own a five star restaurant? Why are you not married yet if you’ve known each other for so long? Why is his family poorer than ours?’” Kaoru sighs, crossing his arms over his chest. “I don’t know if it’s a good idea.”

“Well, it’s either that or some random guy from a dating app,” Kiriko says, shrugging. “So you better ask him, or start downloading apps, because otherwise you’re gonna have to show up and tell the truth.” 

He hates to admit it, but Kiriko makes a lot of good points. While it would be awkward to pretend to be Kojiro’s boyfriend, it’s not like they’re complete strangers - it wouldn’t be impossible. Besides, he gets along with everyone he meets and is a natural extrovert, which would take some of the load off of Kaoru when it comes to acting like they’re both in love. And, apparently, according to Kiriko, everyone already thinks they act like an old married couple. It would be awkward to ask, sure, but it wouldn’t hurt to try. Maybe. It’s not like he has a lot of options at his disposal, as asking a client would be incredibly unprofessional and his closest friends include his childhood best friend and the lesbian he got matched up in the dorms with in college. Any guy he meets randomly might actually be a worse choice than Kojiro, all things considered. 

But for some reason, the idea of Kojiro being his boyfriend - even a fake one, for a week, in a foreign country - makes his stomach churn and his face heat up. He blames it on the heat, and not eating anything today but said iced coffee.

“You’re being really quiet. Just admit that I’m right already.” Kiriko nods down at her dog, who has taken to sniffing at Kaoru’s pant leg curiously. She has a self-satisfied smile on her face. “Brownie agrees with me.”

Kaoru’s face twists a little at that. “I don’t care what a dog thinks.”

That night, while Kaoru is scrolling mindlessly through Instagram while taking a much-needed break on his commissions - since the wedding is coming up, he’s determined to finish all of his work before he has to leave - he comes across post after post from old college friends and their partners, hanging out on boats together, eating expensive food together, and standing in front of beautiful stretches of nature. 

It puts a bad taste in his mouth.

He’s known pretty much since he was in college that he was boring. When his punk, rebellious phase came to an end and he stopped wearing all of his piercings and had to buy a whole new wardrobe, he was getting a degree in computer science with a minor in art (a degree he ended up not using as much, but at least calligraphy commissions are somewhat similar to his minor). That was boring. On top of that, he became more introverted, preferring to stay in and curl up with a glass of wine and a cheesy romantic drama than going out and skateboarding away from the cops. Although he has had one night stands and knows how to flirt, has mastered it to a science, he still has difficulty finding a date. Add in his less than agreeable personality and all of his countless flaws, and there’s not much to sell a potential partner on.

He hadn’t really admitted it until Ainosuke said it to his face, when they had been at dinner at an expensive five-star restaurant where Ainosuke unceremoniously dumped him after paying the bill, citing how “bored” he was in the relationship and that he just “wasn’t in love with him anymore.” It hurt Kaoru at the time. A lot. He was twenty-five and had just wasted two years of his life with someone who likely didn’t really care for him, at least not on the same level Kaoru did. And it had hurt so much that he hadn’t told his parents, but now it was a little over a year later and the breakup was still having an effect on him now. If he really thought about it, Kaoru wouldn’t want to date himself either; he’s clingy but needs his space, he’s a smartass but his feelings can get hurt if someone pokes him the wrong way, he’s supremely intelligent but has an anxiety issue that threatens to keep him from achieving anything because of his fear of failure (but his pride makes sure that doesn’t happen). 

So, basically, this predicament he’s found himself in leaves him reevaluating himself as a person, as well as how the hell he’s going to find someone to take. And, as he’s considering his options, his mind keeps coming back around to Kojiro.

It’s all Kiriko’s fault, but maybe she had a point. Kojiro is the safe option. Kojiro and Kaoru have traveled together countless times before. Kojiro is a natural charmer, thanks to his career in the service industry and his own natural personality. Kojiro is extremely attractive, so Kaoru could show off to his family, though no one will ever hear Kaoru admit that out loud. His parents know Kojiro, and while they’ll be confused at first that he showed up instead of Ainosuke, they may not be as judgemental as they would be about a random stranger. Although, they don’t really like him since he and Kaoru got into so much trouble together as teenagers. Kojiro is good at conversations, so he can take over for Kaoru. Most of all, Kojiro would be able to pretend like they’re dating. 

They’ve been best friends ever since they can remember, and know each other incredibly well because of it. Being asked when they started dating, how they met, and what they like about each other would be easy, because they know each other. As long as they agreed on the more specific details - like how they started dating and for how long - it would likely be Kaoru’s best bet to avoid the complete and utter embarrassment of showing up alone. 

Even though the idea of pretending to date Kojiro makes him nervous - surely just the anxiety of having to ask him for such a ridiculous favor, he justifies in his head - he may be his only hope. He sighs, petting Carla as she purrs next to him. Tomorrow, he thinks. Tomorrow, I’ll try to convince him. 

Why am I here?

Kaoru stares at the sign hanging on the partition next to Sia La Luce, his mouth curling into a deep frown. This was a bad idea. Maybe he should just suck it up and confess that he lied to Chiyoko. Sure, it would disappoint her tremendously and give her something to be sad about during her own wedding, but it would be better than asking Kojiro to be his fake boyfriend. This isn’t something that normal people do in real life. And he is a normal person, or at least as normal as possible, so why is he even considering doing this? He should just turn around and go inside before he gets noticed. 

But then that stupid door opens as two of his employees walk out, and then that stupid man follows after them to flip the sign over to closed, but notices the other stupid person standing alone on the sidewalk, loitering in front of his restaurant. 

“Kaoru?” Kojiro looks confused, but in a playful way, like he’s astounded that Kaoru is here. He leans against the door casually, keeping it open with his foot. “Why’re you just standing out here? Usually you just march right in.”

He scoffs, tilting his nose up in faux disgust. “I was considering whether or not I wanted to eat your poor excuse for Italian food tonight.” 

“Yeah, right. You’re the whole reason I have to stock up on guanciale.” 

“Can I come in or are you going to keep blocking me off with your oversized muscles?”

Kojiro huffs, annoyed. He relents like he always does, stepping aside from the doorway to allow Kaoru in. Kaoru pushes past him, heading straight for the bar, and he can hear the concern in Kojiro’s voice when he asks, “Long day?”

“You could say that.” He sits at the bar, looking over his shoulder at Kojiro, who is taking his sweet time catching up to him. Kaoru’s on edge, and seeing Kojiro act like nothing is wrong - even though, as far as he knows, nothing is wrong - pisses him off. “Hurry up. I need some wine.” Getting buzzed is the only way he’s gonna be able to ask him to do this. Kaoru just wants to get it over with. He’ll probably get laughed at, most likely mocked, but Kaoru is still unsure about whether or not Kojiro will agree to his ridiculous plan. 

“Geez, gimme a second,” he gripes, rounding the bar. He leans down to grab a couple of glasses, setting one in front of Kaoru as he asks, “What kind do you want, Your Highness?”

Kaoru wants to ignore the sarcasm in that nickname, but it just adds to his already building irritation. “Whatever you have left. Something expensive,” he says, tone a bit haughty. It makes Kojiro grumble, and Kaoru watches him disappear into the kitchen to grab a bottle for the both of them. As he’s left alone with his thoughts, Kaoru twirls the stem of the wine glass between his fingers.

He could just…not say it. Kojiro would probably think the idea is weird, actually, and tell Kaoru to just suck it up and admit that he lied to his family, and that he’s not going to up and leave his restaurant for a week to play house with Kaoru. Besides, the idea of doing so makes Kaoru nervous the more he thinks about it. Just saying they’re dating won’t be enough - people won’t accept it unless they hug, or kiss, or do all the romantic things two people in love are supposed to do. Maybe he should have found a stranger, because the idea of doing all of that with Kojiro is supremely weird and anxiety inducing, and - 

“Hey, Kaoru? You there?”

Kaoru blinks. When he comes to, his wine glass is filled and Kojiro is looking down at him with his brows pulled together in concern. He blinks again, and nods his head, clearing his throat. How did I get that lost in thought? Kaoru takes a long, long sip of his wine, downing nearly half of it before he comes back to his senses. “I’m fine,” he says, though it’s not very believable. 

“You’re not a very good liar, you know.” Kojiro’s glass is still empty, since he still has cleaning behind the bar to do. Even so, he’s focusing more on Kaoru than on the bar top. “What’s up?”

The fact that Kojiro only needs to look at him to tell when something is wrong is usually a bit annoying to Kaoru, but tonight, for some reason, he doesn’t have a witty comeback. Kojiro asked him genuinely enough to make Kaoru crack, and besides, he doesn’t have anything important to lose except maybe his dignity. After a moment, Kaoru leans forward on his elbows on the bar and sighs, reluctantly. “I need a date.”

Kojiro doesn’t miss a beat, remarking as he scrubs at a particularly stubborn stain, “I could have told you that.”

Kaoru wishes he was sitting next to him so he could smack him on the arm. Hard. “ No, you imbecile. I need a date for a wedding.”

“A wedding? Who’s getting married?”

“Chiyoko.” Kaoru stares intensely at his wine glass.

“Oh, no shit,” he says, flipping his towel over his shoulder, glancing at Kaoru now. “Isn’t she in Korea?”

“Yes.” Kaoru pauses, trying to figure out the right way to admit this. Any way he says it will sound stupid, he knows, so he might as well spit it out. But he also wants to maintain some pride, so he simply repeats, “I need a plus one.”

“Why?” Kojiro is leaning against the bar nonchalantly, keeping his eyes on Kaoru as he waits for an answer. That’s one thing Kaoru hates about him - he’s always so attentive during conversations, that it makes having difficult ones hard. He wishes he would just stop looking at him, because his gaze is making Kaoru’s nervousness spike. “Can’t you just go alone?”

“Well,” he starts, slowly, “I told her I had a boyfriend.”

The silence that ensues seems to last for far too long, yet in reality it’s only a few seconds. Kojiro just stares at him, dumbfounded; Kaoru stares back, deciding that if he’s going to be made fun of for being stupid, he’ll look him in the eye. After a stretch of time that seems to last for an eternity, Kojiro doesn’t laugh or immediately mock him. He just asks him one thing:

“You what?”

He sounds…well, not confused or amused, at least at first, but shocked. Maybe shocked that Kaoru lied about this, or shocked that his family didn’t know he has been single for almost a year, or shocked that Kaoru got himself into this situation in the first place. Kaoru thinks that, maybe, it would have been better if Kojiro had mocked him, because the plain shock is just reminding him of how crazy this whole request is. “Did I stutter?” Kaoru asks, sniffing before taking another sip of his wine. 

“No, just - what? Why didn’t you just tell her you didn’t have one?” When Kaoru sets his glass down, Kojiro almost immediately fills it back up, a little fuller than usual. “Wouldn’t that have been easier than, I don’t know, lying about being in a relationship?”

“You think I don’t realize that?” Kaoru snaps, more heated than usual. “She asked me on the phone, and she looked and sounded so excited. What was I supposed to do? Lie to a bride who’s excited that I’m not going to be an old cat lady for the rest of my life?”

“Yes, that’s exactly what you do in that situation!” Kojiro shakes his head as he fills his own glass, clearly taken aback by Kaoru’s idiocy. “Sure, it’ll hurt her feelings, but it’s better than just showing up alone or with a random stranger, right?” As he takes a sip, Kaoru’s voice catches in his throat. It’s rare that he’s at a loss for words, or at least a witty comeback, but he’s already gotten this far - he needs to follow through.

“Actually…” he starts, feeling uncharacteristically shy, “That’s why I came here tonight.”

“If you’re going to ask me to find a date for you, the answer is no. You got into this mess by yourself.”

“No, idiot - “ Kaoru has to take a breath, calm his nerves. Yelling at him when he’s about to ask for the favor of a lifetime is likely not a good move. “No, I was going to ask you to go with me.”

Kaoru holds his breath now, waiting for his response. If he laughs in his face, Kaoru will admit defeat, drop the proposition and confess his wrongdoings to Chiyoko. However, Kojiro just looks at him; he looks deep in thought, but also a bit surprised at the idea. In fact, his expression is almost unreadable, which is strange given the fact that he typically wears his heart on his sleeve. Kaoru can tell that he’s seriously considering the idea, if his prolonged response and reaction is anything to go by. Finally, he takes a sip of his wine and, after a moment, sets the glass down as he sighs thoughtfully.

“Alright,” he says, looking back at him now. That strange expression is gone and is replaced with one of his signature boyish grins. “I’ll go, but only if you pay for everything.”

Kaoru grimaces at that. “It’s all expenses paid. But I’d have to pay for everything anyway.” Deep down, Kaoru is relieved, and even surprised that it went this well. Perhaps he should be more surprised that Kojiro agreed, but he managed to do it without having to really persuade him, so he’ll pat himself on the back for that. Even if he still feels awkward and nervous about this whole situation, at least he’s able to pretend with someone he’s known ever since he could remember. 

“Consider it compensation for having to pretend to be your boyfriend,” Kojiro replies, and it makes Kaoru’s frown deepen, his celebratory mood dampening. 

“If it’s truly that much of an issue, then I’d rather you not come.”

“A free vacation isn’t an issue,” Kojiro assures him, and that boyish smile of his has melted into something more genuine, more warm. While it sounds like a dig at him - that he’s more interested in the idea of a free vacation rather than spending time playing a doting boyfriend - Kaoru can tell that he doesn’t mean it that way. It makes Kaoru’s cheeks flush, but that’s likely just from the alcohol in his system. “When’s the wedding?”

“We leave next Friday, and stay there for nine days,” he says. Kojiro nods, crossing his arms over his chest. 

“I can get my sous chef and the rest of my crew to run Sia for a week. Besides, he keeps telling me that I’m a workaholic who needs to go on vacation,” he says. “You got a plan in mind, four-eyes?”

Kaoru rolls his eyes, snorting inelegantly as he finishes off his wine. “Of course I do, idiot. What do you take me for?”

Internally, Kaoru’s mind unhelpfully informs him that he does not, actually, have a concrete plan. Yet.  

This isn’t their first time traveling together, more like their fifteenth or so. However, this time is different, mainly because they are both seated in first class, rather than Kojiro forcing them to sit in economy to save money on plane tickets. Kaoru much preferred the first class treatment; complimentary champagne or wine, fine food, and pillows on the head of each chair to ensure a nice, relaxing flight is better than having to fight for leg room.

Kojiro, however, felt out of place. In fact, Kaoru had grown annoyed enough at his oohing and ahhing at every feature that he closed the curtain that separated them from the rest of the plane in some meager attempt to get the other passengers to not pay attention to them. 

“Will you relax?” he asks, only really snapping because it is eight in the morning and he always gets irritable on plane rides. Kojiro knows this, and while he is able to take it in stride, he always likes to argue back. 

“You expect me to relax? I’ve never flown any nicer than business,” he says, but settles back against the chair. Actually, he spreads out his legs, getting even more comfortable than usual and bumping his knee against Kaoru’s. “I’m not used to having this much room.”

“Yeah, well, you’re hogging all of mine,” Kaoru huffs, pulling his legs up and under himself on the chair. His oversized yellow cardigan wraps over his knees, and he tries his best to get comfortable. Even so, he still throws a glare at Kojiro. “Don’t fucking manspread.”

“I can’t help it.”

“...I’m calling security.”

Kojiro laughs, warm and sunny, and it makes it hard for Kaoru to stay that mad. He has to admit to himself that, just like everyone else, Kojiro’s laugh tends to get rid of any annoyance he may have felt. Still, he tries to put up a front. “Fine, fine.” He sits more normally now, giving Kaoru enough leg space. Kaoru doesn’t put his legs down though, much more comfortable sitting how he is. Kojiro smiles, a little too warmly for Kaoru’s liking. “It’s always weird seeing you like this.”

“Like what?” Kaoru asks, raising an eyebrow to let Kojiro know he’s on thin ice.

“I dunno, cozy?” Kojiro says, and then his smile turns into a smirk. “Like a librarian.”

Kaoru blinks at him, and when he feels his face flushing at the comment, smacks him on the arm. “Learn when to shut up.” It only earns another chuckle from Kojiro, who acts like the smack hurt as he rubs his bicep. 

They get served their expensive drinks and expensive food, and while eating, Kojiro leans up from his plate to look at Kaoru. “So, what’s the plan?”

Kaoru doesn’t look up from his meal, swallowing his last bite before answering. “We have been friends since we were children, and after years of pining after each other, we finally decided to start dating.” He takes another bite, feeling considerably calmer now that he has a plan. “I want to keep it vague so we don’t mess up our story.” 

After a moment’s pause, Kojiro nods. “Makes sense.” He finishes up first, reclining back in his seat after a flight attendant takes care of the dishes. “But they’re gonna ask for more clarification, you know.” 

“I’m well aware,” he says, pushing his own plate away once he’s done eating. “What, do you want to make up a more detailed story?”

“I just think they’re gonna prod us about everything. So it might be better to have a set in stone story, you know?” He takes a sip of his coffee, but he keeps his eyes on Kaoru over the rim of his cup. “Might make it less awkward when they ask.”

Kaoru thinks it over. It does make sense, though he’s loath to admit as much. In all honesty, he didn’t have much of an idea about what the specifics of the story would be. Oddly, thinking about typical relationship milestones with Kojiro in mind made him feel strange. Not uncomfortable, but just…strange, like it should be off limits. “So what do you think we should say?”

“Well…” Kojiro hesitates, like he’s struggling to get out the next part of the sentence, “They’ll probably ask about our first kiss.” At that, Kaoru chokes on his coffee, and Kojiro points at him accusingly. “See? This is why we have to have a whole story planned out! You’re gonna end up killing yourself if someone asks shit like that!”

“Since you know everything, why don’t you suggest a story?” Kaoru croaks out. It’s a weaker comeback, but he’s not able to come up with anything better right now. The idea of kissing Kojiro…it conjures up an unusual feeling that settles at the bottom of his stomach.

“It could just be something simple. Maybe we kissed for the first time in the rain or something.”

“That’s underwhelming and cliche.”

He huffs, irritated. “Fine. What do you think it should be?”

Kaoru thinks for a moment, pressing a finger to his lips thoughtfully. “We ended up kissing before we ever started dating. That was what made us decide to actually start dating - we both wanted to for a while, but neither of us were brave enough to do anything about it until I kissed you at Sia La Luce after the restaurant had closed for the night.”

Silence. Worried that Kojiro isn’t paying attention, is ignoring him, or falling asleep, Kaoru’s eyes snap to him. Instead, he finds Kojiro looking at him in a way that can only be described as a gaze - eyes intent on Kaoru, soft and tender, a look that Kaoru has seen before but dislikes when it’s directed at him, if only because of how it disarms him. He frowns at him. “What?”

“I -” And as suddenly as Kaoru noticed it, the aforementioned gaze is gone, replaced with Kojiro shaking his head and laughing awkwardly. Weird. “I just didn’t think you could be romantic. That’s all.”

Kaoru’s frown deepens, and his eyebrows turn downwards when it does. “What, do you think I’m heartless?” He turns his head away, electing to look out the window instead of looking at Kojiro, considering the topic at hand. “...I thought it would be heartwarming,” he admits, almost as an afterthought.

He can hear Kojiro’s soft huff of a laugh, an almost comforting sound as Kaoru strokes his slightly mangled ego. “Okay. I’m fine with that.” As Kaoru leans down to rifle through his carry on, already tired of this conversation because of the embarrassment that ensued, Kojiro’s voice takes on a questioning tone. “What are you doing?”

After a moment, Kaoru fishes out his beloved silk sleeping eye mask, a soft pink a few shades off of his own hair color. Wordlessly, he slips it over his head, covering his eyes in one swift movement. “I’m going to sleep.” 

“Seriously? In the middle of a conversation?”

“I thought the conversation was done.”

“The one about the first kiss story, yeah, but not the rest of it -”

Kaoru sighs - perhaps a bit too dramatically - and lifts up one of the eye covers on his mask. “Can we talk about it when I’m not half asleep?” He lowers the mask again, settling back in his seat after curling the complimentary blanket around his body. “You’re annoying me.”

For once, Kojiro doesn’t argue back; Kaoru can sense him rolling his eyes, though, as he feels Kojiro get comfortable in his seat as well. At least these seats are wider and give them more space, so Kaoru doesn’t have to scrunch up in his seat to avoid Kojiro accidentally elbowing him in his sleep. 

Even with as far apart as the seats are, somewhere in the middle of their flight, Kaoru’s head ends up lying comfortably on Kojiro’s shoulder, his body turned towards him, just like it does every time they fly together.

After two long layovers, one airport hotel stay where the only room left available had a full-sized bed and Kojiro was forced to sleep on the couch, several coffees with too many espresso shots and Kojiro, as usual, having to apologize for Kaoru’s behavior (really, Kaoru couldn’t just let the old lady who had recognized his work all the way in Tokyo get cut in line by a family of six just because the mom was pregnant), the two of them finally land in Seoul. 

The first person they see is the person who unintentionally got Kaoru into this mess. 

“Kaoru!” 

Chiyoko came to the airport herself, with her fiance Jae-hyun holding the sign they made for them written in Japanese. At first glance, Chiyoko doesn’t look that related to Kaoru; they are only cousins, after all, and she inherited most of the looks from her father’s side, including his dark brown eyes, round face, and button nose. The one thing that distinguishes her, though, is her dark fuchsia hair from her mother, the color that gives the Sakurayashikis their name, and the one thing her and Kaoru have in common. She smiles wide when she sees them approaching, waving her hand in the air and jumping up to be seen in the crowd.

Kaoru is exhausted - both of them are - but seeing his cousin for the first time in nearly fourteen years brightens his mood considerably, and he smiles upon seeing her frantically trying to get their attention. He catches up to them, and the first thing he and Chiyoko do is crush each other in a tight hug. He leaves his suitcases to the wayside, leaving them to Kojiro to keep from rolling away. 

“Kaoru, it’s been so long!” Chiyoko exclaims, and he can feel her smiling wide even as she has her head on his shoulder. She’s slightly shorter than him, but she has always been the one person in his family that is incredibly tactile; Kaoru thinks he’s only really able to handle it because everyone in Kojiro’s family is the exact same way. “Let me look at you,” she says, and pulls away to get a better look at him, hands on his cheeks, her expression warm and fond. “You are so beautiful!” 

Kaoru smiles softly, silently preening at the compliment. “So are you, Chiyo. You look so different from the last time I saw you.”

“FaceTime hides all of my pores,” she says, and both of them laugh. Suddenly, Chiyoko remembers something. “Kaoru! This is my fiance, Park Jae-hyun,” she says, introducing the two of them. Jae-hyun is nearly a foot taller than Chiyoko, but he wears a long, light peacoat and round black glasses - the clear look of an introverted author. Kaoru wonders, briefly, how the two of them even met. Opposites attract, he thinks. 

The two of them shake hands, exchanging pleasantries, and Kaoru realizes it’s his turn to introduce his supposed partner. He supposes he should just get right to it - hesitating too long would be too awkward and noticeable. “And this is my boyfriend,” he says, the word feeling foreign on his tongue, “Nanjo Kojiro.”

Kojiro, as Kaoru expected, gives an award-winning smile, the one with dimples that makes little grannies give him things for free at markets and food trucks, as he slips into Perfect Boyfriend mode. “It’s been a while, huh?”

Chiyoko’s eyes widen, almost comically, and her mouth gapes. “Kojiro? You mean, Kojiro- kun who followed Kaoru- chan around everywhere? Is that really you?” Kojiro can’t help but laugh at her surprise, and Chiyoko does the same thing she did to Kaoru, pulling him into a warm hug, except this time she looks tiny as he hugs her back. “You got so big! I had no idea you were a bodybuilder now!”

“I’m not,” he says, and he pulls back to shake Jae-hyun’s hand as well. 

“He may as well be one,” Kaoru butts in unhelpfully, and it draws Kojiro’s eyes to him.

“What, are you complaining? Last time I checked, you liked my muscles,” he says, with a smirk that tells Kaoru if you argue with me it will look weird. It leaves Kaoru scrambling for a response, but before he can respond Chiyoko laughs loud enough for the both of them.

“You two still fight like cats and dogs, I bet,” she says, and Kaoru can’t really argue with that. “Well, I bet you guys are exhausted. It’s a little too late to go out to dinner, but if you’re hungry we can work something out.”

“Yang Good is still open,” Jae-hyun supplies, the first time he’s really spoken this entire meeting. He has a softer voice, definitely the more reserved of the two.

“Isn’t it about to close?” Chiyoko asks.

“It’s alright,” Kaoru says, deciding to intervene. “We ate on the plane since they had a complimentary dinner. We’re both just very tired.” Kojiro nods, and even if he wasn’t tired Kaoru would have elbowed his side to get him to agree. 

Not much more is said; Chiyoko and Jae-hyun lead them to their car, a sleek, black, expensive BMW, and Kojiro loads up all of their luggage at Kaoru’s insistence (“Use your muscles for something,” “Do your arms not work anymore?”). Jae-hyun gets into the driver’s seat, driving them to Gangnam, to the hotel they’ll be staying in for the next week. Kaoru leans his head against the window and closes his eyes, listening as Chiyoko and Kojiro make small talk, catching up after over a decade apart. 

Suddenly, Kaoru is nudged gently, followed by a soft “Wake up.” His eyes blink open blearily, and he looks out the window and then to his side, where he sees Kojiro with his hand on his shoulder. He probably was going to shake him harder if this hadn’t worked. “We’re here.” 

Kaoru yawns, covering his mouth with the sleeve of his cardigan. “How long was the drive?”

“About 45 minutes. Come on.” 

Kaoru follows his cousin and Kojiro into the hotel, where he checks in (something he always insists on doing) and says goodbye to Chiyoko. Before she leaves, Chiyoko gives him another hug for good measure and says, “Tomorrow everyone should be here, and we’re all having dinner at this really nice rooftop restaurant. Your parents should be there, too. I’ll text you the address.”

“Okay,” Kaoru says. He really is too tired to say much else, but he makes sure to bid her goodbye before he and Kojiro go up to their room. 

Opening the door to the room, the two are greeted with a large, sleek, and modern bedroom. Everything in Gangnam seems to be sleek and modern, with high white ceilings, light wood paneling along the walls and the bedframe, with a little nook built into the wall above a built-in dresser. The bed sits in front of large floor-to-ceiling windows and a tall, circular floor lamp. Beyond the bed, an open arch leads into what looks like a small living room, with a circular table and four light green chairs inside, as well as a kitchenette. Across the room, besides a built-in closet and dresser, a door leads into the bathroom, where a huge porcelain bathtub with jets sits, as well as a roomy walk-in shower. It screams luxury, with its minimalist interior design that likely costs at least $25,000 altogether, and Kaoru cannot wait to go to bed. 

Wait.

Why didn’t he think of this? There’s only one bed. 

Not that Kojiro and Kaoru have never shared a bed together - this one is a king-sized bed, with enough room for the both of them - but the circumstances have never been like this. There hasn’t really been any weird tension, at least not yet, but it still throws Kaoru for a loop. Kojiro seems to realize shortly after he does, setting down the luggage and taking a look around the room, his eyes landing on the bed, then looking around for the couch, then looking at Kaoru. Before he can even speak, Kaoru interrupts, leaning down to grab his carry on bag. “I’m going to take a shower.”

Kaoru takes his time, mulling over the situation in his head. Like he thought before, he and Kojiro have shared smaller beds before. Once, on their trip across the Mediterranean, they stayed in a town so small it only had one hotel, and the beds were only twin sized. They had tried sharing, but Kaoru had fallen off the bed when Kojiro pushed him in his sleep (he’s still not convinced that was an accident). Then there was Spain, where they had to share a bed at one of Kojiro’s old friend’s houses. That was less uncomfortable, since they had a full-sized, but still a tight squeeze. If Kojiro wasn’t so gigantic, Kaoru thinks, it wouldn’t be something he dreads having to do. 

After a long, thoughtful shower, as well as managing to get through his nightly skincare routine despite being bone-tired, he comes out of the bathroom properly relaxed. As he takes down his damp hair from the towel and pats dry the rest of it, he finds Kojiro unpacking, hanging up his clothes in the closet. His eyes trail over as Kaoru emerges from the steam of the bathroom, and he gives him this amused look. Kaoru hates that look. “Finally done, princess?”

Kaoru rolls his eyes, and he finds the laundry basket to toss his towels in. “Sorry for taking my time after a long, stressful plane ride.” He tilts his head, crossing his arms over his old, oversized pajamas. “Are you making yourself useful for once?” 

Kojiro sighs softly, looking back at the closet. “Yeah. Figured I’d unpack since we’ll be here for a while.”

Kaoru nods, looking around the room. He sees his suitcase open and unpacked, save for his laptop and makeup. He raises an eyebrow at the sight. “Did you unpack my clothes?”

“Yeah.” Kojiro’s eyes land on him again. “I hung up the dresses and shirts and put the rest in the dresser. I didn’t know where you’d want me to put the rest of the stuff, so…” He trails off, sounding sheepish. Very unlike him, Kaoru thinks. 

“Well…thank you.” Kaoru is too tired to be witty and sarcastic, and plus, it is a genuinely nice gesture. It’s probably one he wouldn’t have thought of himself, but then, Kojiro is just like that - thoughtful and nice and caring. Kaoru’s chest feels a little funny the more he dwells on it. “In fact…” he starts, sitting on the bed (on the side he always claims, of course) and beginning to braid his hair for the night, “Thank you. For coming all the way here with me.” 

Kojiro’s eyebrows pull together, like he’s shocked that Kaoru can be this nice. Then, they soften, becoming gentle and soothing. It’s not a wonder women and men are attracted to him , Kaoru thinks, and then chastises himself for letting that thought pass through his sleepy mind. “Of course,” Kojiro says, and he closes the closet door, coming to sit on the edge of the bed himself. Kaoru watches him, not shrinking away, but keeping a close eye on him. “Honestly, when you told me about all this…at first I was confused, and kind of shocked. But then I thought, I don’t really want Kaoru going with a stranger. So of course I came with you.” 

The open way Kojiro speaks always makes Kaoru nervous. Not in a bad way, of course, but in a way that he feels that he has to reciprocate. Even though Kojiro never expects him to, it tends to make Kaoru’s heart stop for a moment. Right now, his hands stop in his braid, and he blinks, eyes widening just a little. “That’s…very considerate.”

“Don’t hurt yourself,” Kojiro says dryly. Kaoru huffs and looks back down at his braid, finishing the ends. He can feel Kojiro’s eyes on him though, searing and warm, but in a way that’s comforting, like the way the sun hits your skin in the summer after coming out of a very cold, air-conditioned room. “Besides, we haven’t been to Seoul before.”

“You could have come by yourself at any point,” Kaoru replies quietly, tying the end of his hair.

“Yeah, well. I always have more fun traveling when you’re with me.”

Kaoru looks up at him then, glancing up under his lashes. With the soft light of the lamp behind him, it makes Kojiro look hazy, kind of blurred at the edges like an old photograph. Kojiro is looking at him just as intensely, and it feels like they hold each other’s gaze for hours when it’s really only a few seconds. This feels…weird. Like, too emotionally charged, too vulnerable, weird, and Kaoru has no idea how to respond. He can never say what he wants to like Kojiro does, and while he wants to say I think so too, I always get stressed on trips unless you’re around, he doesn’t. In fact, he says nothing at all. 

Kojiro’s eyes break first, looking down at the bed awkwardly and then away completely, standing up from the bed and rubbing the back of his neck. Curiously, he keeps his eyes away from Kaoru, his back turned to him. “Well! I’m gonna go shower before I drop dead,” he says, rustling around for his own pajamas. Kaoru blinks, the spell that seemed to be put on him wearing off. 

“...I may have used all the hot water,” he says weakly, still reeling. Had he been even a smidge more awake, he would’ve said something smartass-y to Kojiro, but nothing comes to mind. 

“I’m used to it,” Kojiro replies, and before Kaoru can say anything else, he’s in the bathroom, the door shut and locked behind him. Kaoru is awake enough to find the way he’s acting strange, but not enough to interrogate him about it. His stomach still flutters when he thinks about Kojiro admitting that he prefers to travel with him, but writes it off as his mind being muddled with fatigue. He gets under the plush, cool covers of the bed and turns his lamp off, pulling the covers up to his chin and snuggling under the comforter. He’s tired enough that, when his head hits the pillow, he falls asleep almost immediately.

Only almost, because he briefly registers the bed dipping next to him, and the familiar smell of Kojiro’s bergamot and sandalwood soap accompanying the movement. For once, he doesn’t have to turn on lullabies to fall asleep into a dreamless slumber. 

The next day starts with Kaoru’s phone ringing. He groans, face down on the pillow. He pats around for his phone and finally finds it on the nightstand. He grabs it, and after looking at the caller ID, answers. “What?”

“Good morning to you, too,” Kiriko says, and it’s then that Kaoru remembers that she’s here too. And that he didn’t tell her he brought Kojiro, like she suggested. Kaoru wonders if he can hole up in bed until dinner. “Or afternoon. It’s 1 PM.”

Kaoru looks briefly at the clock, and then sighs dramatically, making Kiriko laugh on the other end. “We got in late. I’m tired.”

“I can tell. Did I wake you and your boyfriend up?” she asks, and Kaoru can just smell the sarcasm radiating off of her. He loves her, but she can be a bitch sometimes, just like he can. “Who’d you bring, anyways? Some random guy you met at a bar or something?”

“Uh, no -” 

Just as he starts to answer, the door to the hotel room opens, and in comes room service with Kojiro holding the door open for them, telling them that he can take the plates from here. Seeing it, Kaoru waves his arm to catch his attention, mouthing Be quiet before continuing. “I didn’t bring a stranger.”

“Who did you bring, then? You only know, like, three men.” After a second, Kiriko’s voice takes on a smug, self-satisfied edge. “Wait. Did you bring who I think you brought?”

“And who do you think I brought?”

“Did you bring Kojiro?”

Kojiro, who is setting the food down at the table, is watching the conversation with rapt interest. Kaoru tries to ignore his eyes on him, instead staring down at his hand, smoothing over the covers. “I hate having to say this…but yes, I brought Kojiro.”

Kiriko doesn’t squeal or gasp; she laughs at him, loud and bitchy and like she won . “I knew it! No one else would do this shit with you!” As she settles down, Kaoru’s mouth has turned down into a deep, pissy frown. “Is he there right now? Let me talk to him!”

“No!” 

“Why not?”

“You’ll see him at dinner,” he starts, but then his phone is snatched from him. Before he can even realize it, Kojiro is on the phone with Kiriko - Kaoru’s worst nightmare. 

“Hey Kiriko…yup…well, it’s not like I could say no to a paid vacation…uh huh…I don’t need any clothes, I packed my own - what is that supposed to mean?” After a long moment, Kojiro rolls his eyes. “Thanks for reminding me why I never talk to you,” he says, and then hands the phone back to Kaoru. 

Kiriko is still cackling on the other end, and Kaoru has to ask, “What about his clothes?”

“Just check and make sure they aren’t tacky. And then take him shopping, because we both know they’ll be tacky,” she says, and Kaoru is reminded of why they’re so close - his first order of business was to raid Kojiro’s closet. “Anyways, I have to go now. I made a massage appointment. I’ll see you tonight. Bye!”

“Bye,” Kaoru replies, and she hangs up for them. He sets his phone down and, looking at Kojiro, asks, “You didn’t bring your stupid Hawaiian shirts, did you?”

Kojiro sighs. “Just come over here and eat first before you get bitchy.” 

Kaoru narrows his eyes at him, but he does get out of bed to eat, only because his stomach growls unhelpfully. He sits at the table, and sees, of all things, spaghetti carbonara sitting in front of him. He blinks. “Of course you got Italian,” he chastises, picking up his fork. 

“Listen, in my defense, you were asleep and I wasn’t sure what to get you,” Kojiro says. He himself is digging into grilled chicken, likely used to eating it to work off the calories later. “There were a lot of options, so carbonara seemed like a safe bet.”

“You didn’t have to get me anything,” Kaoru says, taking bite after bite of his food. While it’s good, he wonders, briefly, if the person who made it has any experience in cooking Italian food or if he was just hired to cook whatever he was told. “It doesn’t taste as good as usual,” he says. 

A beat of silence. Kaoru’s mind, still half awake, catches up with him, and he looks up at Kojiro quickly. He has a pleased, almost smug look on his face, and Kaoru wants to sink into the floor and never come up ever again. He knows what Kojiro is going to say before he even says it. “Are you saying mine is better?” 

Kaoru wants to save face. It’s not really that embarrassing of a passing comment, but Kaoru’s inability to be genuinely nice without feeling supremely vulnerable is stopping him from just going along with Kojiro. Instead, he snorts. “I think my tastebuds forgot what it’s supposed to taste like,” he says. 

“You just said it doesn’t taste as good as usual.”

“Maybe it’s because I had to pay for it.”

“Or maybe it’s because mine is better.”

Kaoru is just getting annoyed now. “Fine, maybe it is,” he says, relenting. “I don’t think they used the right kind of pork, anyways.”

Kojiro sticks his fork into a piece and chews on it thoughtfully, earning the ire of Kaoru, demanding he “not eat my food, asshole!” Ignoring Kaoru’s complaints, he nods in agreement. “I think you’re right,” he says.

“I know I’m right,” Kaoru replies, still slightly miffed, which makes Kojiro chuckle. Ignoring this blatant teasing, Kaoru continues from earlier. “About your clothes -”

“I get it, I have no sense of style.” Kojiro waves his fork in the direction of the closet, where he hung up his shirts last night. “I don’t wanna wear my best clothes to dinner. I’m saving that for the wedding.”

“You cannot wear those ugly patterned shirts to dinner. Maybe to the beach, but you need some nicer clothes,” Kaoru insists. He doesn’t know why he didn’t intervene sooner, when they were still in Okinawa.

“Do I really?”

“Yes, you really do. Everyone will be dressed nicely at dinner, and -” Kaoru stops himself, huffing in annoyance and instead electing to focus on his lunch. He wishes Kojiro would just listen to him, but it seems that, as usual, it’ll take more than Kaoru telling him to do something for him to actually do it. 

“...And?” Kojiro continues for him, goading him on. Kaoru swallows his last bite, and he closes his eyes, sighing in defeat. 

“And I don’t want you to feel out of place, or get ridiculed by my family,” he says, “because Chiyoko and Jae-hyun wouldn’t, but the rest of my family likely will.” 

Kojiro is quiet for a moment, considering this. Kaoru isn’t looking at him, but he hopes he understands why he wants him to get new clothes - not that Kaoru wants him to look a certain way, but because Kaoru is worried that if he doesn’t, he’ll make a bad first impression by looking like he doesn’t care enough to dress well. It seems to work, because after a moment, Kojiro nods, relenting. “Okay. I’ll let you drag me to get new clothes,” he starts, his mouth turning up into a shit-eating grin, “but only because you care about me so much.”

Kaoru frowns at him, then kicks his shin hard under the table, making Kojiro groan in pain. “Shut up.”

An hour later, the two of them find a men’s formal wear store (one with good reviews, and with clothes in his size - Kaoru made sure to check before they left), and Kaoru lets him pick the clothes, with interference from time to time. When he tries the first shirt on - a simple black button-up, one chosen by Kaoru - he comes out of the dressing room while fixing the sleeves, likely to roll them up. “This feels weird,” he says. 

Kaoru, who had been on his phone and nursing his glass of complimentary champagne, looks up at him. He’s seen Kojiro in formal clothing before. In fact, he’s seen him in a lot of different types of clothing before - hell, he’s even seen him shirtless more times than he can count. But something about the way the shirt fits him, a couple of buttons undone and tastefully exposing his chest, makes Kaoru stare at him for a little too long. Maybe he’s too used to seeing him in a chef’s coat or that stupid orange-striped shirt, but either way his gaze lingers. He gets his mind under control, sets his glass down, and stands, coming closer to look him up and down, giving him his seal of approval. “Not bad,” he says, which is probably the most Kojiro could have hoped for out of Kaoru. “Is it too tight?”

“...I think the arms are,” Kojiro says after a pause, and Kaoru looks at his arms now. He hadn’t even noticed them, but they do threaten to bulge out at any moment. I suppose this is why he doesn’t wear long sleeves. “But I’ll probably just roll them up,” he says, beginning to do so. 

Kaoru nods, hand on his chin. Then, he touches one of his biceps, trying to feel the strain of fabric for himself. “I think you’re right,” he says, and he feels Kojiro tense a bit; he looks up at him, brows furrowed, and notices how Kojiro’s eyes are locked on his hand. Something about his eyes - the intensity of them on his hand, the way they flick up to Kaoru’s face - makes his cheeks feel unnaturally hot. “What?”

“I - “ he starts, but the worker who had been helping them pick out clothes comes over, asking if everything fits. After some conversation, a change in size, and Kojiro decently pleased with his selection, Kaoru buys the shirts for him and claims they’re compensation for the trip. 

“You should wear the black one tonight,” Kaoru says, after they decided to spend the day on the shopping street. “It looks classy.”

“Yes, ma’am,” Kojiro snarks back. He earns a quick glare from Kaoru, which only serves to make him grin boyishly back at him. “You know, I could get used to you buying everything for me.”

“Don’t,” he says, only slightly annoyed. The chocolate store he sees across the street catches his eye at that moment, making his attention drift elsewhere. “I only bought it for you because I knew you couldn’t afford it.” 

Kojiro snorts as he gets dragged along by Kaoru to the other side of the street. “Maybe I could have.”

“You couldn’t have.”

Kaoru and Kojiro decide to walk to the restaurant, a four-star restaurant that’s a fifteen minute walk away. It looks more homey than luxury; there’s rooftop seating, with string lights strewn across the perimeter of the roof, and a large, long table in the middle, surrounded by smaller tables closer to the edge. They get there fashionably late, at Kojiro’s insistence, mostly because they didn’t want to be stuck with Kaoru’s family any longer than they needed to be. When they get led to the roof, nearly everyone is there already, save for one or two uncles; in fact, this entire roof looks like it’s been reserved solely for Chiyoko’s family, as well as family friends like Kiriko and her parents, as everyone shouts out a hello as they arrive.

Chiyoko stands up first, smiling wide as she comes over to hug the two of them. “You made it!” she says, as if they would have decided not to come when the whole reason they were there was for her wedding. Kaoru lets her squeeze him, and then Kojiro, in a hug. While she’s doing so, he looks over at the table and almost immediately his eyes meet his parents.

His father, Sakurayashiki Itsuki, is glaring at them; his mother, Hanami, is as well, but looks more shocked than angry.

Oh, right.

In the midst of planning to bring someone who’s not his boyfriend to a wedding in another country, he still forgot to tell them about Ainosuke. 

Kaoru rips his eyes from them and back to Kojiro, where he leans in close to his ear, hand wrapped around his arm, hoping it looks intimate to the rest of the family. “I forgot to tell them,” he whispers, and Kojiro’s eyes widen; it would be comical if not for the circumstances. 

Ever since they were teenagers, Kaoru’s parents took a strong dislike to Kojiro, because they saw him as being a bad influence on their son. In reality, it was Kaoru dragging Kojiro out late at night to get in trouble with the cops, but his parents weren’t able to accept that and blamed it on Kojiro instead. So, obviously, seeing Kaoru show up with the boy they hated as his boyfriend must be infuriating, but they care too much about their reputations to make a scene. Kaoru knows this, so he sits down next to Kiriko, who had saved a couple of seats for them, thankfully right across from Chiyoko and Jae-hyun. He can still feel his parent’s eyes on the two of them, but he tries to ignore them for now, instead deciding to peer over at Kojiro’s menu.

As Kaoru points at what he wants, Kojiro spares him a glance. “Look at your own,” he says, but it’s more like fond annoyance than real irritation. Kaoru thinks that if he moves away from this safe orbit of Kojiro, Kiriko, Chiyoko and Jae-hyun, he won’t be able to handle it without getting angry at someone. 

Kaoru doesn’t have a huge family, at least not like Kojiro does. He has an aunt on his mother’s side, Chiyoko’s mother, and two uncles on his father’s side. Each has children his age or older, who are already married and have little children of their own. Honestly, when paired up against his five cousins, Kaoru is the least successful, at least by typical standards; they’re all surgeons, doctors, or lawyers, who own their own successful practices with support from their perfect spouses who are also successful in their own right. Kaoru may be rich by Okinawan standards, but compared to his cousins, he’s barely getting by. This, coupled with his former rebellious phase, not keeping in touch with the rest of the family unless the time and place demands it, and being in the creative arts makes him more of an outcast. He likely has more in common with Jae-hyun than any of his cousins. 

But still, they must make polite conversation, so his oldest cousin Minato starts it off. “I feel like we haven’t seen you in forever,” he says, lifting his wine glass to his lips. He’s always been Kaoru’s least favorite; being the oldest boy, he’s developed quite the complex. “How have you been?”

“Oh, you know.” Kaoru looks up from the menu, deciding to entertain him rather than blow him off for Chiyoko’s sake. He puts on his best polite, unbothered voice. “I’ve been busy, as always.”

“Is your business really that busy?” he asks. His condescending tone of voice Kaoru want to rip that stupid wine glass out of his hand and splash it all over his face. Is it really that busy…

“Actually, it’s pretty successful.” Kaoru blinks, then looks to his right; Kojiro has spoken up, sounding light-hearted even as his eyes threaten to bore a hole through Minato. 

However, this doesn’t work, and Minato keeps going, seemingly unphased. “I was asking him, not you,” he says. 

“It sounded like you didn’t believe him,” Kojiro replies, lifting his wine glass. “Figured you needed to hear it from someone else.”

Men, Kaoru thinks woefully. He glances at Kojiro with a look that says Let me handle this, and then back at Minato with the same trained customer service smile he gives to his difficult clients. “It is quite successful. In fact, on the way here, we met an old woman in Tokyo who recognized me and my art.”

Kojiro has backed down, leaning back in his seat and ordering for the both of them when the waiter comes by. Kaoru wonders when his relationship will become the topic of conversation; it’s moved on to discussion of Jae-hyun’s new book, which just got picked up for publishing. He zones out of the conversation, preparing himself for the eventual shift in topic, but Kojiro - stupid, extroverted Kojiro - joins in.

“You know, I actually lived in Florence for a while,” he says to Jae-hyun, who blinks in surprise. Right; his book was set in Italy, an atmospheric character study about a Korean expat. Of course this would come up, but then, this might be easier to deal with than with his parents directly asking what the hell is going on. 

“Isn’t it beautiful?” Jae-hyun asks, with the same sort of awed wonder about the country as Kojiro did whenever Kaoru called him late at night during his studies there. “Why did you live there?” 

“I went to culinary school there.”

“Really? So you’re a chef?”

“I own my own restaurant, yeah,” he replies, chest puffing up a bit like when he usually talks about Sia La Luce. It’s his pride and joy, Kaoru knows, so he hopes that someone doesn’t make a snide comment about it or else this dinner may turn bad quick. 

Of course, someone does. Jae-hyun starts to reply, but is interrupted by Itsuki. “Last time I checked, it’s only modestly successful,” he says, and Kaoru’s eyes flit over to him, glaring. He sips his wine, unbothered, but it’s clear his mother is hoping he isn’t trying to start something. Knowing his father, he most definitely is. Kaoru himself most definitely wants to, at least.

“Well,” Kojiro starts, not missing a beat or giving Kaoru the chance to snap at Itsuki, “I run a restaurant because I love the business. I love cooking for people, and making people happy with a good meal. Sia La Luce making a lot of money isn’t the most important thing to me, though I wouldn’t complain if it did.” 

“Why open a business if you don’t expect to make a profit on it?” Itsuki asks. Kaoru knows where this is going; his father is most likely already pissed that Kaoru didn’t bring the young, upstart politician he liked so much and instead brought a chef working hard to make ends meet. It’s not as if Kaoru isn’t able to support himself, but it’s the principle of the thing, and it’s just as irritating as usual. “You might as well work as a chef at an already successful restaurant if that’s the case.”

Kaoru opens his mouth to butt in, much more prepared to take shit from his father rather than let Kojiro’s already poor reputation get even worse, but once again Kojiro replies almost immediately. “Not all of us are trying to be filthy rich, Sakurayashiki-san.”

Absolute silence ensues. Kojiro hadn’t even said it passive aggressively, or aggressively - he sounded perfectly pleasant, stating it like a fact. But it’s the fact that he talked back to his father - the quiet, stern, domineering presence he is - that makes the wind on the rooftop feel piercing cold. Chiyoko and Jae-hyun watch, eyes wide at the reply, and Kiriko hides a laugh behind her wine glass. Everyone else is in various states of surprise, speechlessness, or amusement, but no one says a word. Kaoru is thankful he at least didn’t call him otou-san, not because it wouldn’t have been hilarious - it would have been - but it would have gotten Kojiro in much deeper shit than he’s already put himself in. 

At the same time, while Itsuki is glaring at Kojiro, their food is served. Thankfully, this keeps Itsuki from saying anything further, instead goaded by Hanami to eat his dinner instead. The air is still a bit awkward. Kaoru can feel the eyes on him and Kojiro even as dinner conversation turns more mundane, but he tries his best to ignore it. He can only imagine what his family thinks of Kojiro now. While he’s more than fine with them disliking him, he doesn’t like the idea that they may dislike Kojiro. Not when Kojiro is undoubtedly much more likable than him, more friendly, more personable - it doesn’t sit right with Kaoru. 

So, currently, the plan is not going as Kaoru hoped, with his family immediately warming up to Kojiro; but then, he knew his family probably wouldn’t like Kojiro once they found out what his job is, anyways. 

Most of the night is spent talking about the wedding, all the planning and money that has gone into it, and the stress that Chiyoko is feeling while planning a wedding and being a surgeon at the same time. She’s thankful for Jae-hyun, whose work allows him to have more free time and take care of the time-sensitive things she can’t do herself. After the two share a kiss, with the rest of the family awwing at them, Kiriko turns her gaze onto Kaoru. “Hey, how did you two get together anyways?”

Kaoru glares back at her, his eyes very much saying Shut up, please. It doesn’t help much - she’s asked the question and there’s no getting out of it now that everyone’s eyes are on him. “We’ve been best friends for a long time,” he says simply, sipping his wine. 

“Sure, but what made you guys decide to go out?” Chiyoko asks, smiling wide and expectant. 

“Yes, Kaoru, I’d love to hear about how you two decided to date,” says Hanami, voice dripping with passive aggression. Kaoru suddenly feels like he’s being challenged to prove that they’re in love and dating, which he had prepared for. He came up with a story earlier in the day, and has it well-rehearsed.

“Well…” he starts, “After I broke up with Ainosuke a year ago, I spent a while being single. Kojiro always let me go to Sia La Luce after hours, and let me drink his wine and eat his food for free.” It’s not entirely a lie, and it makes Kojiro huff a laugh next to him.

“It’s not so much that I let you and more that you insisted,” he corrects, drawing laughter from the rest of the table, except for Kaoru’s parents. In fact, they don’t look very amused at all. 

“Kaoru’s still spoiled, huh?” Chiyoko asks, teasing.

“Anyways,” Kaoru continues, after throwing a playful glare in both Chiyoko and Kojiro’s directions, “I was there almost every night, unless I was busy at work. And even when I was, he’d go out of his way to bring me dinner when I worked over time. He always made sure I was taking care of myself, and if I wasn’t, he’d do it for me.” He’s beginning to embellish the story now, but really, he’s just telling everyone the truth; Kojiro really does pack up to-go meals for Kaoru when he stays up too late working at the office. He really does make sure Kaoru goes to bed at a reasonable time. “It was almost overwhelming,” he says, which isn’t a lie, either. “But after a while, I think I realized how much he had always meant to me, and how much he still means to me, so I went over to Sia and kissed him.”

“Without saying anything?” Kaoru’s teenage niece, Haruka, asks. She looks like she’s about to swoon at the very idea, so Kaoru nods. 

“But he knew what I meant,” he says, and while he’s too scared to do it, he knows he has to to make it more believable. He looks up at Kojiro, who he finds looking down at him with what can only be described as deep affection and love in his eyes. It makes Kaoru’s stomach flip, his cheeks blush. He’s really good at pretending, he thinks. Maybe we can fool everyone after all. “And we decided then to start dating. That was about six months ago,” he decides.

“Awwwww!” Chiyoko is clapping, smiling wide as ever and completely enthralled by the somewhat made up story. “That is so cute!” Haruka has a hand on her chest, clearly taken by the story as well, and Kaoru sighs a little in relief. Thank fuck. If Kiriko wants to make fun of them, she doesn’t say anything, merely playing along with Chiyoko for Kaoru’s sake. 

Then, Hanami butts in, spoiling the mood. “You only broke up with Ainosuke a year ago?” she asks, daintily leaning over the table to look at Kaoru properly. “Don’t you think this is a little soon?” 

Once again, the air becomes awkward; Kaoru manages to come up with a half-lie on the spot, though. “It may seem that way, but Kojiro and I have known each other since kindergarten. It’s not as if he’s a random man I met on the street.”

This doesn’t seem to satisfy her, though. Instead, she presses the issue. “It just seems rather sudden, is all,” she says, tone disapproving. Itsuki says nothing but, notably, keeps his eyes trained on Kojiro. If Kojiro notices, he doesn’t do anything in retaliation. 

“Oh, Auntie,” Chiyoko starts, saving Kaoru from having to answer, “Kojiro is a really great guy, and he and Kaoru obviously love each other.” She looks back at Kaoru, a sympathetic smile on her face. She’s likely had to deal with all of this before with Jae-hyun, making her trained in the art of appeasing judgmental family members. “I think if they love each other, that’s what matters.”

“Well said,” Kaoru adds, a sort of take that smile growing on his face. 

“We’ve known each other our entire lives,” Kojiro says, speaking up after letting Kaoru take the lead. “If you’re worried that I might hurt him, you don’t need to worry. I’ll take care of him, like I have for the past twenty years.” 

That doesn’t seem to soothe his mother’s mind, but she doesn’t respond, sipping on her wine. The problem clearly wasn’t if he could take care of him; the problem was that Kojiro wasn’t Ainosuke, but saying that plainly would likely look bad on Kojiro. He was smart to say what he did, to at least keep his head above water. Kaoru lets out a breath, thankful when the conversation once again moves on, this time to Haruka’s own budding relationship.

When the dinner comes to a close and everyone says their goodbyes, Kiriko catches up with Kojiro and Kaoru before they part ways. 

“Great acting,” she says, throwing her arm around Kaoru’s shoulders. He frowns, rolling his eyes. “No, seriously! I even started to believe it.”

“It’s not not true,” Kojiro says. He shed his jacket during dinner, and now he folds it over his arm as they walk. “Only the kiss was made up,” he says. It sounds like an afterthought, the way he says it quietly. Kaoru assumes he likely doesn’t want anyone to hear, but then again, they’re not around anyone else who was at dinner.

“I gotta say,” Kiriko starts, “I almost think you should have kissed at the dinner table.”

This causes Kojiro and Kaoru both to stop in their tracks, with Kojiro only gawking at her and Kaoru exclaiming, “ What?!”

“To make it more believable,” she explains as if Kaoru is stupid. Maybe he is for orchestrating all of this. “I think your mom wouldn’t have gotten on you about dating him if you two had kissed. It would’ve made it more real, you know?”

“Absolutely not,” Kaoru says, and he lifts her arm off of his shoulder. The idea of actually kissing Kojiro - just thinking about it is enough to make Kaoru feel flushed. Clearly, actually doing it would make his anxiety skyrocket, and it wouldn’t look very natural at all. “And not at the dinner table.”

“What, you wouldn’t want to kiss me?” Kojiro asks, clearly teasing as he leans forward to get a better look at Kaoru, but mostly to force him to look at his stupid smirk. Kaoru frowns at him, giving him the bitchiest glare he can muster. 

“Something tells me you only know how to French kiss.”

“I know a lot of different ways to kiss.”

“Alright!” Kiriko throws her hands up, getting out from between the two of them. “I’m gonna get a cab before you guys start making out in front of me.” Kaoru makes a short, aborted noise, but before he can yell at her, she waves and runs off, flagging down a cab just up the street. He sighs instead, crossing his arms. 

“She’s so annoying,” Kojiro says, rubbing the back of his neck. Kaoru nods in agreement, rubbing his arms to stave off the chill of the night. Kojiro catches him in the corner of his eye, and without saying a word, takes his jacket off his arm and places it over Kaoru’s shoulders. The size of it warms him up immediately, and while Kaoru is surprised at the gesture, he doesn’t complain. “Better?”

Kaoru feels small. Among all the skyscrapers, the high-rise apartments, and his best friend who’s better than him at being the bigger person, who was able to blow off the snide comments made about him at dinner, he feels hopelessly small. He nods, wrapping the jacket around himself tightly as they walk back to their hotel. It could have gone worse, but it could have gone better, too. He wants to apologize for the way his parents and cousins spoke, but he’s never able to get the words out. He knows if he apologizes, Kojiro will brush it off and say he doesn’t need to. He knows Kojiro is, at his core, self-sacrificial, and will deal with Kaoru’s family so as not to disturb the peace for Kaoru’s sake. He knows that Kojiro knows he’s sorry. So, really, an apology isn’t necessary. 

They walk back in companionable silence, accompanied by the drone of cars zipping by and groups of people walking past them having loud, drunken. No apology comes out of Kaoru’s mouth, and Kojiro doesn’t say anything about dinner. Between the two of them, not much needs to be said at all.

The next day’s plans don’t involve Kojiro at all. 

“Chiyo said I can bring you with me if you want to come,” Kaoru says, getting ready for the day. He’s elected to wear western clothes while he’s here, rather than his typical kimonos and yukatas - a silk shirt and high-waisted pants do the trick. He puts his hair up in a ponytail as he talks. “But I don’t know if you’d find it very interesting.” 

“I have three sisters and you, Kaoru, I’m used to being dragged around to go shopping.” Kojiro earns a glare from Kaoru. He grins from where he’s laying on the bed, one leg propped up on the mattress. He’s been awake longer than Kaoru has, his gym rat instincts leading him to the complimentary hotel gym early in the morning. Freshly showered and dressed in more casual clothes, he says, “I think I’ll hang back, though. I don’t think my opinion on her wedding dress is wanted.”

Kaoru frowns, noticing the obvious sarcasm but choosing to ignore it, for once. “Won’t you be bored here?”

“I’ll find something to do,” he says with a sigh. “You know I always gotta find the most hole-in-the-wall restaurants wherever we go, and you don’t like when I drag you around all day.”

Fair enough. A break from each other will probably be fine, since they’ve spent the last three days together non-stop; even they need time to themselves. Plus, the last time they did that, Kaoru got food poisoning, while Kojiro was somehow unharmed. “Okay, well, I’ll be back at some point,” he says. After Kojiro waves goodbye, Kaoru leaves the hotel. 

The hired driver the hotel provides is able to get Kaoru to the wedding dress shop quickly, where Chiyoko and Kiriko are waiting to get Chiyoko’s wedding dress, which has miraculously had its alterations finished earlier than expected. Kaoru enters and is immediately greeted by Chiyoko, way too awake for how early it is, grinning wide and throwing her arms around Kaoru’s shoulders.

“I’m so excited!” she exclaims, and Kaoru laughs softly, hugging her back. Kiriko is already seated, sipping her coffee in an attempt to wake up. Chiyoko pulls back, and she is glowing - Kaoru is sure it’s her excitement that’s making her glow and not her intense skincare regimen. “They’re getting the dress now, and I’m gonna try it on. Oh! They have the bridesmaid dresses ready, too,” she says. “Are you still okay with wearing a dress?”

“A dress is fine,” Kaoru says, because he really doesn’t mind. Plus, the dresses she picked are flattering, much more so than a suit. He doesn’t want to upstage Kiriko, who had asked to wear a suit from the very beginning. 

Chiyoko gets pulled back to the dressing rooms then, and Kaoru sits next to Kiriko, sitting in the loveseat facing the three mirrors the shop has set up. The two don’t say much. Both of them are tired from the socializing of the night before. Kaoru considers stealing Kiriko’s coffee from her, but knows they’d cause a scene if he did. He wonders, miserably, why he didn’t bring any coffee for himself. 

“Alright, the bride is ready,” says one of the dress consultants, and she opens the curtain hiding the dressing room from everyone else to let Chiyoko walk out. She looks absolutely stunning; the dress is lace, with the mesh top having intricate lace detailing that flows down into a slim skirt with more material than the top. The sleeves start off the shoulder and puff out slightly, closing around her wrists. It’s classy, elegant, and beautiful, and suits her so incredibly well. 

Of course, Chiyoko is already tearing up, but when she comes to the mirrors and faces herself she covers her mouth to keep herself from crying. It’s as if it’s the first time she’s seen herself in this dress, and it shocks her. Kaoru can’t help the smile on his face, and neither can Kiriko; in fact, she speaks up. “Don’t cry!”

“I can’t help it!” she exclaims, and everyone around her laughs. “It fits perfectly, it looks perfect, I hope Jae-hyun loses his mind when he sees it!” Laughter fills the room again, as the tailor helps turn her around on the platform for Kiriko and Kaoru to get a better look at the front. 

“It really is beautiful,” Kaoru says, and he means it. He’s never been good with these kinds of things, and whenever he was dragged to do wedding dress shopping with Kojiro’s older sisters, he rarely had much to add that their countless bridesmaids hadn’t already said. But now, while he’s had his doubts about weddings and marriage, he gets why people do them; the happiness radiating off of Chiyoko, over her perfect dress she gets to wear to marry her perfect man, brightens his and Kiriko’s moods.

Since no last minute alterations need to be made, she plans for the dress to be hidden at her best friend’s house, who was too busy to come today but promises to be home for the dress to be dropped off at later in the day. For now, Chiyoko takes her dress, along with the six bridesmaids dresses she ordered, and manages to stash them away in her car. 

“I would just hide the dress in my apartment, but Jae-hyun is always home, so he’d probably end up finding them,” she says, after the three of them drove around to deliver the other bridesmaids dresses. They’ve settled down at Chiyoko’s favorite cafe, and Kaoru ordered a much needed croissant and latte that he sips on now. “You know, he proposed because he left the ring in his jacket pocket, and when I was rearranging our closet I found it.”

“No way!” Kiriko says, laughing. “I thought he’d make it all romantic. He seems like that type of guy.”

“You just think that because he’s an author,” Kaoru snarks, taking a long sip of his latte. He can feel the espresso waking him up, slowly but surely. “I bet he probably planned to, but Chiyo found the ring before he could propose.” 

“He really should have known better,” Chiyoko says, but there’s a playful fondness in her words as she recounts the memory. “He told me he wanted to propose where we had our first date - we went to the park for a picnic, back when we were in college and broke - and that he was planning to literally the next day. We did plan to go to the park, too, so I know he wasn’t lying.” She plays with her engagement ring now, smiling and her eyes going soft. “I did get really lucky with him.”

Something about the way she looks, the way she talks about him - it makes Kaoru want to squirm in his seat. “How did you know you wanted to marry him?” he asks, voice coming out quieter than he meant it to. 

“I think I knew after our first date. I know that’s really soon, but when we were at the park, there was a child there who had lost her mother. She was crying, and he immediately took me with him to ask if she was alright, and what her and her mother’s names were so he could try to find her. We found her when the sun was going down, and her mother came back about half an hour later, saying she had to go to a job interview but no one could watch her daughter for her.” Chiyoko sighs, shaking her head. “I almost immediately got angry, but Jae-hyun spoke before I could, saying that he understood. That was all. He didn’t instantly judge her like I did, but he decided to be kind and understanding instead. The most he said was that he was glad we were there to make sure she was safe. Later, he said to me that she may have been a single mom and had no other choice. I thought he was just a nerd, and figured there wouldn’t be any harm in going out with him, but I realized, then, that I wanted to be with someone like that - someone who looks out for other people, whose first instinct is to look at things from someone else’s perspective rather than judge them. We’ve dealt with that kind of shit our entire lives,” she says, looking at Kaoru. “The whole reason I decided to go to school here was to get away from that kind of environment. I didn’t want to marry someone like that. I wanted to marry someone who can make me a better person. So I think that was when I realized it.” 

The story, of course, is touching. Kaoru would love to be with someone like that. Someone who cares deeply about others, who makes sure others are safe and taken care of before themselves. Someone who challenges Kaoru to be better, rather than jump to anger or annoyance. Someone who would stay with a little kid until late at night, until the kid was safe and reunited with their parents. He thinks for a moment, wondering why the type of person Chiyoko described seems so familiar – 

It hits him at once, enough to overwhelm him. 

The situation Chiyoko described sounds a lot like something Kojiro would do. It’s probably something he has done, and if he hasn’t, he will at some point in his life. 

Kaoru feels breathless. His heart feels fluttery, and he interprets it as the ever-present anxiety that decided to hitch a ride on this trip. He tries pushing it down, finishing off his latte in a last-ditch attempt to try and regain some control. Kiriko, thankfully, speaks before he can. “That sounds so sweet!” she says. “He always seemed like a sensitive guy. How’d someone like that come from a chaebol family?” 

“Well, that’s a long story,” Chiyoko says, in a sort of tone that says It’s not really mine to tell. Instead, she turns her attention to Kaoru. “Anyways, Kaoru- chan ,” she starts, and her using the nickname is enough for him to know that he’s about to get interrogated, “Why were you asking?”“I was just wondering,” he says, though his voice comes out weaker than he’d like. Why is this realization making him so nervous?

“Are you wanting to get married to Kojiro already?”

“No!” 

Kaoru exclaims it, when he really only meant to make sure his voice didn’t come out whispery again. The people around them stare for a moment, but luckily the cafe is so busy and loud that no one else really notices. Kaoru wants to sink into his seat. “No,” he says again, at a normal volume. “And I don’t think he wants to get married to me, either.” Why is this turning into an actual conversation?

“Oh, I don’t know,” Chiyoko says. “I remember when you two were kids, he’d always be following you around. It was so cute - wherever you went, he’d always be there, too, a couple steps behind. You’d always order him around, and he’d put up a fight, but he’d end up doing whatever you told him to because you told him to.”

“It’s like that now, too,” Kiriko interjects, and Kaoru hates her so much. He wanted her to act along, but not to this extent. “He’s obsessed with you, Kaoru. He’s probably wanted to marry you since you were fifteen.”

“I don’t know,” Kaoru says, because he really doesn’t. It’s not like they’re actually dating, but having talks like this while pretending that they are - it’s confusing Kaoru, muddling his mind. “Let’s just not talk about it, okay? It’s too early for us to get married, anyways.”

“Right. You probably want him to have a 401k set up before you even think about marrying him,” Chiyoko jokes, making Kiriko laugh. Kaoru doesn’t find it very funny, instead taking a bite of his croissant. 

They spend the rest of the afternoon catching up at the cafe, and while Kaoru’s anxiety subsides, his thoughts don’t. Why did Chiyoko talking about her first date with Jae-hyun, and the fact that it reminded him of Kojiro, make him so anxious? Why did the idea of him and Kojiro getting married make the anxiety even worse? Why did it confuse him so much, when he knows that after this week and a half they’ll go back to just being friends, like they always have been, and lie to everyone that they broke up so they can call off the charade? Has Kojiro been his type this entire time?

No, that can’t be it. If he was, then surely it wouldn’t have taken coming to another country under the pretense of a fake relationship for Kaoru to realize it. He likes to think he’s smart enough that it wouldn’t come to that, anyways. Besides, the idea of marrying your best friend, no matter the circumstance, would make anyone wary. The whole situation is just confusing him, Kaoru decides. That makes the most logical sense. It makes enough sense to quell his racing mind, at least momentarily.

When Kaoru gets back to the hotel room, Kojiro is still gone. He had texted earlier, saying he met up with an old friend who works in Seoul and they were going to grab dinner together. Of course he has an old friend in Seoul, Kaoru thinks, because Kojiro has never, not once in his life, met a stranger. He welcomes the alone time, though, choosing to use the bath and soak away his anxieties. It works, and he nearly falls asleep in the tub; however, the door opening wakes him up, and he realizes how much time has passed. He gets out, drying off and then realizing, in his exhaustion, he hadn’t thought to grab a pair of clean clothes for the night. Wrapping himself up in the bathrobe hanging off the back of the door, he ventures out into the room. 

“God, I’m exhausted,” Kojiro says when he hears the bathroom door. “How was your -” he stops when he turns and sees Kaoru come out in a fluffy white bathrobe. Kaoru doesn’t know what makes him stop talking - he pulls the robe tighter around himself, thinking that maybe he left it too far open.

“Is there something wrong?” Kaoru asks, making himself sound prissy to hide his earlier bout of anxiety. He goes to the drawers where Kojiro unpacked his clothes for him and pulls out an oversized shirt and shorts to wear for tonight.

“No, uh -” Kojiro starts, but when Kaoru turns his head to look at him again, raising an eyebrow, he stutters. “I guess I didn’t expect you to come out in a bathrobe.” 

“Is it really that strange?”

“No. You look…nice.”

“How does someone look nice in a bathrobe?”

“I don’t know!” he shrugs, nearly throwing his hands in the air. He starts unbuttoning his shirt to grab for a more comfortable one, sighing in frustration. “What crawled up your ass today?”

“Nothing! I was asking a question!” Kaoru exclaims, sounding like something did, actually, crawl up his ass. 

“And I was giving you a compliment!” 

Right. How could he even worry about possibly having feelings for Kojiro when he’s the most annoying guy he’s ever known? “ Ugh. I’m going to the bathroom.”

“I thought you just used it?” Kojiro asks, this time a more genuine question than just trying to get under Kaoru’s skin.

“To put my pajamas on, imbecile!” Kaoru says, throwing a glare over his shoulder as he does. Kojiro shakes his head, annoyed as he pulls his shirt on. If Kaoru stares for a moment longer than he should, well - that was his business, and it wasn’t like Kojiro was trying to hide. 

When Kaoru comes out of the bathroom, Kojiro is already laying in bed, similar to how he was in the morning. Kaoru walks over to his side of the bed, hair up in a bun and glasses balanced on the bridge of his nose. He feels a bit bad about taking out his remaining anxiety on Kojiro, but feels better now that he did. Unfortunately, Kojiro has often been his punching bag when he needed one. Extending an olive branch, Kaoru asks, “How was your day?”

Kojiro glances up at him from his phone and turns it off, like Kaoru talking is more important than whatever he’s doing. “Oh, it was good. I found this little tteokbokki place that was amazing. We should go if we get some free time.”

“It’s not too spicy, is it?”

“Nah, you can ask them to make it mild.”

“...I don’t trust you,” Kaoru says after a moment. Kojiro laughs at him, making Kaoru indignant. “I don’t! Remember when we went to Thailand and you said the kua kling wasn’t spicy, but when I ate it it made my lips burn and I got all snotty? I looked awful!”

“It wasn’t that bad,” Kojiro claims, trying his best to sound nonchalant. After a moment, he adds with a smirk, “...Okay, it was. But it was funny.”

“To you!” Kaoru exclaims, and in a small fit of anger grabs his pillow to smack Kojiro in the face. Kojiro yells a small “Hey!”, grabbing the pillow in his hands, making it impossible for Kaoru to wrench it away. “You are such an asshole. I knew you did that on purpose!” 

“Then why are you still best friends with me? Huh?” Kojiro asks, once he pulls the pillow away from his face.

“I -” Kaoru starts, but finds his voice stuck in his throat. Why is he still best friends with him? It’s something he’s never thought about before, at least not that deeply. He lets go of the pillow, letting Kojiro pull it away and put it back behind Kaoru. “Because I always have been,” he says. He feels bad that he doesn’t have some big speech to give him, to make Kojiro feel all warm and fuzzy inside. But then, if Kojiro is his best friend, he knows well enough that Kaoru is not that type of person. “And you’ve always been there.”

Kojiro looks up at him, a deep look of contemplation on his face as Kaoru talks. Eventually, he smiles, though it doesn’t seem to quite reach his eyes. Kaoru doesn’t notice, closing his eyes and taking off his glasses at the same time. “So, you’re basically saying you’re stuck with me?”

“I suppose I am, unfortunately,” Kaoru replies, doing his best to sound haughty.

Kojiro snorts, getting ready to go to sleep. Kaoru knows he himself won’t fall asleep for at least a couple more hours. He’s planning on ordering room service, leaning over to grab the menu from his night stand, when Kojiro says, “That means I’m stuck with you, too.”

“You should be happy,” Kaoru says, opening the menu. “I instantly boost the IQ of any room you enter.”

“You make a room ten times snobbier, too,” Kojiro snarks back, turning on his side to actually try and go to sleep. Kaoru wishes it was that easy for himself, the way Kojiro tends to fall asleep almost immediately. “Don’t stay up super late.”

This is how things should be, how Kaoru is comfortable with things being; the two of them, casually arguing with each other, but their fondness for one another is implied. Kaoru can deal with this. He can handle this. What he cannot handle, though he’s loath to admit it, is the idea of the two of them actually dating, or being romantically involved in any real way.

That’s just weird.

The lead-up to the wedding happens to coincide with Jae-hyun’s birthday. This isn’t a complete coincidence, as Chiyoko wanted a wedding in the spring and his birthday is in the middle of May. Really, it couldn’t be helped. 

The birthday party is held at Jae-hyun’s mother’s house. Well - calling it a house would be an understatement. They live in Yongsan, across the river from Gangnam, in a large house that Kaoru never would have thought could fit in the sprawling cityscape of Seoul.

“We used to live in a house in Gangnam, but when all of us moved out, they decided to downsize,” Jae-hyun explains as he pulls up to the house. He and Chiyoko had offered to drive them to the house, since everyone else but them knew the way to get there.

“ This is downsizing?” Kojiro asks, appalled, mouth hanging open comically.

The house is, from the outside, a Western-style house. The outside has a porch and a balcony directly above it, constructed with light brown brick with large windows lining the walls. The front lawn houses a garden table with chairs, a stone lantern, and various different trees and shrubs, clearly trimmed and taken care of on a consistent basis. Inside, stairs lead up to the main part of the house, but when the four of them enter, a family gathering is already in full swing. Jae-hyun’s mother - a small, older lady who does not look a day past forty - greets them, rushing down the stairs to hug her son, and then his fiance. She fusses over them, saying the typical hellos and asking him why he’s gotten so skinny, that he needs to come eat to fatten up. Kaoru and Kojiro, clearly kept out of this family conversation, opt to slip their shoes off at the door and put on the complimentary slippers laid out in little cubby-holes. Kaoru makes a note in his head to add cubby holes in his own home. 

As they venture upstairs, the house really comes into full view. The overall style is modern, sort of like a showroom. If not for the fact that there were people sitting on the sleek white couches and chairs in the living room, it would look like no one lives here. The living room connects to the kitchen, where aunties are gathered around the table and the counters, politely laughing together. It smells like soy sauce and garlic, salty in a sort of comforting way. 

“This living room is bigger than my apartment,” Kojiro says under his breath to Kaoru. Kaoru has taken to wrapping his arm around Kojiro’s, in an attempt to look like more of a couple, so Kojiro leaning over to whisper doesn’t look too out of the ordinary.

“Maybe you should finally get a new place.”

“It’s right above Sia; no other place is gonna be that convenient.” 

As Kaoru scoffs, he and Kojiro are ushered to the kitchen table, seated next to Chiyoko and Jae-hyun. Kaoru notices that, while everyone seems more reserved and less boisterous than they would at a Nanjo family gathering, the family and friends are much more lively than the Sakurayashikis were at dinner two nights ago. Jae-hyun’s siblings, two older brothers and one younger, playfully tease him while his sister-in-laws and Chiyoko make polite conversation. It’s always a culture shock to Kaoru when a family seems to get along rather well, but it makes him wonder, Why did Chiyoko seem a bit guarded when Kiriko asked how he came from a chaebol family? 

“Miyeokguk is ready!” Jae-hyun’s mom says, loud enough that everyone gathers around the table when she sets a bowl down in front of Jae-hyun first. A couple of the children there start complaining, asking where their bowls are, but his mother hushes them. “Since it’s his birthday, he gets the first bowl,” she reasons, earning pouts from her grandchildren.

Jae-hyun clearly isn’t used to the attention, shrinking a little as Chiyoko begins leading everyone in singing an off-key rendition of Happy Birthday. Kaoru and Kojiro, unfamiliar with Korean, are stuck with just watching, awkwardly clapping along. It’s a small consolation that Jae-hyun probably feels just as awkward as they do. 

As everyone gets served their own bowl of seaweed soup, conversations around the table begin, most of them in Korean and, once again, leaving Kaoru and Kojiro out of the loop. It’s not that they don’t know Japanese - Jae-hyun speaks good Japanese, and Kaoru assumes all of them likely know at least a bit for business - it’s more likely that they just aren’t used to speaking it around family. Kaoru chooses to eat his soup quietly; Kojiro, on the other hand, gets introduced by Jae-hyun as having lived in Italy, just like his novel’s protagonist. As always, everyone is drawn to Kojiro; Kaoru compares them to flowers turning towards the sun in his mind, then nearly coughs on a piece of beef.

Why did I think that?, Kaoru wonders. 

It’s true, though. Kaoru has known it for a while, but seeing it in action reminds him. Kojiro is bright and warm and everyone in Jae-hyun’s family pays rapt attention to him as he talks about his time in culinary school in Florence. Kaoru has heard the stories before, was even there when some of them happened, but he always manages to make it sound more exciting than it really was. They warm up to him quickly, and Kaoru wishes, perhaps fruitlessly, that his family would be as open to Kojiro.

Shortly after their meal, as Chiyoko and the aunties begin cleaning up (Kaoru had tried to help, but being a guest, they shooed him away), the rest of the family spread out. Some gather in the living room, while some migrate to the backyard with their children. Kaoru, feeling awkward in the living room without Chiyoko there, and Kojiro having wandered off with Jae-hyun, peeks outside. The backyard is slightly bigger than the front, with a shiny swing set, slide, and a sandbox set up. There are at least five children who are running around the backyard with their mothers and fathers keeping a close eye on them, but what Kaoru notices first is the sound of crying. 

What he notices second is Kojiro offering to take the baby out of the mother’s arms, holding the baby close to his chest, and gently bouncing the baby while he stands to help calm them down.

Kaoru has never wanted children. He’s never wanted to have any of his own, and he’s never wanted to adopt. But seeing Kojiro help this mother with her child, seeing the child almost immediately relax in his arms - while it isn’t the first time he’s seen Kojiro with a baby, for some reason, this particular moment makes Kaoru’s chest tighten.

He elects not to interrogate himself about why seeing Kojiro specifically with a baby makes him feel that way. Rather, he comes closer to the three of them, and hears the mother saying, almost relieved, “I can’t believe she stopped crying so quickly!” 

“Babies tend to like me,” he replies, a soft smile on his face. 

“It’s because you’re so big,” Kaoru says, coming up on the conversation and deciding to butt in. He places his hand on Kojiro’s shoulder, looking over him with a smirk. “It’s like they’re being swaddled.”

“I don’t think that’s how swaddling works,” Jae-hyun says. Kaoru can’t find it in him to be mean to him, or sarcastically say “I know that” - he really is the most inoffensive guy he’s ever met. 

“You have a really great boyfriend,” the mother says in awe. Hearing someone refer to Kojiro as his boyfriend still makes Kaoru do a double take. However, Kojiro has seemed to slip into the role, smiling wider when she says that and nudging Kaoru.

Kaoru rolls his eyes playfully. His hand slides down Kojiro’s arm, trying to play the role of a doting partner. “Please don’t build up his ego. It’s already out of control as it is.” 

“If you want, I can watch her with Jae-hyun for a bit,” Kojiro suggests, only after shooting a glare in Kaoru’s direction. The mother’s face lights up - the baby couldn’t be more than six months old, and she must be constantly exhausted.

“If you don’t mind…”

“I don’t. My sisters have children of their own, and I’d always have to hold them whenever we got together so they’d actually sleep,” Kojiro says. Kaoru remembers one such time; two of them had had babies around the same time, and he had to trade off holding them to give his sisters a break. It was absurd, but also weirdly sweet. Kaoru, on the other hand, had no idea how to hold a baby and was too scared to try. It makes him feel the same way as when he first got Carla - the way she would slip out of his hands is something he’s irrationally worried about happening to any baby he has the misfortune of holding. 

The mother thanks him profusely before returning inside, likely to find a guest room to take a nap in. Kojiro, on the other hand, sits on the porch next to Jae-hyun. Kaoru settles down next to him, watching the baby he’s cradling slowly fall asleep with her head on his shoulder. “Your family seems way nicer than Kaoru’s,” Kojiro says, his hand covering the baby’s little back.

“Ah, they weren’t always like this,” Jae-hyun says, stretching his legs out on the grass. “It was a lot different when I was growing up.”

Kaoru remembers Chiyoko’s “ Well, that’s a long story” from yesterday and, feeling curious, asks, “What was it like?”

“Well…” he rubs the back of his neck, clearly feeling shy. “They didn’t want me to be an author. My father wanted me to work for his company, but I didn’t want to, so when I only applied to schools for a literature degree, he disowned me.”

Kojiro frowns, listening intently. “That sounds awful,” he says, and Kaoru nods empathetically. While his own parents wanted him to stay at home and take over the family business instead of going to college first, he was never truly disowned. 

Though, if he keeps up this arrangement with Kojiro, he’s starting to think that he might be. 

“It wasn’t really that bad. I was just broke in college, even though I worked two jobs and went to school full time. But when I was in college, I met Chiyo, and she was kind of a force to be reckoned with.” He laughs softly, fondly. “When she first met my parents, my father was dying, and he didn’t want to die without seeing me again. So I took her with me, and I still remember how she sounded when she asked him, ‘Isn’t it enough that he has a goal? So many people nowadays don’t follow their dreams, but he does - and that’s what I love about him.’”

“That sounds like her,” Kaoru nods, amused but also touched. 

“She’s always been like that. I love that about her.” Jae-hyun lets out a breath, leaning back on his hands. “After that, and after my father died, my family started to slowly let me back in. Chiyo said I didn’t have to, that if I wanted to I could just stay no contact with them forever. I did, for a while. After I finally published my first book, and it was a huge success, they reached out to me again. Honestly, it bugged me, and it pissed Chiyo off more than anyone. But after I thought about it, I felt like they were probably forced to do what my father wanted in order to get by, just like I was. The difference was they had never tried challenging him. I guess, after he died, that broke down a little. So I felt bad for them, and I felt comfortable letting them back into my life. I think I was right; things really have changed without him around.”

Kaoru nods, taking in the story. He can relate to the situation of having a domineering father and a mother who tends to back him up in order to not rock the boat. However, he isn’t as kind as Jae-hyun is. If he had to go the rest of his life without talking to his parents again, he wouldn’t complain. “It’s nice that it worked out.” 

Jae-hyun nods, and Kaoru realizes this is the most he’s ever heard him talk. “Yeah, well. It worked better for my family than for Chiyoko’s.”

This Kaoru can one hundred percent relate to. Kojiro can, too, if the bitter huff of a laugh is anything to go by. “Yeah, I can tell. They’re all so passive aggressive.”

“The way they were acting at dinner the other night reminded me of when I first met her family. They hated me when they first met me,” Jae-hyun says. Kaoru finds it, unfortunately, easy to believe. Someone can be the nicest person on the face of the earth, but if they don’t make at least six figures, then the Sakurayashikis want nothing to do with them. “They got on Chiyo for dating a guy who was working at a convenience store in the daytime and as a server at night, but she always stood up for me. I never wanted to make things awkward, you know, but she wasn’t afraid to tell them off. Eventually they got over it, but it was only when I started actually making money.”

Kojiro sighs softly, and Kaoru can’t help but watch him as he looks out at the yard, the way he does when he’s deep in thought. “I knew they wouldn’t like me, but damn,” he says, sounding resigned. “I don’t think anything I do could make them like me.”

Ouch. That makes Kaoru’s heart sting, hearing the confession, something that he’s likely been hiding for at least a couple of days now. Kaoru suddenly realizes that, unlike Chiyoko, he hasn’t really done that much to stand up for Kojiro. Instead, Kojiro stood up for himself, butting in before Kaoru could. Why won’t he let me?

“Who knows? My in-laws came around after a while.”

“Yeah, and they’ll only come around on me if I become a celebrity chef.”

Kaoru suddenly feels like he shouldn’t be here. Maybe this is a private conversation meant for two people who have struggled so hard to make their partner’s families - fake relationship or not - like them. Kaoru is the whole reason why Kojiro is having to deal with this, anyways, so maybe he shouldn’t be listening in. While the two of them are deep in conversation, Kaoru gets up quickly, pointedly keeping his eyes off of them as he ventures back inside. 

Guilt floods his mind. He feels horrible for bringing Kojiro on this trip, when he knew full well that his family would struggle to accept Kojiro as his partner. He knew it would be a particularly hard sell, after his ex was a politician from a richer-than-rich family with connections to longtime Diet officials. But he brought Kojiro and threw him in the lion’s den, and expected him to come out based just on his personality alone. If the Sakurayashikis had a hard time accepting Jae-hyun, how could Kaoru have ever expected them to accept Kojiro?

He manages to act normal for the rest of the party, but when Kojiro and Jae-hyun come back inside, he can’t look him in the eyes. 

It’s only after the party, when the family begins filtering out and Jae-hyun and Chiyoko are being held up by his mother, that Kojiro finds Kaoru sitting in the front yard alone, lost in thought. 

“You okay?” he asks, pulling out the chair next to him. Kaoru, who had been having a less than stellar time wallowing in guilt by himself, merely glances up at him. “So you’re not. What’s up?”

For some reason, him going out of his way to make sure Kaoru’s okay, when he’s the one bearing the burden of having to try and win over rich people who have never once done any self reflection, rubs Kaoru the wrong way. “Why do you ask?” he asks, keeping his voice level. Knowing Kojiro, though, he can probably tell Kaoru’s overthinking things. If he could tell he was upset by a mere look, then Kaoru has no chance against him.

“You got up out of nowhere when we were outside, and you’ve seemed off ever since,” he says. “You think I wouldn’t notice?” 

“I did, and that’s why I’ve been avoiding you.” No use in lying at this point. “I just…” God. Kaoru thought it would be easier to talk about his feelings as he got older, not harder. “I just hate my family,” he decides to say, hoping that appeases Kojiro. 

“Get in line.” The sarcasm isn’t lost on Kaoru, and he manages to huff a laugh, though it feels half-hearted. “Seriously, though. I kind of expected it. And it’s not been that bad so far.”

“But you said you felt like nothing you do will make you like them,” Kaoru argues. He wants to know what he and Jae-hyun talked about, but he was the one who left; neither of them made him, so whatever was discussed in private without him was really none of his business. That, and he doesn’t want to feel any worse. 

“Yeah, and I’ve always felt like that. You’ve always felt like that. So does everyone in your family who decides to do something different,” Kojiro reasons. Kaoru keeps his eyes firmly on the iron-wrought pattern of the table. “It’s not your fault, Kaoru,” he adds. Even though Kaoru hadn’t said it was, Kojiro is somehow still able to tell that he’s thinking that about himself, and that’s enough to make Kaoru’s heart skip a beat. Being known so well, so fully, can be so frightening.

“I’ll tell them off if they try anything,” Kaoru promises. He finally meets his eyes again, looking resolute, stern. “Maybe they’ll finally shut up for once. You have to shut up and let me, though.”

At that, Kojiro laughs, and for some reason, it makes a smile play at the corners of Kaoru’s mouth. “Fine,” he says, laughter still on his lips. ”The only person I’m scared of more than your parents are you.” 

Kaoru raises a brow. “Then why are you best friends with me?” he asks, parotting Kojiro’s question from the night before. He’s expecting a heartfelt answer; surprising Kaoru into feeling less anxious is a specialty of his. 

Instead, Kojiro says, voice dripping with sarcasm, “Because no one else will be.”

“You -!” Kaoru starts, smacking his arm lightly as he has the audacity to laugh at him , but before he can go off on him Chiyoko and Jae-hyun come out of the house, carrying containers full of leftovers tied together with a large cloth. 

“Don’t tell me you’re fighting again,” she calls out, heading towards the car. Kaoru frowns at her, then at Kojiro, before letting out a humph and scooting out of his seat.

The ride back to the hotel isn’t as awkward as Kaoru had feared, with Kojiro and Jae-hyun chatting about their families and their time working in restaurants to make ends meet. Kaoru leans his head against the window, watching the high-rise apartment buildings go by, and the sun reflecting off of the Han river as they drive over the bridge back to Gangnam. 

“Hey,” he mutters to Kojiro, glancing over once the conversation has died down, “I’m sorry.”

Kojiro looks surprised at first, hearing his voice. To be fair, Kaoru apologized out of nowhere. He just had this overwhelming feeling that he should, for his family, for making him come along, for making things about himself earlier. Kojiro’s initial look of shock turns into a small, comforting smile, one clearly meant for only Kaoru to see. He’s only able to see it when the car zips past streetlights, lighting his face in intervals. “Don’t worry about it,” he reassures him. 

He has no idea how he does it, but Kojiro really does have this special way of making people feel better, of helping them open up and get things off their chest. It worked today - Kaoru feels less guilty than he did an hour ago after venting to him. He has to accept that, despite making fun of Kojiro in his mind for being the sun all the flowers turn towards, he’s always been one of those flowers. He was maybe even the first one that grew. 

Kaoru just wishes he could return the favor. All he can offer, really, is standing up to his parents for Kojiro. He isn’t scared of his parents hating him. They’re already upset that he didn’t show up with a boyfriend they approved of, anyways. Kaoru can deal with their passive aggressive bullshit - he’s been dealing with it for his entire life. And it’s not that Kojiro can’t take care of himself, but that Kaoru wants to defend him. He just hopes this is enough, that it makes Kojiro’s life easier for the week that they’re here. 

It’s not romantic just because Chiyoko and Jae-hyun had to stand up for each other too , he reasons. Friends should just want to do this for each other, right?

“Get up, Kaoru.”

Kaoru, still in the middle of sleeping, groans as he feels himself getting shaken. The movement and the voice enters his dreams, and he decides to curl around the sheets even tighter. It’s not for long, though; he feels the sheets get suddenly ripped off of him, the comforter dragged off the bed and, consequently, almost dragging him off the bed, which wakes him up almost instantly - his eyes snap open and he looks around for the offender.

His eyes catch on Kojiro, holding the comforter in his hands, and he scowls at him. “Why did you wake me up?” he snaps, always crabby right after waking up - especially when it’s against his will.  

“We’re going to the beach today. Did you forget something for once?” Kojiro asks. He lays the comforter back down, and Kaoru is tempted to clutch it and fall back asleep. The most he can do is grab Kojiro’s pillow and pull it closer to himself, searching for some kind of warmth.

“Just tell them I’m sick. I don’t like the beach anyways.”

“You’re really gonna make me hang out with your family alone?”

Oh, fuck. 

Kaoru can’t do that to him. He wouldn’t wish that on his worst enemy - no, actually, he would. But Kojiro isn’t his worst enemy, and he needs to be the buffer between Kojiro and his shitty, pretentious family. He can’t do that if he leaves Kojiro alone with them. 

“Ugh,” he groans, throwing the pillow off the bed and forcing himself to get up. “ Fine.”

Honestly, Kaoru had nearly forgotten about the plan to go to the beach. Due to the schedule being jam-packed, the beach was only going to be one day out of the week, and they would stay at Jae-hyun’s family’s amalgamation of beach houses. Kaoru was not as excited as everyone else, because first of all, he doesn’t really like going to the beach if he can help it, and second of all, he could go to the beach whenever he wanted in Okinawa. But the family and friends who lived in countries where the beach was too far away to justify going frequently had begged Chiyoko to take them before the wedding.

They could have just gone by themselves, Kaoru thinks bitterly, after being forced to wake up at six in the morning. 

“You can sleep on the way there,” Kojiro says. He’s in his dumb Hawaiian shirt with his trunks on as pants, already ready to go but being forced to wait for Kaoru. “It’s a two hour drive.”

“Must we go?” Kaoru asks, a last ditch attempt to weasel his way out of it. “I’ll get sunburned, and then I’ll look like an idiot at the wedding.”

“Just put sunscreen on.”

“I might still burn!” Kaoru huffs, putting his cover-up on. He knows he’s being annoying, because being annoying is one of the few ways he can get Kojiro to break down and agree to do whatever he wants. It’s worked since elementary school, and it still works now. “You know I'm not able to tan.”

“Then just sit under an umbrella,” Kojiro says, nearly at the end of his rope. He picks up their bag, digging through it, until finally, he fishes something out - Kaoru’s expensive luxury sunscreen. “Look, you brought your SPF 50 sunscreen. You’ll be fine. Stop being a baby.”

“I’m not being a baby!” 

“You’re acting like one!”

“Sorry that I take great pains to keep up my appearances.”

“You’re not gonna melt in the sun.”

“I might.”

Kaoru, despite all of his bitching, takes Kojiro’s advice and sleeps in the car. Or, it’s more like he closes his eyes and tries to sleep. They’re once again driving with Chiyoko and Jae-hyun, who also picked up Kiriko on the way, and the backseat is too crowded to really sit in a comfortable enough position to fall asleep in. Kaoru wishes he and Kojiro had rented a car, but then they’d probably end up arguing over directions and show up an hour late to every family gathering. 

Kaoru gives up trying to take a nap in the car when they arrive at the beach. He isn’t sure what he was expecting - maybe a beach covered with mini mansions, brightly-colored tourist trap shops, and countless seafood restaurants. He maybe even expected a carnival on the pier, considering how exorbitantly luxurious this whole trip has been so far. Instead, what greets him is a modest little beach town, with shops and houses that are likely older than his parents in the center of town, one nice hotel separated from town, and dozens of umbrellas dotting the coastline as beachgoers get set up for the day. 

“Over there is my family’s house,” Jae-hyun says, pointing it out as he drives towards it. The main house is located near the hotel, on top of a hill on a little clearing carved out of the trees for a building, with a path leading down towards the ocean. Smaller houses with colorful roofs are scattered around the property, likely meant to be guest houses. “My parents met at Muchangpo Beach, so when my father got enough money, he built a house here for the both of them, and then he built a bunch of smaller ones for the rest of us.”

The vision Kaoru had of Jae-hyun’s father - a stern, overbearing man who went as far as disowning his son for wanting to be an author - conflicts with the kind of man who would build his wife a house out of sentimentality. But then, he probably shouldn’t complain, since said sentimentality is giving him a place to sleep tonight. 

Not everyone is there yet when the five of them arrive, only some of the Sakurayashikis who likely got up at the crack of dawn to be there first. Among them are Kaoru’s parents, who seem to have just walked in right before Kaoru and Kojiro did. Itsuki is holding a suitcase, seemingly overpacked by his mother as the pockets on the outside bulge out. When his eyes land on Kojiro, they seem to look right past him. It’d be hard not to notice the disdain on his face, though. 

“Chiyoko,” Itsuki starts, taking his eyes off Kojiro as quickly as possible, “Can you make sure we don’t stay in a room next to them?”

Kaoru’s blood boils. The casual way he had asked it, the complete disregard of Kojiro, not even greeting them when they came in - it’s infuriating. Chiyoko, unfortunately stuck in the middle, can only laugh awkwardly. “Ah, of course .” 

“It’s not like we’d want to stay next to you, either,” Kaoru starts, almost interrupting Chiyoko, “but why did you have to specifically ask her to separate us?” He’s tired and pissy; he’s in the right mood to start a fight. He likes to think he grew out of his rebellious delinquent phase, but being around his parents, especially his father, brings it out of him. 

Itsuki doesn’t seem surprised at Kaoru’s interjection, but if Kaoru looks hard enough, he swears he can see his brow twitch. “Don’t start useless arguments, Kaoru,” he says. His voice is condescending, the same kind of patronizing tone Kaoru spent his childhood growing up with. It threatens to make his anger spill over. 

Before he can ruin the beach trip in the five minutes he’s been here, he feels Kojiro’s arm wrap around his wrist. It squeezes gently, a sort of stop it signal they had to develop in high school after he had headbutted someone who had been bullying Kojiro and got subsequently suspended for two weeks. His hand is broad, warm, and strangely, distracts Kaoru not by grounding him, but by making him think about how his hand feels heavy and firm around his wrist. Kaoru is too preoccupied with dealing with that when Kojiro puts on his best charming smile, the look of an unbothered boyfriend, and says, “You’re right. It’ll be nicer if we aren’t close together.” He looks down at Kaoru, his eyes very much screaming please don’t say anything.

Even though he was momentarily distracted, Kaoru’s anger is yet to be abated. It floods his brain and makes him even more pissed that Kojiro once again had to diffuse a situation between him and his father. All he can do without making things worse is letting Kojiro take him aside, to the guest house that Chiyoko offered to let them stay in. It’s more like a studio apartment, with the bed only separated from the living room and kitchen with a tall, rattan shelf filled with various sea-themed knick-knacks. The second Chiyoko closes the door behind her, Kaoru wants to scream. Instead, he closes his eyes, takes a deep breath, and counts to ten, a trick he learned in therapy.

“What a dick,” Kojiro says, dropping their bag on the bed. It interrupts Kaoru’s counting by making him laugh, even if it isn’t anything more than an aggrieved exhale of air. 

“I wish I could say I can’t believe he’d say that, but,” Kaoru starts, and he doesn’t really need to finish. Between his parents, Itsuki hated Kojiro the most. He saw it as Kojiro’s fault that Kaoru got suspended, that he got piercings behind his back, that he took up skateboarding and pissing off the police as a hobby. If only he realized that Kaoru was the bad influence, not the other way around. “If he was a mature adult, he wouldn’t give a shit.”

“The last thing your parents are is mature,” Kojiro laments, sitting on the edge of the bed. Kaoru bends over, rummaging through the bag for his sunscreen to keep his mind occupied and the frustration at bay. Kojiro can probably see it radiating off of him. “Let’s just try to have fun today, for Chiyoko’s sake.”

“I can hardly have fun with my parents watching our every move.”

“Kaoru.” A hand - the same one that had grabbed his wrist just moments ago - takes his in the bag just as he finds the sunscreen. The bottle slips out of his hand, and Kaoru can’t help it. He looks up at Kojiro, who is looking at him a little too closely. In fact, the two of them are too close in general, close enough that Kaoru can see the very light dusting of freckles from spending days in the sun on his cheeks and across the bridge of his nose.

Since when did he have freckles?

It stumps Kaoru, makes him feel stupid, and Kojiro strikes while Kaoru is momentarily stunned. “I know you said you’d stand up for me, but you don’t need to when it’s not that big of a deal.”

“Not that big of a deal? Kojiro, he demanded staying far away from us because of how much he doesn’t like you!” Kaoru says, and the anger is coming back up, burning the back of his throat. He wants to make a scene; every bone in his body wants to go back to the main beach house and start a fight, even if it means making things awkward for everyone else. 

But he can see, while he’s this up close to him, the way Kojiro just seems…well, he seems angry too. Or at the very least annoyed. He always has this look, when he has a long day at work or a critic was particularly harsh, when he keeps all his feelings inside to spare everyone else from having to worry about him. His smile doesn’t quite reach his eyes, and he sounds just slightly irritated when he tells Kaoru, “Just let it go.”

Kaoru, though, doesn’t know how to just “let it go.” He struggles with letting things go, holds grudges for years - he still holds one against Kiriko for ruining his favorite band shirt in their second year of high school. Living in a family like this, one where you have to fight to stay sane amongst all the passive aggressive comments and looks and actions, has turned Kaoru into someone physically incapable of “letting it go.” Accepting the treatment, to him, means losing a part of yourself in a measly attempt to keep the peace. 

But, for some reason, when Kojiro asks him to now, Kaoru’s anger takes a backseat to wanting Kojiro to be liked and accepted by his family. Even if his family still dislikes him and his relationship choices, there is no way Kaoru will let them hate Kojiro. There just isn’t. If letting it go and choosing his battles is what he has to do, then for right now, he will. Only because Kojiro asked him to. 

“...Fine,” he says, relenting. He snatches the sunscreen bottle from where he dropped it in the bag, straightening up. Kaoru looks down at Kojiro, a small, displeased frown on his face. “If that’s what you want right now.”

“It is.”

“Then fine.” 

Kaoru glances down at the bag again to grab a beach towel, and realizes that Kojiro is still holding his hand. Kojiro seems to notice at the same time and, after a moment’s hesitation, pulls his hand away from Kaoru’s. He flexes his fingers, gently rubbing his palm with his thumb. Kaoru’s eyes track the movement, finding it strange, but then, his hand is tingling too. He gets a sudden urge to touch his own palm as well. 

Must be the sweat.

Kojiro gets up before Kaoru can dwell on how his hand feels for much longer. He’s noticed their difference in height before, but not until this trip has he felt really small next to Kojiro. Maybe it’s the way they’ve had to stand close together to keep up their facade, or sit with their knees nearly touching, or sleep in the same bed, but Kaoru notices it now, with the way he has to look up at him to meet his eyes. “Let’s go swimming,” he says. 

Kaoru blinks up at him. “I need to put my sunscreen on first. So do you.”

“Just put it on outside, princess.”

The two of them make their way down the hill to the beach, where familiar faces are already staking their umbrellas in the sand, setting up pool chairs, and laying down beach towels and picnic baskets. It’s still early enough in the day that the heat hasn’t begun to set in, and besides, it likely won't get as warm here as it does in Okinawa. Still, Kaoru finds the umbrella that Kiriko set up for the two of them and gets settled in his chair after putting his sunscreen on, sunglasses and cover-up tastefully covering his swimsuit, and leans back, eyes fluttering shut as he feels the heat on his skin.

He manages to doze off, feeling a bit like a cat, stretched out and bathing in the sun. He’s only really half-asleep, though, and he can catch bits and pieces of conversation around him. Chiyoko makes Jae-hyun put tanning oil on her, Kiriko flirts with a random girl who walked past, all the children laugh and play in the water. He doesn’t know how long he’s been asleep, but at some point, the bright laughter of the children is mixed with a deeper, familiar voice, one that sticks out and floats towards Kaoru like it always does. 

“You wanna go out a little deeper into the water?”

“Yeah!”

“I’ll carry you. Hop on.”

He lifts his glasses up to the top of his head, and when he looks out at the ocean, sees Kojiro with one of Kaoru’s younger nephews on his shoulders, wading out just past the coastline where the parents told their children to play, but still close enough that the other children can watch curiously. As a wave begins to crest over the coastline, he kneels down, just enough that Kaoru’s nephew can reach out and feel the wave without fear of being dragged under. As he reaches out and touches the wave, he laughs in delight. Almost immediately after, all the other children demand that Kojiro do the same for them, and Kojiro puts his nephew down with a big, friendly smile on his face. Kaoru can hear him asking “Who wants to go first?”, followed by an eruption of children arguing, one saying that he wants to go out deeper, and another saying she wants to try jumping over the waves. This idea, it seems, is popular with the rest of them, all loudly arguing that they want to try it as well. Some of the parents join in, taking their children’s hands to jump with them in the water, or putting them on their shoulders like Kojiro did to travel deeper into the ocean.

The sight is so sickly endearing it makes Kaoru’s heart twist in his chest. 

“I’m gonna puke,” Kiriko groans next to him. Kaoru breaks out of his train of thought, veering dangerously towards I want to go swimming now . Kiriko is nursing a beer, in a pair of shorts and a swimsuit top, watching the children and Kojiro playing on the beach. “If your family doesn’t start liking him after seeing him play with kids, then I don’t know what else he could do.”

She’s right - while some of the parents are playing with their children, most are watching from afar, sitting in their own expensive beach chairs or sunbathing on their own expensive towels. It seems like most of the parents actually entertaining their children are from Jae-hyun’s side. Kaoru remembers, briefly, how his own parents would drop him off at Kojiro’s house whenever he wanted to go to the beach and they were too busy for him. He has plenty of memories of going to the beach with the Nanjos, but very few with his own parents.

“Kojiro probably realized their parents weren’t really playing with them,” Kaoru reasons. Right now, he’s holding a little girl’s hand to help her into the water - she’s probably too scared of the ocean, and he took it upon himself to help her get over her fear. “He gets along with children too well, anyways. If anything, they’re probably thinking that they can pawn their kids off to him now.”

“You’re probably right,” Kiriko sighs, finishing off her beer. She opens her cooler for another, and passes it to Kaoru. He takes it with a short thank you and pops it open. “But shouldn’t that make them like him more, now that he seems useful?”

Kaoru wants to huff a bitter laugh, but the noise dies in his throat when, just as Kiriko is talking, Kojiro looks over his shoulder. His hair is wet, slicked back to keep it out of his eyes, but most noticeably to Kaoru, his whole body is wet, too; water trails down his arms, his chest, his abs, his legs. The droplets make him glisten in the sun, like a still out of a romantic comedy. 

Then, as if he couldn’t get any more blinding, he smiles at Kaoru. A wide, genuine, heartstopping smile that spreads across his face. Kaoru has noticed them before, but now, in the piercing heat of the sun, he must be going crazy - all his eyes can focus on are the dimples that adorn his cheeks, the ones he uses to charm everyone he’s ever gone out with, the ones that, admittedly, are making Kaoru feel like he might pass out. 

First the freckles, now his dimples. Kaoru must be having a heat stroke. 

He merely frowns back at Kojiro, fixing his sunglasses back over his eyes and looking away in a huff. He has to look away. His face is heating up too fast, he feels dizzy - it most definitely is heat stroke, even though it’s, at most, 80 degrees outside. 

“Oh, shit,” Kiriko says, and Kaoru snaps his eyes over to her. She looks like she knows something he doesn’t, like she’s about to roast him. Kaoru glares at her, although she can’t see it behind his sunglasses. “You’ve got it bad.” 

“What do you mean?”

“You’re staring at him like he’s your next meal, Kaoru,” she says, like it’s obvious. Kaoru scoffs at her, which only emboldens her. “If you start denying it, it’s gonna make it seem way more obvious.”

“I’m not denying anything,” Kaoru claims, a little too quickly. He was staring, though. Very intently. And Kiriko sat next to him and watched him do it, too. He really has no excuses. “He is, objectively, attractive.” 

Kiriko laughs in Kaoru’s face, mockingly. “Oh my God, Kaoru, you are the most oblivious person I’ve ever met!” She sighs dramatically, staring back out at the ocean, where Kojiro’s attention has returned to the girl he had been helping before. “I’m not going to tell you what I mean, though. You need to figure it out for yourself.”

Kaoru frowns - if there’s one thing he hates, that Kiriko knows he hates, it’s feeling stupid. He narrows his eyes at Kiriko. “Figure what out?” 

“I just told you, I’m not going to tell you!” 

“You are so annoying!

Kiriko claiming that Kaoru needs to figure something out, yet not telling him what exactly she means, throws him off kilter for the rest of the day. He spends any time he has to himself to think about what she means, how him staring at Kojiro supposedly means something. When everyone goes out to eat at a little family restaurant, Kaoru is just there, not eating much as he mulls over Kiriko’s words. Even though he can act normal - he’s perfected the art of acting normal when his mind is running on overdrive, threatening to overheat - he feels anything but. 

You need to figure it out for yourself.

What the hell does she mean? Kaoru wonders.

When he finally gets a moment alone, with Kojiro deciding to shower off once they get back to their guest house, Kaoru wanders down to the beach by himself. Most of the beachgoers have cleared out by now, save for one or two couples laying on towels together or taking a walk down the beach. It sours Kaoru’s mood even more - he feels as bitter as he does on White Day. He sets out his own towel and sits down on the sand, curling his knees up to his chest and resting his chin on them. 

He hasn’t really done this since high school. Nowadays, he’s usually too busy or too tired to go all the way to the ocean to think about life, about his stressors, about his relationship problems. Like every other adult, he just drinks too many glasses of wine and bitches to his best friends, or takes a bath until his fingertips get pruney. But there’s not many other options for him right now, and the beach is calming enough, especially at sunset. 

Kaoru, able to break his composure at last, covers his face with his hands and groans. The only conclusion he’s been able to come to is the same one he came to when they went to the cafe with Chiyoko, where he worried for a bit that he could have feelings for Kojiro. But he had decided then that it was a ridiculous idea, that what he feels for him is nothing more than that of a close friendship. So what else could she mean, when she says he needs to figure out what staring at Kojiro for a little too long means? That he likes that body type? That he wants kids now that he saw Kojiro interact with them? That - 

“I was wondering where you went.”

Kaoru moves his hands from his face, his head snapping upwards. He finds Kojiro standing next to him, holding a couple of cans in his hands. When he offers one to Kaoru, Kaoru takes a closer look at it, trying to decipher the Korean on the front and ultimately failing. “What is this?”

“Jae-hyun said it was called Milkis,” Kojiro says, looking at the bottle himself. “He said it’s like carbonated milk.”

Kaoru’s nose wrinkles at the idea. “Why on earth did you get that drink, of all things?”

“He said it was popular in Korea in the summertime,” Kojiro explains, “and I wanted to try it with you.”

Goddamnit. Why does he have to be so sincere? Kaoru thinks, bemoaning him in his head. Of course Kojiro thought of him when he saw this drink - even if Kaoru didn’t like it, he really just wanted to try something new with him. This, on top of Kaoru’s already confused and jumbled up mind, just makes things even worse. He’s getting dangerously close to being unable to distinguish flirtation and friendly gestures.

After a second, Kaoru sniffs, taking the can from Kojiro’s hand. Another hit - he got him strawberry, his go-to flavor. He stares at the can intently as Kojiro sits down next to him with a sigh. “I got melon,” he tells him, popping open the tab. 

“Let’s drink at the same time,” Kaoru says. It’s one of his favorite little things - the both of them sharing their reactions mere seconds apart, then laughing at each other (though, it’s more fun when Kaoru does the laughing). He opens his and, on his count, the two of them take a long drink. After a moment of letting it settle, Kaoru lets out a pleased hum, and Kojiro takes another prolonged sip.

“Well?”

“It’s really good.” 

Kojiro grins, and once again Kaoru notices the dimples - he really wishes he would stop looking at them the second they appear - and he lets out a little laugh. “Really?”

“Really,” Kaoru says decisively. He forces his eyes away from Kojiro and takes another swig, enjoying the tingle of carbonation at the back of his throat. It keeps him distracted, even if only for a few seconds. “Do you like it?”

“I do, yeah,” he says, looking down at the can himself, his soft smile still lingering.

The two sit in companionable silence for a moment, letting the sound of the waves gently crashing onto shore and the squawking of birds fill in the conversational gap between them. Kaoru is okay with the silence, as he usually is, but this time it feels especially loud. Maybe it’s just the proximity between them, or the fact that Kaoru is having some unwelcome thoughts at the moment, but he feels shy. He feels shy in the same way he did when he had his first boyfriend in high school, but amplified to a hundred - no, a thousand. Kiriko has really, really got his mind messed up, along with his abysmal sleep schedule. 

Kojiro breaks the silence first. 

“This reminds me a lot of high school.”

Leave it to him to put Kaoru’s thoughts into words. “How so?” Kaoru asks, gripping the can a little tighter. He may not mean what Kaoru thinks he means, or what Kaoru wants him to mean. He has to know for sure.

“When we’d go to the beach all the time, or sneaking out late at night and meeting up there,” he clarifies. “I was thinking, actually, about that time you and I went right after graduation.”

Kaoru remembers it clearly. He had been mourning the fact that his best friend, who had always been around the corner, was no longer going to be there and was moving across the globe to another country. There’s no world where Kaoru would have stopped him, since being a chef had been his dream ever since he was a child (when their elementary school had a career day and he had shown up with a chef’s hat, his career path was set). But they had gone to the beach after graduation, just the two of them, and spent the night ignoring the fact that, after this, their lives would be changed forever.

In reality, not much changed. The two of them are here now, sitting on a beach towel, eight years in the future. They had always been constants in each other’s lives like that.

Instead of being sentimental, afraid that he would verge on breaking down and telling Kojiro what he’s been thinking about, he decides to be sarcastic. “You mean when you tried picking me up and throwing me into the ocean?”

Kojiro laughs, his eyes crinkling at the corners. It’s such a little thing that it makes Kaoru grin, which then makes Kaoru wonder why it made him grin. “I don’t know what I was thinking,” he says. A sort of dangerous, mischievous look creeps onto his face, though, and he sticks his can down in the sand. “I bet I could now, though,” he says, leaning into Kaoru’s space. 

“No you absolutely will n - hey!” 

Before Kaoru can even properly set his drink down, Kojiro has scooped him up in his arms, bridal style, like he weighs nothing. Kaoru has no choice but to wrap his arms around his neck so he doesn’t slip out onto the sand. He protests, though, hitting Kojiro on the back in an attempt to get him to let go. “Put me down!” he exclaims, but Kojiro is too busy laughing and wading into the water to care.

“Did you forget how to swim?” he asks, and the water comes even closer, gets even deeper. He sounds far too entertained for Kaoru’s liking, grip tightening as Kaoru squirms. “Or are you just pretending that you forgot?”

“Why on earth would I pretend that I forgot how to swim?” Kaoru asks, scandalized at the fact that he’s being carried - against his will, no less!  

“Maybe you wanted me to carry you around,” he says, grinning and for some reason it almost sounds flirtatious. Kaoru is unable to formulate a response before being gently dunked into the water, submerging him completely, getting his hair hopelessly soaked and possibly ruining his coverup. When he comes up for air seconds later, he feels incensed, irritated, and impossibly thrilled. Unfortunately for Kojiro, his anger takes precedence.

“ Why would you do that?!” he cries, hair a complete mess the way it sticks to his face and his shoulders. He can at least be thankful that he hadn’t changed out of his swimsuit, but he pushes his hair back from his face and gives Kojiro his most infuriated, intense glare. “Now I’m wet!”

“You wore a swimsuit but didn’t expect to go swimming?”

“I wore it because I look good in it!” 

Kojiro rolls his eyes, wading closer to him. “I didn’t say you didn’t, but you didn’t swim at all today.” Kaoru watches him as he approaches, having to crane his head up to look at him the closer he gets. He huffs, tucking some loose strands behind his ear in an attempt to look a little more put together. “I thought you were acting a little weird today, too.”

Fuck. Did he really notice? Kaoru had thought he had gotten away with it this time, but then, what was he expecting? Of course Kojiro noticed something was on his mind, considering that when he smiled at him at the beach Kaoru had scowled and looked away instantly. That’s not exactly normal behavior, even for Kaoru. 

“I’m fine,” he decides to say, despite it being a bold-faced lie. “I’m just tired.” A half-lie will suffice. 

Kojiro doesn’t seem convinced, and now that he’s got Kaoru alone in the water, there’s really no where Kaoru can stalk off to. Was this his plan all along? “Listen…I know things have been stressful, and you feel bad about your parents. But seriously, all jokes aside - if you’re mad at me, you can tell me.”

Kaoru, for once, has no idea what to say. He blinks, dumbly. “What…mad at you?”

“At the beach, when I smiled at you, you looked away as soon as I did. And then you immediately started talking to Kiriko about something. Since then, you’ve been acting weird, and you’ve been avoiding me.” Kojiro looks genuinely upset, eyebrows furrowed in concern. “So I thought you were mad at me for some reason. I’d rather you tell me than give me the silent treatment.”

“Kojiro, I’m not…no, I’m not mad at you,” Kaoru replies, trying his best to smooth over his worries. “I just…” Just what? Caught myself staring at your stupid six pack for too long and then had my friend give me a riddle to solve? “I didn’t want to distract you from the kids,” he says, which is the best lie he can come up with. Usually, Kaoru doesn’t lie this much to him, but in this case Kaoru thinks he should get a pass. 

Kojiro, again, doesn’t seem to buy it. “How would you be distracting me?”

“If I kept staring at you, you’d probably walk over to talk to me. Then, the children would be upset that you did, and I’d have to deal with a bunch of angry children as well as angry parents.” 

“I think you’re overestimating things.”

“Well, too bad. It already happened.” Kaoru lets out a deep breath, relieved that he seemed to explain himself somewhat well, even if it is a lie. It’s not his best work, but compared to the truth, it’s a much better alternative. He tries to move around Kojiro, as elegantly as one can when deep in water. As he does, a clump of seaweed brushes against his legs, and Kaoru, thinking it’s a jellyfish or some other threatening sea creature, reels back. 

His luck gets even worse - he nearly slips on a large rock lodged at the bottom of the ocean floor, only saved from falling in by a firm hand around his waist that catches him with lightning fast reflexes.

Kaoru, whose life just flashed before his eyes, grabs onto the thing that kept him from falling in a sort of primal survival instinct. The thing his hand grabs just so happens to be Kojiro’s chest, shirtless, and Kojiro’s shoulder, also, of course, shirtless. He glances up at Kojiro and finds himself too close for comfort. The world closes in around him, until it’s just the two of them, standing up to their waists in the ocean with Kaoru helplessly caught in his arms. This close, he can take in the straight line of his nose, the way his eyes naturally turn down slightly, the sharp cut of his jaw, the fullness of his lips. He catches Kojiro’s eyes raking over him as well, and Kaoru, not used to such close scrutiny, holds his breath.

“Are you okay?” Kojiro asks, voice soft, like he’s afraid of ruining the moment between them right now. 

Kaoru feels dizzy, not for the first time that day. They’re too close, far too close, and the warmth of Kojiro’s body makes Kaoru want to lean in closer, maybe even hug him. Thankfully, though, his brain starts working again, and he finds his words. “I…” he starts, his voice quiet as well, “I’m fine. So let me go,” he demands, though putting on his typical bossy attitude seems like too much work right now.

“You can pull away any time you want,” Kojiro points out. The grip on him did loosen slightly, and he’s not exactly holding Kaoru in place. Kaoru could have pushed him away once he got his bearings, but instead he stayed stuck to him, locked in place by no one’s fault but his own.

“Right,” he says, and he pulls away, clearing his throat as soon as he detangles himself from Kojiro. He’s thankful for the darkness, if only for the fact that Kojiro might not be able to see his god forbidden blush. 

The two of them manage to get out of the water without incident (Kaoru is half-worried about slicing his foot on a particularly sharp shell after almost falling), but once they make it back on land, the cold hits Kaoru. His hair is long and drenched, his purple one-piece is soaked, and he has no towel to cover himself up with. To make matters worse, the dizziness he feels pounds at his head. He wraps his arms around himself, waiting as Kojiro picks up the sand-covered towel and bunches it up in his hands along with the cans they left behind. When Kojiro finally has the courage to look at Kaoru again, after having been uncharacteristically quiet, he frowns. “Are you cold?”

Any other time, Kaoru would say something like, “ What does it look like, idiot?”, but right now he’s feeling like an idiot and doesn’t have his typical snarky reply ready. “Yeah,” he says, simply. He suddenly feels lethargic, too, a mix of the cold and the fact that he didn’t sleep well the night before. “I feel tired,” he repeats.

Kojiro looks over Kaoru, at his sleepy, soaked, shivering frame, and sighs softly. “You didn’t eat much today, did you?” he asks. Kaoru hadn’t really thought about it, but Kojiro is right. Kaoru didn’t have breakfast, didn’t eat much for lunch, and only ate a little at dinner. 

“...No,” he admits, voice sounding small. So it was his anemia getting the best of him. 

Kojiro shakes his head. “You have to remember to eat, Kaoru. Hold this,” he says, holding out the towel and cans for Kaoru to take, which he does. He turns his back to Kaoru. “I’ll carry you up the hill."

Kaoru feels like he should protest - he wants to protest, honestly - but the idea of having to walk back up after such a mentally and physically taxing day, when his anemia might make him pass out, sounds like his worst nightmare. Kojiro doesn’t seem tired, and if the ease he picked Kaoru up with just moments earlier means anything, then Kaoru probably won’t weigh him down too much. After justifying it in his head, Kaoru comes over, wraps his arms around Kojiro’s neck, and lets him heft him up onto his back. 

He sighs softly, closing his eyes and turning his head down so he can rest his forehead on Kojiro’s shoulder. Kojiro makes sure not to jostle him too much, and the leisurely pace nearly rocks Kaoru to sleep. Exhaustion wracks his body, his mind. The thoughts that have been flying around in his head all day finally quiet down, if only for a moment. He focuses on the feeling of his skin on Kojiro’s, his chest pressed against Kojiro’s sturdy back, his arms around his broad shoulders, in an effort to ground himself. Really, it only serves to make him hyper aware of how close they are.

Kaoru still isn’t sure what Kiriko meant, but at this point, he’s too tired to try to understand. The closer he gets to the beach house, the closer he gets to falling asleep, the further her words slip away. Maybe he’ll figure out what she meant later. For now, the only thing on his mind is taking a long shower and curling up in bed.

Everyone leaves the beach house early the next morning, though the exits are scattered. Kiriko, Kaoru and Kojiro stay behind with Chiyoko and Jae-hyun, who are tasked with having to see everyone off before they can go themselves. Chiyoko invites all of her family members over for lunch that same day, and when Kojiro overhears this, he has to butt in.

“If we’re having lunch, I could cook for all of you,” he says. He and Kaoru are lounging on the couch in the main house, Kaoru answering a few emails on his phone and Kojiro making idle conversation with one of Kaoru’s uncles, still waiting for his wife to get ready to leave. 

Chiyoko’s face lights up at the idea. “Would you really? You know, the second I heard you were a chef I wanted to try your cooking. It’s hard to find homemade Italian food here.”

“I don’t mind. I haven’t cooked in a while, and I think everyone would like it,” he says. His head turns, smirking at Kaoru. “If him barging into my restaurant every night demanding carbonara is anything to go by.”

Kaoru scowls. “I do not barge in. You said I can come by whenever I want. That’s an open invitation. Besides, you like it when I come to visit.”

“Okay, okay,” Chiyoko starts, interrupting their boiling feud. “Kojiro, if you want to cook lunch for us, that would be lovely. I can take you to get the ingredients after we get home,” she says. 

“Works for me,” Kojiro replies with a grin, agreeable as ever.

Kaoru, however, knows what Kojiro is trying to do. If he can’t win them over by being a nice guy, playing with their kids at the beach, or going to whatever family event he gets dragged to, he can win them over with his cooking. By cooking for them, he can not only impress them with his carefully-honed talents, but prove to them that he is a world-class chef, despite not yet owning a five-star restaurant. 

If his cooking can’t get the job done, then Kaoru fears there’s not much else he can do. 

Like she promised, once they arrive at her and Jae-hyun’s place (a roomy two bedroom apartment in a high-rise building in the middle of Gangnam), she and Kojiro leave to go to the nearby Western grocery store, leaving Kaoru and Jae-hyun alone with the rest of the family. His parents are already there, perched perfectly on the couch, and when he walks in his mother beckons him over with a small come here wave of her hand. 

Kaoru, with no other options or escape routes, walks over. 

“Kaoru, dear,” Hanami starts, as soon as he sits down on the chair next to them, “your father and I decided that we should all go out for dinner tonight.”

Kaoru’s blood runs cold. He knows what that means - a dinner with his parents means spending a couple of hours having every part of your life broken down and criticized, and you leave without any self-confidence left. It’s part of why he’s so abrasive; if he can be angry at them, instead of being upset, then he can leave with his sanity and his sense of self somewhat intact.

“Alright,” he says, because when his mother said “decided” he knew that he wouldn’t be able to argue with her. “Where do you want to go?”

“There’s a steakhouse nearby that I chose,” Itsuki says. “We’ll be going at seven. Bring Kojiro with you. We’ve barely gotten to talk to him on the trip.”

“Yes, it makes me think he doesn’t like us,” his mother adds, sounding more distraught than she likely is. 

Kaoru somehow manages to maintain his composure. Kojiro saying just let it go rings in his ears. “You have had every chance to spend time with us,” he says, keeping his voice neutral. He wants to add on, “Maybe he would like you more if you could be normal human beings,” but manages to stop himself from doing so.

“Well, after the dinner, we simply assumed,” his mother says. “Considering the way he spoke to your father, we thought he wanted nothing to do with us.”

Leave it to his parents to make themselves the victims, when they were the ones who instigated the spats as a way to test Kojiro. Kaoru’s grip on his neutrality is loosening. “He was merely defending himself.”

“He needn’t do it so aggressively,” Itsuki says, and Kaoru can tell that he’s already made up his mind about Kojiro. He was the one who criticized Sia La Luce for not being an expensive, incredibly successful five star restaurant, and the one who requested they not stay near them at the beach house. Unfortunately, Kaoru realizes there’s likely nothing he can do to change his father’s mind. 

So, instead, he swallows down the rage building up in his chest and turns it into the fakest smile he can muster. “Give us the address, and we’ll go out for dinner with you.” 

It’s times like these he remembers why he doesn’t talk to his parents that much anymore, unless he absolutely cannot avoid it. They’ve disapproved of his life choices since he decided to go to college instead of immediately taking over the family business, even though he opened up his own and became successful in his own right. The only choice they didn’t disapprove of was him dating Ainosuke, and that’s only because they saw him as a way to get closer to the politicians that ran in Ainosuke and Ainosuke’s father’s circle. 

They are probably very, very angry at Kaoru right now, but are hiding it expertly.

Once Kojiro and Chiyoko come back home, most of the family is already there, save for some who decided to take the day for themselves. Kaoru knows he should probably tell Kojiro about the plans his parents decided on for him, so he gets out of his seat after Kojiro and Chiyoko disappear into the kitchen together, carrying bags full of groceries. 

However, when he gets to the door closing the kitchen off from the rest of the apartment, he hears the two of them talking. Deciding to be nosy, with no one else around, he presses his ear to the door. 

“I have to hand it to you, Kojiro. Most guys I bring home to my family ran off after the first meeting. I’m kind of surprised you haven’t yet - my aunt and uncle are worse than my parents.”

“It’s not like I can really run off anywhere.” Laughter, and then Kojiro keeps going. “I wouldn’t want to, anyways.”

“I wouldn’t blame you if you did.” It sounds like bags are being rustled and items placed on the counters, and Chiyoko sighs as she sets something down. “Jae-hyun was the only guy I ever dated who didn’t get freaked out. Probably because his family was a lot like mine.”

“He told me about that,” Kojiro says. A clatter of dishes as one of them pulls something out of a cabinet or a drawer, and then the sound of a paper bag being opened. “It really is a culture shock. My family doesn’t have as much as his, but we’re a lot happier than a lot of you seem to be - no offense.”

Chiyoko laughs lightly. “None taken. I agree. Maybe that’s why Kaoru decided to date you.”

“...What is?” Kaoru can hear the hesitation in his voice, especially from the way he didn’t respond immediately. 

“You’re way more down to earth than anyone his parents would want him dating. He seems to really love you.”

Kaoru’s heart stops. Or at least it feels like it does. He knew this would be coming - someone would say that they seemed so in love, and he would laugh it off and say something cheesy in response - but he thought he would at least be there to answer before Kojiro could. And Kojiro is alone with Chiyoko right now, having a heart-to-heart about his supposed relationship. At least, Kaoru tries to reason, they’ve been so believable that Chiyoko was fooled into thinking they’re in love.

Kaoru has no idea what Kojiro might say next, but he holds his breath as he waits. 

“Yeah,” he says, with a soft sigh. “I hope that’s the case, anyways.”

The explicit sadness in his voice pierces Kaoru’s heart. Kojiro doesn’t sound like he’s acting, but Kaoru, for once, isn’t able to tell. 

“Why do you sound so sad?” Chiyoko asks, putting Kaoru’s thoughts into words. 

“I’m not, I just - this entire trip, I’ve been wondering why he’d give all of this up for someone like me. I mean, the five star restaurants, flying first class, buying expensive clothes. But I guess, if he loves me…” Kojiro’s voice softens around the word “love”, “then maybe that’s why.”

“Aw, Kojiro.” Chiyoko is probably giving him one of her trademark hugs, although she can’t wrap him up in one like she can Kaoru or Jae-hyun. “From what I can tell, you’re a hundred times better than any of the fancy shit money can buy.”

Kojiro laughs, though to Kaoru it sounds hollow. “Thanks, Chiyoko.” 

Kaoru can hear her feet scuffling on the floor, coming closer to the door, and Kaoru scrambles into the nearby bathroom so as not to get caught eavesdropping. He sits on the toilet cover, contemplating what he overheard. Despite Kojiro pretending to be his boyfriend, for some reason, the conversation Kaoru heard today felt less like acting and more like his real feelings, ones he hasn’t yet shared with Kaoru. He sounded almost dejected when saying “if he loves me,” and Kaoru isn’t exactly sure why. Is it that he finds the idea of them being in love ridiculous, like Kaoru does? Or is it, more frighteningly, that Kojiro truly hopes that Kaoru loves him, as in romantically in love with him? 

You need to figure it out for yourself, Kiriko had said. Kaoru feels like he’s close to a revelation, on the cusp of coming to an understanding, but suddenly someone knocks on the door and Kaoru remembers that he’s currently overthinking his friendship while sitting on top of the toilet.

After a quick apology, he ventures out and into the kitchen, where he finds Kojiro alone and emptying pasta dough from a bowl and onto a floured countertop. Kojiro glances up when the door opens, and when he sees Kaoru, he flashes a smile at him. Kaoru, feeling his cheeks heat up at the grin, forces his eyes down towards the island. “You’re really making pasta from scratch?”

“Oh, yeah,” Kojiro says, as if suddenly remembering something. He’s currently kneading the dough by hand, and while it looks relatively rough, as Kojiro kneads it more, adding water or flour depending on the look of it, it turns into a smooth ball of dough rather quickly. Kaoru has to fight to not stare at his biceps as he kneads, knowing if Kojiro caught him he’d never hear the end of it. “I was talking to one of your uncles this morning, and he said he couldn’t eat gluten. So I decided to make some gluten free pasta for lunch, so he could try some too.” 

Kaoru is shocked at the attention to detail. He looks up at Kojiro, too focused on wrapping up his dough in plastic wrap to notice Kaoru’s surprise, and feels his heart beating a little faster. “You remembered that?”

“I mean, he told me this morning. And it’s not like I haven’t made it before. I have a lot of customers who are gluten free,” he says. He finishes rolling up the last ball of dough, keeping out one section and grabbing a rolling pin to roll it out into a sheet. “I thought it’d be a good idea.”

It’s just like Kojiro to think of something like that. Other guys, when hearing that information, might just lend a sympathetic ear and not do anything with it. Kojiro, on the other hand, would go out of his way to buy gluten free flour and make gluten free pasta by hand without a pasta machine out of the kindness of his heart. 

It makes Kaoru’s chest flutter a little, really. 

“It is a good idea,” is all he can really muster up, taken aback by the feelings of fondness that are nearly taking over his mind “It’s very considerate.”

Kojiro smiles. A real smile, dimples and all, and God Kaoru wishes he had never fixated on them. “You know, you’ve called me considerate twice this trip.”

Kaoru scowls. “Don’t get used to it,” he bites back, though it lacks the typical venom. He watches him fold the dough up like an accordion and start to cut the dough into strips, and suddenly Kaoru feels very awkward just standing there. “Can I help?”

“You want to help?” 

“I’ll take it back if you keep being a smartass.”

“Fine, fine,” Kojiro relents, though he sounds entertained after making Kaoru bitch at him. “Here, put these strips on the counter behind me so they can dry.”

Kaoru does as he’s told, gathering them up carefully and setting them gently on the counter. Something about this feels oddly domestic; the two of them cooking together, Kaoru actually being of help in the kitchen, throwing little quips back and forth as they work. It makes that weird, tingling sensation in his chest intensify, and it’s all he can do to not start hyperventilating, mistaking it for anxiety. When he really thinks about it, though, he only feels calm right now. 

He glances over his shoulder at Kojiro, who’s already started on the third ball of dough. Kaoru, thinking he can help expedite the process, says, “Let me roll it out.”

Kojiro looks at Kaoru, raising an eyebrow and running his eyes down his arms. “Are you sure you can do it?”

“Just because I’m not ungodly huge doesn’t mean I can’t use a rolling pin,” Kaoru says, affronted. He tilts his chin up in the air, a touch playful. One could even say flirtatious - although Kaoru himself would be hesitant to. “I have excellent arm strength.” 

Kojiro chuckles softly, holding his floured hands up in surrender. “Alright. Come over here, then.”

Kaoru keeps his glare on him but comes around to the island, taking the pin from Kojiro’s hands. He leans forward, rolling once to test it out, and is pleased at how quickly it flattens under the pressure. “You wanna make it thin,” Kojiro says, watching over his shoulder. He sounds like a teacher, and Kaoru wonders idly if he’s done this with anyone he’s ever dated before. 

It’s not like it matters, his mind quickly supplies, to keep the shock of even considering it at bay. 

“I’ve watched you enough already to know how to do it,” Kaoru says, glowering at Kojiro before getting back to work. He continues rolling the dough out, until it looks satisfactory. In reality, it looks a little thicker than how Kojiro had been doing it, but Kaoru is proud of his work. “Like that, right?”

Kojiro has this affectionate little smile on his face, and shakes his head. “It’s a little thick,” he says. He comes forward from behind Kaoru and wraps his arms around Kaoru’s body, hands coming up to cover his on the rolling pin. Kaoru feels frozen in place, especially when he can sense Kojiro leaning over his shoulder a bit to look at the dough. He feels like if he breathes wrong, he might scare him away. 

Kojiro guides Kaoru’s hands to roll the rolling pin across the dough a few more times, but all Kaoru can focus on is the feeling of Kojiro’s chest against his back, the smell of his cologne, and the warmth of his body. He thinks he might melt into the floor. He feels utterly dumbstruck. 

“Like that,” Kojiro murmurs into his ear, breath hot against his cheek.

Kaoru’s body moves before his mind can, his only thought being that this is too close and he needs to get away; but when he turns, Kojiro is still there, peering down at him, confused by the sudden shift in position. But, strangely enough, Kojiro doesn’t ask him what’s wrong like he usually would, nor does he throw out some sarcastic remark. 

No - instead, he takes the tiniest step closer to Kaoru. 

Kaoru’s hands grip the island counter behind him, but he doesn’t move away. He certainly doesn’t say anything. If he was a foolish person, he’d think that Kojiro’s eyes flitted down to his lips, softly parting when Kaoru realizes Kojiro’s eyes are on them. In fact, Kojiro’s eyes, his body language, says a lot more than his words could. He feels so, so close, and in his eyes is an expression Kaoru’s never seen on him before. He’s seen it on the faces of other men, of clients who think they can get lucky - it’s something akin to desire, and it threatens to swallow him whole. Kaoru wonders what his own face looks like right now, as he stands pinned under Kojiro’s gaze. His cheeks feel so warm, and he’s sure he’s blushing, even though Sakurayashiki Kaoru does not blush. 

He’s been doing it a lot recently, though. What’s more, he’s been doing it exclusively around Kojiro.

Kojiro leans in a little closer, his hands coming to bracket either side of Kaoru’s body pressed up against the island. At the same time, in a panic, Kaoru blurts out, “My parents want us to have dinner with them!” 

Kojiro stops moving. He blinks, as if remembering where he is. Funnily enough, Kaoru thinks he looks flustered, too. There’s no way - maybe it’s Kaoru’s eyes playing tricks on him. “Tonight?”

“Tonight. At seven.” 

Kojiro sighs heavily, and he finally pulls away from Kaoru, giving him room to breathe. Kaoru slips away from him, all the way to the other side of the counter, because being in such close vicinity to Kojiro feels dangerous right now. “I guess we don’t have a choice, huh?” Kojiro asks.

“I’m afraid not,” Kaoru replies. His breath - no, his entire body - still feels shaky. He shouldn’t be able to form a cohesive thought right now, but years of ignoring his anxiety and pushing past it has prepared him for moments like these. “...Do you need any more help?” he asks, a last ditch attempt at some form of normalcy. 

“Ah, no, I don’t think so,” Kojiro decides. “I’d rather do the rest of it by myself.”

Kaoru feels as if that’s a personal attack; irritation replaces anxiety, however irrational that is. “I can cook, even though you like to act like I can’t.”

“If the whole point of this is me showing off my cooking, then I should probably do it by myself,” Kojiro says, and for some reason he sounds a little short with Kaoru. He isn’t sure why - did he do something wrong that he didn’t know about, didn’t realize? Instead, Kojiro just lets out a soft, slightly exasperated breath. “Don’t worry about it. I’ll make the rest of it by myself.”

Even though he’s being given an out, after wanting to escape just mere moments before, Kaoru doesn’t want to leave now. He can see the stress in Kojiro’s shoulders, the fatigue in the crease of his brow. He wants to ask what’s wrong, if learning about their dinner plans soured his mood, or if something Kaoru did upset him. He feels out of place now, though. 

Without another word, he rushes out of the kitchen, mind still racing and heart still stuttering.

As expected, the pasta is a hit. It’s a simple dish, just noodles with marinara sauce and meatballs, but its simplicity earns it a boatload of praise. The uncle Kojiro had made it for had first protested that he didn’t need to go through so much trouble for him, but after Kojiro reassured him that it wasn’t any more trouble than making regular pasta from scratch - in fact, it saved him some time - the aforementioned uncle thanked him for the special consideration. Everyone else greatly enjoyed the meal as well, constantly offering their praises to Kojiro for such a well-made meal. He soaks in the positive attention, finally being afforded it after days of feeling looked down on. 

During lunch, though the affirmations of Kojiro’s cooking felt good to hear, Kaoru also felt a pit in his stomach. All he could think about was the upcoming dinner that night, the tense moment in the kitchen, and Kiriko’s words from the day before. Basically, he had too much on his mind to really appreciate the acceptance Kojiro was finally, rightfully, gaining. 

The anxiety doesn’t go away, especially not when they have to leave their hotel room in half an hour. The only thing stopping Kaoru from pacing is that he doesn’t want Kojiro to be worried, but in his head, he knows this dinner can only be about one of two things: one, that they’re upset that he’s dating Kojiro, or two, they’re upset he broke up with Ainosuke.

Upon further reflection, there isn’t much difference between the two. Both will likely be equally as painful to have to sit through, but the first option would likely hurt them the most. 

“Ready?” Kojiro asks, finishing buttoning up one of the nice dress shirts Kaoru forced him to buy. The idea of getting out of the chair he’s sitting in to face his parents is daunting, but Kaoru manages to stand up, brush off his slacks, and sigh heavily. 

“I suppose so,” he says. They still haven’t talked about why Kojiro acted a bit short with him earlier, but Kaoru figures that right now isn’t the best time to bring it up. There are a myriad of reasons at play, and like they tend to do, they move on like things are normal. Well, as normal as things can be between them right now. 

“You nervous?” Kojiro makes his way over from the closet, and Kaoru folds his arms across his chest, a sort of safety tactic when his anxiety threatens to get the best of him. “I’m nervous too.”

“That’s not very comforting,” Kaoru mumbles, feeling small. Suddenly, he feels Kojiro’s hands on his arms, soothingly rubbing up and down his forearms. The action, though small, manages to make Kaoru’s shoulders slump down from his ears.

“But after this, you never have to talk to them again if you don’t want to,” Kojiro says, trying to comfort him. “And besides, once all of this is over…you can just tell them we broke up.” 

For some reason, one that Kaoru can’t quite put his finger on, the idea of telling his parents that makes a wave of sadness wash over him. It’s confusing, and it only serves to spike his heart rate up a little more. “If I do that, they’ll just say ‘I told you so’ and never let me forget that they were right.” 

“Then don’t tell them. It’s up to you, Kaoru.”

At this point, Kaoru isn’t sure what he’d do. 

They get there right on time, at seven on the dot, but of course his parents are already there and seated, waiting for them. The first thing out of Itsuki’s mouth is, “You’re late.”

“Actually, we’re on time,” Kaoru says, sitting in front of him, with Kojiro in front of his mother. “We were told to come at seven. It’s seven.”

“Semantics,” Itsuki scoffs, brushing him off. With things already off to a bad start, Kaoru decides to bite his tongue for now. Just let it go. 

The four of them order their meals, and like most dinners with his parents, sit in mostly awkward silence, after some dismal attempts at small talk. Kaoru wonders when they are going to drop a bomb on him. Sitting and waiting in anticipation for them to get to the point is, unfortunately, all too common. 

Finally, just after their food is served, Itsuki finally decides to talk.

“Kaoru,” he starts, and Kaoru can already tell that this is going to be an unpleasant conversation, “Your mother and I were very disappointed that you didn’t tell us about ending your relationship with Ainosuke.”

Ah. So it was going to be option one, then. Kaoru had prepared for this possibility, so he’s able to answer relatively easily. “I didn’t think I had to tell you, considering you never reached out to ask me about it,” he says, casually cutting into his steak. “And I assumed you and mother were smart enough to put two and two together, once I stopped bringing him up.”

Itsuki’s brow twitches; a tell-tale sign that his patience is already worn thin. “Of course we suspected something had changed. We never asked you because we thought you would tell us.”

“It was really a simple miscommunication,” Hanami tacks on. 

“It’s normal for parents to ask about their children’s relationships, you know.” Kaoru can feel himself getting annoyed. His therapist told him once that people with anxiety can have it manifest in anger, and that was likely what Kaoru had experienced since developing it. The anxiety that he had been feeling before arriving at the restaurant is converting into irritation, and right now, he isn’t in the right state of mind to do the breathing techniques he’s supposed to do. 

“You’re so secretive, Kaoru. Even if we asked, would you have really told us?” Hanami asks. Her voice is sickly sweet and soft, as if she’s trying to seem innocent, or like a loving mother who was just giving her son space. “You didn’t tell us what college you were going to until after graduation, and you didn’t tell us you didn’t plan to take over the family business until we pressed you about it. You didn’t tell us about Ainosuke until we heard about your relationship from a mutual friend. You didn’t tell us about the…changes you went through, not until you got so angry at us calling you our daughter that you yelled at us,” she says, carefully choosing her wording. “You haven’t been the Kaoru we used to know for such a long time.”

“And what does that mean?” Kaoru asks, barreling right past anger and directly towards outrage. “I’ve never been the Kaoru you used to know. The idea of a perfect daughter that you and Father had in your head never existed!”

He doesn’t mean to, but he raises his voice at his mother, ignoring Kojiro’s hand on his arm trying to get him to calm down. Her eyes widened at the retaliation - clearly, she wasn’t expecting him to talk back to her in public. Maybe that was why they decided to have this conversation over dinner, to try and not make a scene. Clearly, they really don’t know Kaoru. “We’re getting off track!” Itsuki interrupts. “Kaoru, what your mother is saying is right. You didn’t tell us about breaking up with Ainosuke until you showed up with him. ”

Kojiro, who at this point had been trying to make himself invisible during this conversation, shifts his gaze over to Itsuki. His hand is still resting on Kaoru’s arm, though not gripping as tightly as it was when Kaoru nearly jumped out of his seat. “I’m right here, you know.” 

“Why didn’t you think to tell us?” his father continues, ignoring Kojiro. “Why did you show up with him without telling us? We were completely blindsided at dinner, but we had to act as if everything was fine. And then he talked back to me - it was absolutely disrespectful. It’s as if he hasn’t changed since you two were teenagers, and yet you’re dating someone like that?”

Kaoru must be on fire. He feels like every bone in his body might explode, that he might spontaneously combust, in a mix of anger, rage, and fury. Usually, he can deal with the condescending shit his parents spew, even if it pisses him off. But them talking down to Kojiro, acting as if he is worse than Kaoru in any way, throws all common sense out the window. 

“Why are you acting like he’s not a grown man?”

The table goes silent; Kojiro, who has been mostly silent this entire time, finally speaks up. “Kaoru is twenty-six. He’s not someone whose life you can plan out for him anymore. Why do you care so much if he doesn’t date the exact person you want him to? What made Ainosuke better than me? That he has connections?” His voice, typically casual and lazy, takes on a fierce, severe edge. Kaoru has rarely heard him sound like this before, not unless he’s well and truly angry. “Isn’t it enough that I love him?”

That makes Kaoru speechless. The passion he said it with was enough to make Kaoru actually believe him. “Kojiro -”

“How dare you talk back to me like that!” Itsuki exclaims, finally letting his temper get the better of him. The tables surrounding them glance over, watching curiously. “How would you know what’s best for my son?”

“Because he’s been my best friend ever since kindergarten,” Kojiro says, though he doesn’t raise his voice. He keeps it level and stern, which is just as scary in its own right. “In fact, I’d say I know him better than you do.”

“Kojiro,” Kaoru hisses, now grabbing his arm to try and get him to step down. Even though he’s still angry, incredibly so, he knows that it won’t do any good for Kojiro to further ruin his standing on his behalf. So, instead, Kaoru intervenes. “Father, I just wish you would stay out of my life!” he demands. Kaoru knows he’s inching dangerously close to yelling at him in front of the entire restaurant. “You didn’t know Ainosuke, not like I did. Kojiro is a much better man than he could ever be, regardless of how much money he makes or his social standing - things that only you and mother care about.”

Itsuki gapes at him, appalled. “Kaoru - you -”

“We’re leaving,” he says, rising from his seat. “Which is a shame, because I barely got to eat my meal.” 

Hanami, in a last ditch attempt, plays the pity card. “Kaoru, we just wanted to have a nice dinner.”

Kaoru, as usual, doesn’t buy it. “And you could have, if you would stop meddling in my life.” He looks over at Kojiro, who has gotten up as well and is watching him as if waiting for his next words. “Let’s go,” he says, softer, and then quickly grabs Kojiro’s arm and gets them the hell out of there. 

They walk in silence for a few minutes, with Kaoru trying to cool off and collect himself. After coming to his senses, no longer blinded by white hot rage, he finds himself and Kojiro standing outside of a convenience store, with a couple of tables placed outside. 

At the same time, he hears his stomach growl.

Kojiro must hear it, too, because he somehow manages to smile at Kaoru. “I’m still hungry, too,” he says. Kaoru puts a hand over his stomach, his cheeks heated.

The two of them venture inside. It’s similar to the ones in Okinawa, enough so that it almost feels comforting. It reminds Kaoru of being in high school and going to one late at night with Kojiro, buying a ton of ramen, ramune, and assorted junk food. Tonight, though, they only buy a cup of ramen each, heating it up in the store’s microwave before taking it out to the table, thankfully still empty. 

As soon as Kaoru sits across from Kojiro, the adrenaline rush that had coursed through him at dinner subsides, and he’s faced with the reality of the situation. 

His parents are never, ever, going to approve of Kojiro. Liking him is another beast entirely. It’s clear though that, after tonight, any favor he might have gained disappeared. 

While Kaoru is currently playing the disastrous family dinner over and over in his mind, Kojiro breaks his train of thought. “That didn’t go very well, huh?” he asks. Kaoru can detect the dry sarcasm in his voice, and it really, really stings.

“I’m sorry,” he says, because really, what else can he say? It’s the same shit, different day - someone in Kaoru’s family not liking Kojiro, and Kaoru feeling bad about it. Only this time, there’s the added confusion that’s been plaguing Kaoru for the past couple of days. 

“It’s not your fault,” Kojiro assures him, though he sounds worn out. 

“It is, though. I made them angrier by talking back to them, which made them hate you even more, and -”

“Kaoru.” Kojiro interrupts him, glancing up at him and using the same tone of voice he had at the restaurant. Kaoru stops talking, mouth snapping shut. “It’s not your fault,” he repeats, softer. “I promise.” He picks up strands of ramen with his chopsticks, watching them carefully to make sure they don’t slip back into the cup. 

Kaoru, for some strange reason, feels like crying. This week has been unnecessarily stressful for both of them, Kojiro especially. Kaoru thinks he might be on the verge of truly cracking. Kojiro isn’t a violent or needlessly aggressive person by any means, especially not when compared to Kaoru, but when his enormous reserve of patience runs out, he can tend to lose his cool. He nearly did tonight, and probably would have kept going had Kaoru not intervened. 

He feels horrible.

“I’m sorry I brought you here,” he says, voice sounding a little more delicate than he had meant it to. “I should have just sucked it up and told them the truth. But now I have you tangled up in this huge lie because I couldn’t admit that I lied, even though it would’ve been easier.” He lets out a small, shaky sigh, keeping his eyes focused on his noodles. “Being embarrassed for a few seconds by myself would have been better than making you deal with this for over a week.”

A moment goes by, and Kaoru thinks Kojiro might not respond to him. He might not have anything to say anymore, since they’ve already had this talk multiple times already. Each time, Kojiro had said that it was fine, and to just let things go; Kaoru knows now that he should have let Kojiro vent, get it out of his system, rather than assuming that Kojiro would be fine if he didn’t.

So he waits, giving Kojiro time to talk, and makes sure not to interrupt him when he does.

“It sucks,” Kojiro finally, finally admits. “It really fucking sucks, Kaoru. I’d say I’m sorry for getting pissed at your dad tonight, but I’m really not. I feel like no one’s been giving me the time of day, not except Chiyoko and Jae-hyun and his family, just because I’m not rich enough.” Kojiro sighs bitterly. “I just don’t get how you all live like this.”

“I don’t know, either,” Kaoru replies. Really, it’s why he rarely ever talks to his family outside of Chiyoko. “I’m sorry.”

“Stop apologizing, Kaoru,” he says gently, but he sounds frustrated. Kaoru doesn’t reply, feeling like anything he might say wouldn’t really be helpful. “We’ve got, what, four days left here? I’ll just suck it up.”

Kaoru, who’s never been good at comforting people in distress, musters up all of his empathy to try and comfort Kojiro. “At least you won’t have to be around them after this,” he says, using reason and logic to put things into perspective. “I’ll…I’ll just tell them all we broke up after a couple of months.”

Though he’s looking into his cup of ramen, Kaoru can catch the way Kojiro’s eyebrows furrow at Kaoru’s solution. He’s the one who suggested it, though, Kaoru thinks. Truthfully, he isn’t pleased with this solution either. It seems like an easy way out, and he’ll have to endure his parents saying things like, “We knew he wasn’t right for you,” and “Kaoru, dear, our close friend has a son who is single and interested in you.” It’s better, though, than trapping Kojiro in this because Kaoru can’t seem to face his own, self-made embarrassment. 

Not to mention the fact that telling people he and Kojiro broke up, despite never dating in the first place, would be painful for him to do. 

“Yeah,” Kojiro says hollowly, “You should do that.”

Kaoru frowns at him, confused. “Do you not want me to?”

Kojiro shakes his head. He finally looks up at Kaoru, and though the blue and purple lights that beam down from the convenience store sign brighten up his face, he looks sad, almost melancholic. Suddenly, Kaoru remembers how Kojiro had sounded when he said “Isn’t it enough that I love him?” at dinner, remembers the way he had looked at him when he had been helping him roll out pasta earlier that day, remembers how he had felt when Kojiro’s eyes had glanced down at his lips. He remembers it all at once as Kojiro says, “I want you to.”

Why am I remembering this?

Why does Kojiro look so sad?

Why do I feel so sad? 

Why, why, why?

All he can say to Kojiro is, “Okay, I will.” He isn’t able to focus on whatever Kojiro’s reaction to his agreement is, though he imagines he doesn’t say much. 

Kaoru is on the precipice of something, of a realization, of an understanding. Is this what Kiriko had said he needed to figure out on his own? As he racks his brain, trying to decipher Kiriko’s words, one scary, dangerous, frightening thought surfaces:

Was the idea that he might have feelings for Kojiro, an idea that he dismissed without a second thought because of how outright ridiculous it seemed, right after all?

His ramen cup, though he’s barely touched it, is wholly unappetizing to him now.

Kaoru doesn’t know how he’s meant to spend the day at a bachelorette party - and really, who has a day long bachelorette party? - after having possibly figured out what Kiriko told him he needed to. 

In fact, he really couldn’t look at Kojiro that morning. Of course he did, but everything felt stilted, strange, like he was in an alternate universe. How could he look at Kojiro as if nothing had shifted between them this week, when, in fact, everything had? 

How could he look at Kojiro like nothing was wrong, when Kaoru might very well have feelings for him?

It plagues his mind, and threatens to induce a headache before his day has even really started. And, of course, Kojiro could tell something was wrong. Instead of letting him ask as much - Kaoru can just feel him about to question him - he decides to get ready as quickly as possible, throwing on a slip dress and rushing out of the hotel room. 

He knows he should say a proper goodbye, since they won’t be seeing each other until late that night whenever Kojiro comes back from the bachelor party, but he can’t find it in himself to do so. He feels like he’s on a razor’s edge, that any conversation with Kojiro would result in him blurting out the conclusion he came to last night.

God . Kiriko is going to be so smug when she finds out about it, too. Kaoru decides to try and keep it to himself, though knowing her she’ll likely pry until he snaps. In their friendship, that’s what typically happens - Kiriko has never been left in the dark. 

The itinerary of the day has already been planned by Chiyoko: go get massages by a world-famous masseuse, get lunch, go shopping, then go out drinking at night time. She tells everyone in the bridal party group chat she created that if any of them want to go home at any point, they’re more than welcome to. Considering she has at least ten people in her bridal party, many of them as extroverted as she is, losing one or two people won’t be detrimental to the day’s events. Kaoru is already planning on bowing out when it comes time to bar hop, as that’s not really his scene anymore and he would much rather spend the night relaxing in his hotel room with a glass of wine and room service. 

(Really, he just wants to have some time to himself while Kojiro is out, so he doesn’t have to see him.)

Kaoru arrives at the masseuse on time, as usual, and finds that most of the bridal party has gathered already. All of them are women older than him, and he would feel out of place if not for the fact that they are all experts at making anyone they meet feel included. While he still stays quiet, unable to really enjoy the loud conversations around him, he doesn’t feel completely out of his depth. 

Luckily, though, massages almost necessitate being quiet and not being able to talk very easily. Most of them quiet down once they get in the massage chairs, laying face down with towels over their lower halves. There’s still quiet conversation amongst them, though, with random bursts of laughter interspersed throughout the relaxing white noise of chatter. Kaoru had desperately needed this; he could feel the knots being worked out of his back, his shoulders, his neck, knots he hadn’t even known existed because of how he had grown used to their presence. 

What refuses to disappear, however, is Kiriko’s presence. 

“Did you think about what we talked about?” she asks, her head also in the donut pillow, which means, at least Kaoru thinks, she shouldn’t be talking.

She’s lucky that his eyes are closed and he can’t turn his head, or else he’d be glaring at her. “Can we talk about that later?”

“We can’t really talk about it during lunch or while shopping, since Chiyoko would find out that you were lying, and we can’t talk about it at the bar because you’re not going with us.”

“You know me so well.”

“So?” Kiriko trudges on, ignoring his sarcastic remark. “Did you figure it out?”

Carefully, Kaoru takes a long, shaky sigh. He hasn’t admitted it out loud yet, or really put it into words in his own head. Whenever he tried, the anxiety he’d felt the night before would bubble up again and shut it down almost immediately. It’s such a huge, monumental confession to make that he’s scared to even acknowledge its existence. “I think so,” he says, hoping that’s enough for her. 

Instead of pressing too hard, or laughing in his face, Kiriko is a good friend and accepts that answer. “So? How’d you realize it?”

“It’s cliché, really.” Kaoru’s eyes open, and he’s forced to stare at the light wood floor beneath him. He makes sure to speak quietly, so no one else overhears them. “When I told him I’d just tell my family we’d break up after all of this is over, he seemed really dejected. It was like…like he didn’t want me to, even though he told me he did. And I felt sad about it too. I didn’t want to either, but I didn’t know why. And then I thought about this entire trip, the way he acts when we’re alone together and we don’t have to act like we’re dating but it feels like we are, sometimes, and I just…” Kaoru can’t find the right words for a moment. He feels like he’s standing at the edge of a cliff, with no bungee jump attached, but being told he needs to jump anyways. He’s forced to let out his breath when the masseuse presses particularly hard on one side of his back, and it brings him back into focus. “I realized that I felt so anxious about the idea of us getting married, when we talked about it at the cafe with Chiyo, and that I felt so protective over him, and got so angry on his behalf, and couldn’t stop staring at him at the beach because I…” 

“You love him?” Kiriko asks, making it sound simple. Easy. Like the realization hasn’t completely changed Kaoru’s life. 

What else can he say?

“I think I might.”

It hangs in the air between them, makes itself home in the awkward pause in conversation. Kaoru’s stomach is churning, and it doesn’t help that he’s lying face down. Kiriko simply hums, taking in the information, letting it settle in her head. 

“How do you feel?”

This he can answer instantly. “Scared as hell.”

Even without looking at her, he can hear the frown in her voice. “Really?”

“Is it that surprising?” he asks her, coming off a little irritable. “Realizing you might be in love with your best friend, knowing that you can’t do anything about it without risking your twenty years of friendship - that’s not scary?”

“I’m not saying it’s not, Kaoru,” Kiriko replies, returning his irritability with her own. It’s one of the main reasons they get along so well - neither of them take shit from the other. “I just thought…I mean, after Kojiro agreed to do this whole little ruse with you, I thought that it was obvious how he felt about you.”

Kaoru blinks. He wishes he could turn and look at her, as if her face could tell him something that her voice and words couldn’t. “What, that he might feel the same way?” Kaoru scoffs, finding the mere idea of it laughable. “He’s just like that, Kiriko. He goes out of his way to help everyone.”

“You seriously think he’d do this for just anyone?”

“Yes, I seriously do.”

Kiriko doesn’t answer for a moment, until the good friend facade finally breaks and she laughs. In fact, she laughs loud enough that everyone stops talking because her laughter has bounced off the walls. Kaoru wonders, miserably, why a massage parlor has such good acoustics. “Sorry!” she says, “Kaoru just said something I thought was funny!” 

The rest of the girls laugh along, some of them prodding and asking what it was, but Kaoru doesn’t budge. He doesn’t find it very funny at all, and feels like he’s being left out of a joke that he is at the center of. “What’s so funny?” he asks, annoyance bleeding into his voice. 

“You really think Kojiro would just fly to another country, with someone he’s not as close to as you - because let’s face it, you’re his closest friend - to pretend to be their boyfriend for a week so they don’t have to admit that they lied to their parents? You think he’d do something like that for me?”

“He wouldn’t, because you’re a lesbian.”

“You know what I mean, though!” Kiriko cries, though it’s not as loud as her laughter moments earlier. “He wouldn’t do something this stupid, this hare-brained, for anyone else. He’d only do it for you!” 

Kaoru doesn’t believe it. His brain immediately blocks out the possibility. Instead, it offers up a sort of montage of the past week - he thinks of the afternoon at the beach, how Kojiro had looked like he belonged in the family, how he had gotten along so well with the kids. How he had looked back for Kaoru, as if he knew he was watching, and smiled that gut-wrenching, heart-rending smile. How, this entire trip, Kojiro has been taking things in stride, getting along with the family members who matter most to Kaoru, and standing up for him against those who hurt them. How Kojiro has always been like that - has always looked out for Kaoru, has always been there to help, has argued with him even when both of them knew there was no vitriol behind their words, has kept him sane, especially on this trip. How Kaoru has never imagined a life where Kojiro wasn’t there in one way or another. How Kaoru secretly thinks that the best person someone could be, in his opinion, is someone like Kojiro.

How could someone like Kojiro ever have feelings for someone like him?

“That’s not possible,” he says. He feels emotionally naked, like his feelings have been stripped bare for Kiriko to observe and analyze. There is just no way in hell that, after all Kaoru has put him through on this trip, Kojiro could have any sort of romantic feelings for him. He likely only feels a sense of obligation to even keep pretending. “He said it himself. When we first got to our hotel room, he said, ‘I don’t really want Kaoru going with a stranger,’ and that’s why he came with me. He just did it because no one else would.” 

A long pause, and then a soft sigh. “Kaoru, sometimes I can’t believe you have a Master’s degree.”

“Shut up.”

“You are a scientific enigma.”

“You should be happy I can’t strangle you right now.”

The rest of the day passes by relatively quickly. Kaoru is distracted, however momentarily, by lunch at a barbecue restaurant with a tabletop grill, where he gets to know the other bridesmaids in the party. They’re all extremely successful in their own rights, working as doctors, dentists, or lawyers; Kaoru almost fears his success would pale in comparison to theirs, but they pay close attention when he talks about his own business. Lunch is followed by a shopping spree, where Kaoru tries not to buy too much to take back on the plane with him, and has to remind Kiriko to do the same. 

Even with all the distractions, he has little intrusive thoughts, like Kojiro would love this restaurant, or he would look good in this shirt. They immediately get pushed to the side, but despite his best efforts, the thoughts still linger even after Kaoru has unceremoniously kicked them out of his mind. 

He gets back to the hotel at around six, and finds that Kojiro is already gone. In fact, when he finally checks his phone, he sees a text from him from fifteen minutes ago informing him that he left, and that he shouldn’t wait up for him. 

As if I was going to, Kaoru thinks, until his mind unhelpfully supplies, but I’ll probably have trouble sleeping tonight. 

Given a few hours of alone time, Kaoru decides to treat himself. He orders a helping of yakisoba for dinner and, to top it off, a bottle of expensive red wine for later. He takes it with him to the bathtub, where he soaks for a good hour with the lavender bath bomb he bought while out shopping. This, alongside the much-needed massage earlier in the day, manages to totally relax him. As usual, there’s nothing better than a nice glass of merlot to ease his worries. He only really gets out of the bath to pour himself another glass, but decides to do his skincare first, considering that the number one priority since the wedding is tomorrow. Kaoru puts his hair up in a bun and pushes his bangs out of the way with a headband, and takes his time going through his routine, finding an odd comfort in the familiarity of it.

In the middle of putting his moisturizer on, he hears the keycard slide into the door. It couldn’t have been more than three hours, which confuses Kaoru - he expected they would be out until late at night, until eleven at the earliest. He walks over to the bathroom door, opening it as he speaks. “Kojiro? You’re back already -”

As soon as he lays eyes on Kojiro, he cuts himself off. 

Kojiro has closed the door behind him, and he looks normal from the neck down - loose pants, a tight shirt - but when Kaoru’s eyes trail upwards, his face looks worse for wear. To put it bluntly, it looks like he got his ass handed to him. He has dried up blood under his nose, a split lip, and a bruise forming on his bicep. 

Kaoru’s first reaction is shock, followed by complete and utter outrage. “What the fuck happened?”

“Long story,” Kojiro says, rubbing at the blood on his upper lip and wincing when his finger grazes his nose. Said nose is still actively bleeding, though probably not as much as it had when it was first hit. “Let me just wash my face, and I’ll - “

“Absolutely not,” Kaoru interjects. All of the work that went into relaxing flies out the window as Kaoru stalks closer to him, grabbing his face to get a good look at it. Kojiro lets out a small ow when Kaoru tilts his face to the side, making sure there’s no black eye or bruises forming on his jawline. “I’ll help clean you up.”

“I can do it myself -”

“Kojiro.” Kaoru’s tone is firm, and it’s clear that there is no room for disagreement tonight. He takes his wrist, squeezing gently. “You are going to let me clean the blood off of your face, and you are going to tell me what happened while I do it.”

Kojiro blinks, looking a bit taken aback. Kaoru has no idea why, when he has always been one to take charge in situations like this. Regardless, he drags him into the bathroom, making Kojiro sit on the edge of the bathtub while he tears apart the bathroom for towels, bandages, and maybe even rubbing alcohol. Only able to find the first two of the three, but then realizing there’s not really much he can do with the bandages, he runs the towel under water. This isn’t the first time one of them has shown up at the other’s doorstep with injuries, though usually they were from bailing while skating. Fortunately for Kaoru, a split lip and bloody nose are easy to deal with. 

He sits down next to Kojiro, and gently begins pressing the towel at his lip to wipe off the blood. Kojiro tenses when the cold water touches the still angry cut, but relaxes relatively quickly. 

“So,” Kaoru starts, blunt as ever, “you went out drinking with Jae-hyun at six o’clock. Three hours later, you come back with a bloody nose and a busted lip. Care to explain how this happened?” he asks, leveling Kojiro with a dissatisfied look.

Kojiro sighs, though the action makes him wince a bit. “It’s really not that important,” he says. 

Kaoru, already irritated, doesn’t buy it. “It clearly is, if you showed up like this!”

“You’ll get angrier,” Kojiro warns. He’s looking up at the wall, pointedly keeping his eyes off Kaoru. Kaoru finishes cleaning the blood off of him, and folds the towel in half, pressing it against his lip. Despite the circumstances, he still finds himself flustered at the fact that he’s touching Kojiro’s lips. It feels like it should be something forbidden, even though he’s done it countless times before, taking care of one injury or another. 

“If anything, I’m angry that you won’t tell me,” he says. If he sounds huffy or bitchy, he really doesn’t care. The only thing on his mind is learning what happened. 

After a moment of hesitation, where Kaoru is considering actually getting angry to drag it out of him, Kojiro relents. “We went out to a bar. Some of the guys there, I hadn’t met before. I guess they’re mutual friends of a couple of his brothers or something that Jae-hyun had to invite. They asked me who I was, and I told them I was here with you.” 

“I don’t see how that interaction leads to this,” Kaoru says, impatient. He’s moved on to pinching the soft part of Kojiro’s nose gently, and Kojiro leans forward instinctively, having done this countless times before.

“Give me a second,” Kojiro replies, letting out a strained, annoyed huff. “Anyways, I guess they all knew you because Chiyoko had told them about you. And they were drunk already, and started talking shit about you, saying that they were surprised you actually got someone to date you…and then they started to talk about your looks.”

Kaoru frowns. “About my looks?” he asks, still not seeing how that would lead to a fight. 

“Yeah. About how you don’t have any tits - their words, not mine - but you have a nice ass.” 

Kaoru flushes when he hears the words coming out of Kojiro’s mouth. Of all the things he thought he’d hear today, this was not one of them. “But I know that,” he says. 

“Sure, but I just -” Kaoru looks down, and he notices Kojiro’s hand curling on his knee. “It pissed me off that they were talking about you like that. Mostly because I knew they wouldn’t say that shit to your face, but thought that it was fine to say around me.” The words ‘your boyfriend’ go without saying. “I told them to shut up, to stop talking about you like that. And one of them, who already had too much to drink before he showed up, said…” Kojiro stops himself, like repeating it is too difficult for him. 

Kaoru, still pinching Kojiro’s nose, leans forward a bit to urge him on. He ignores how close they are, ignores the way it makes a sort of fire start in the pit of his stomach, because he needs to know. If this random gaggle of men were talking shit about him, he deserves to know. “What did he say?” he asks. “Tell me verbatim.”

Kojiro closes his eyes like what they said pains him. “That you must be a freak in bed to make up for being such a frigid bitch.”

Kaoru can’t help it - he lets out a small laugh, finding it funny. “Really? That’s the best they could come up with?”

Kojiro jerks his head up, forcing Kaoru to let go of his nose, and if it pains his nose, he doesn’t seem to notice. He looks serious, and the grin on Kaoru’s lips fades just as quickly as it had appeared. “I didn’t think it was funny. So I punched him.”

“ Kojiro.” It’s shocking. Despite being a big, muscular guy, Kojiro isn’t a fighter. In fact, it’s Kaoru who has gotten them into the most fights over the years. Kojiro only fights if it’s absolutely necessary, generally taking the path of least resistance, or favoring talking things out before throwing punches. This, Kaoru thinks, wasn’t necessary in the slightest. “You punched him first?”

Kojiro nods, solemnly. “Then he said you must have me whipped, so I punched him again. He looks a lot worse than I do,” he says, though it doesn’t sound like he’s bragging. 

He really doesn’t know how to respond. Although his mind tells him to not find it thoughtful that Kojiro went as far as beating someone up to defend him, he can’t help it. No one has ever done that for him before, and he’s often been left to defend himself. With other guys, they would probably have laughed it off and let it go. With Kojiro, though, he didn’t think twice before defending him, even when Kaoru wasn’t there. Even when Kaoru likely never would have known about the conversation, if Kojiro hadn’t told him.

Then, Kaoru remembers, Kojiro isn’t his boyfriend. 

“Why couldn’t you have just brushed it off?” Kaoru asks, nervously wringing the towel in his lap. “It’s not as if we’re really dating.”

“Does it matter?” he asks, eyebrows furrowing in frustration. “I don’t like when people talk shit about you. Maybe I wasn’t thinking straight, but I just couldn’t help it.” Then, his face softens; there’s a flash of vulnerability in his eyes, almost imperceptible if not seen by Kaoru. “I’m sorry.”

Kaoru’s chest tightens. How could he be upset with Kojiro over this, when he risked his standing in this fucked up little social circle to defend Kaoru? “I’m not mad at you, Kojiro,” he reassures him. “You didn’t have to do that, though.” 

“I know.”

Feeling bold, Kaoru continues his scolding. “You could have just let it go.”

“I know.”

“And now they’re probably going to tell everyone what happened.”

“I know.”

“But I’m not mad at you.” Kaoru sighs, shaking his head. “If anything, I’m disappointed that he got a hit in on you.” He smacks him lightly on the chest, faking irritation. “You’re letting yourself get beat up by trust-fund babies now?” 

It’s clearly light-hearted, Kaoru’s attempt at brevity, and it works. Kojiro chuckles, a low, deep rumble in his chest, and Kaoru can’t help but smirk at his own success. “Not my proudest moment,” he admits with a tinge of sarcasm.

Kaoru leaves him alone to shower, but when left alone to his own thoughts, they begin to spiral, as they tend to do on this vacation. Kiriko had said that Kojiro wouldn’t do this whole fake relationship thing for anyone but Kaoru. While at the time he didn’t believe it, having Kojiro come back to the hotel with a bloody nose and busted lip has challenged his disbelief. He said, I don’t like when people talk shit about you. Not just people generally, or even his close friends, but Kaoru specifically. And Kaoru knows that Kojiro doesn’t get into needless fights, which means he likely thought that this fight was justified. 

Kaoru’s always known that he owns a little place in Kojiro’s heart, just like Kojiro does in his. This is the first time he’s considered that the place he holds is bigger than originally thought.

When Kojiro finally comes to bed, thoroughly washed of blood and alcohol, Kaoru’s mind is a jumble of thoughts. It was already a mess, like a huge ball of yarn tangled with knots. But when Kojiro gets settled in bed, and Kaoru knows he should have fallen asleep already, he shifts on his side to face him. “Kojiro,” he starts, quietly.

Kojiro glances over at him, still getting under the covers. “Yeah?”

Kaoru hates to admit it, but he feels shy. He feels like asking this might change something between them. It could lead down one of three roads; Kojiro returns his feelings, Kojiro rejects his feelings, or Kojiro doesn’t pick up on his feelings. Marching on regardless, he asks, “All of this…this is just a favor to you, right?”

Kojiro’s lips turn downwards, his brows furrow together. Kaoru is aware that it’s a vague question - he made it purposefully vague, because being too specific might reveal too much. After a moment of careful contemplation, Kojiro responds. “Yeah. Of course it is.” 

Ah. So it’s option number three. Kaoru feels stupid. So, incredibly stupid. Kiriko had gotten his hopes up, when he knew Kojiro the best out of anyone. Of course this was still just a favor to him. It wasn’t anything else, and likely never will be. “Ah. Alright.”

Kojiro’s frown deepens, and he shifts a little so he can face Kaoru head on. Kaoru, overwhelmed by the undivided attention but with nowhere else to go, meets his eyes. If Kaoru was more of a fool, he’d say that he looks almost hopeful. “Why do you ask?”

“I was just making sure,” Kaoru says, and immediately regrets wording it like that. Especially when he sees how Kojiro’s facial expression changes, from curious to a more discouraged look. “I’m just thinking too much,” he tacks on at the end, awkwardly. 

If Kojiro wants to say something, he doesn’t. Kaoru almost hopes he will, even though the thought scares him; instead, Kojiro drops whatever he had planned to say, and Kaoru isn’t brave enough to ask him what it was. “You should get some sleep,” he says, and with the two of them facing each other, it sounds hushed, like a secret for both of them to keep.

There’s a weird tension between them, but Kaoru doesn’t have the courage to do anything about it. He likely never will. He opts to nod, though it messes up his hair on his pillow, and wordlessly agrees.

Kaoru only looks at his lips to make sure the bleeding has stopped. At least, that’s what he tells himself, before he forces himself to shut his eyes and fall into a fitful sleep.

“You look like shit.”

That’s not exactly what Kaoru wants to hear upon walking into Chiyoko’s hotel room, but then again, Kiriko has never been one for subtlety. 

“Thanks,” Kaoru deadpans, throwing a glare in her direction. Most of the bridesmaids are already there, sitting in their chairs and waiting for their turns with one of the two makeup artists. Chiyoko is already having her makeup done, with a lot of effort being put in to make it look like she isn’t wearing any makeup at all. 

Kaoru sticks close to Kiriko, despite her greeting when he walked in the door. He really didn’t sleep well last night. He knew he didn’t have a chance when he had so much on his mind, all overlapping each other and growing to an overwhelming volume. He had to get out of bed and sit on the couch instead, feeling restless and reading on his tablet until he passed out, and had subsequently been woken up by his alarm while curled up on the couch. 

So, yeah, he looks like shit. Maybe he can use some concealer under his eyes if even Kiriko noticed.

“Did you have a bad night last night?” Kiriko asks. Kaoru is hanging up his dress on the rack Chiyoko had brought, thankful that he had thought to get coffee before coming over. “You look like you barely slept.”

“Because I didn’t,” Kaoru sighs, sitting next to her on the couch in the corner of the room. “I slept for, at most, three hours.”

Kiriko nods, sipping her own coffee and contemplating this information. “Did you and Kojiro fu -”

“Absolutely not!” Kaoru hisses it under his breath, the very idea flustering him, making his face heat up. “He came back from the bar with a bloody nose and lip. I had to clean him up.”

Kiriko gapes at him, looking as shocked as Kaoru had felt last night. “He got into a fight? With who?”

“One of Jae-hyun’s brother’s friends.” 

“Jae-hyun knows assholes?”

“It was his brother’s friend, not his. Keep up.”

Kiriko frowns, clearly feeling insulted. “Are you gonna tell me why he beat him up or not? I don’t think I’ve seen Kojiro get into a fight since we were in high school.”

Kaoru, for whatever reason, feels embarrassed to admit that he was the reason for the fight, but he figures there’s no use in being vague or lying to Kiriko. Besides the fact that she would find out no matter what, news of what happened is probably already spreading by now. “They were talking about my body, which was already pissing him off, and they said something like, ‘he must be a freak in bed to make up for being a frigid bitch.’ And he didn’t think it was funny, so he punched him.”

Kiriko looks astonished. The conversations happening around them are loud enough that no one is really paying the two of them any attention, but she still leans forward, speaking in a low voice. “He beat someone up to defend you?” When Kaoru nods, she presses on. “And you still think he doesn’t have feelings for you?”

“I asked him, though. I mean, I asked him if this was still a favor to him, and he said of course it was.” Kaoru sighs softly, shaking his head. Remembering it, the way he had felt so let down by Kojiro’s answer, still hurts. “You really got my hopes up for nothing,” he says, pinning the blame on Kiriko, perhaps somewhat unfairly. 

“Kaoru. You are so stupid.” Hearing this, his head snaps up, his eyes shooting daggers at Kiriko. She meets his glare head on, not backing down. “You didn’t even stop to consider that he might have said that because he can’t tell how you feel about him, either?”

Kaoru gapes at her. He decides to throw out the idea before he can let it take root in his head. That would be frightening, something too dangerous for him to let happen. Even if he did feel the same way, what would that mean for their friendship, the only constant Kaoru has ever had in his life? What if they dated, broke up, and Kaoru was left adrift, all alone, without anyone who would truly understand him the way Kojiro does? 

It would be the biggest mistake of his life, if he lets it happen. 

“I didn’t consider that,” he starts, slowly, “because I don’t think he would keep something like that from me.”

“But you would keep something like that from him?”

“It’s different.”

Before Kiriko can further interrogate him, Chiyoko’s voice suddenly fills the room, rising over the three different conversations going on all at once. “Kaoru!” she calls out, “Come over here!

Suddenly, all eyes are on Kaoru, everyone looking back in his direction after hearing Chiyoko’s request. Kaoru tries to ignore everyone’s gaze as he stands up from the couch and goes over to Chiyoko, sitting in the chair across from her. She’s still having her makeup done - she has a soft wash of pink on her eyelids, a soft brown thinly lining her eyes, and a soft pink lip stain on. She just looks soft, her natural features accentuated by the makeup. Kaoru wonders if she really needed a makeup artist for this. “Yes?” he asks, thankful for the distraction. 

She has a knowing, serious look in her eyes, and Kaoru really hopes she hasn’t caught on to the whole…whatever it is now that’s going on between Kaoru and Kojiro. “Did you hear about what happened last night?”

Kaoru feels that all too familiar feeling of anxiety rise up in his chest. He shouldn’t be so surprised, since it happened at her fiance’s bachelor party, but he’s still caught off guard. “Of course I did.”

“Is Kojiro okay?” she asks, lowering her voice and leaning in closer, to keep it between the two of them. “I’m really sorry about what happened.”

“Why? You weren’t there,” Kaoru says, a bit taken aback. 

“I’m apologizing on Jae-hyun’s behalf. He didn’t mean for something like that to happen.” She sighs, clearly frustrated. “He didn’t really want a bachelor party, but his brothers convinced him to at least go out for drinks the night before. He was thinking that, if he hadn’t let them convince him, none of this would have happened.”

“It isn’t his fault, Chiyo,” he reassures her. “I would say I’m sorry about Kojiro, but really…that guy got what was coming for him.” 

Chiyoko laughs, although it’s a softer one than usual for her. “He looks a lot worse than Kojiro does, probably.” She sighs, turning in her chair after the makeup artist is done, and takes Kaoru’s hands in hers. “We figured it’d be best to disinvite that friend from the wedding. He’d probably make a scene if he showed up, and besides, neither of us really like him anyways.”

Kaoru’s brows knit together. “Isn’t he a family friend, though?”

“We decided that we wanted you and Kojiro at the wedding more than we wanted him,” Chiyoko tells him. She squeezes his hands with a smile. “You two are more important to us than a family friend who would say the kind of stuff he did.”

“I…” For a moment, Kaoru isn’t sure how to respond. He feels touched, of course, even though he would have attended the wedding regardless of if that man had or not. On top of that though, he feels guilty. Not for Kojiro getting in a fistfight with him, or for not being mad that he had, but for lying to Chiyoko and Jae-hyun. They have been nothing but welcoming, kind, and hospitable, and Kaoru doesn’t know how much longer he can keep up the lie. Especially knowing that he and Kojiro, as a supposed couple, have become important enough to them that they disinvited a family friend for their comfort. He wants to come clean at that moment, lay it all out on the table, but the only thing stopping him is that he doesn’t want her to have to worry about keeping such a huge, monumental secret on her wedding day. So, rather than tell her the truth, he just says, “Thank you.”

Chiyoko’s smile widens, and she squeezes his hands again, before letting him go. 

The rest of the morning passes in a blur. Kaoru is so thoroughly distracted by his own thoughts that he doesn’t make much conversation with any of the other bridesmaids. Besides, none of them really try to make any with him, giving him an excuse to zone out. The only things he really registers are doing his own eyeliner, having a hairdresser put his hair in a half-up bun, and having Kiriko help zip up his dress. 

He actually hasn’t tried it on before today. It had escaped his mind, and whenever he had the time to do so, he was too worn out to even worry about it. He had even forgotten what it really looked like, until he catches himself in the mirror after Kiriko zips it up for him. 

It’s a form fitting silk dress, with a cinched, faux-wrap waist, a leg slit, and a tasteful v neckline. It hits him in all the right places, it fits like a glove, but most importantly, it’s sage green. 

Everyone has the same dress or suit, in the same color, but seeing that it’s green gives him pause. He twists a bit in the mirror, getting a better view of it while everyone else is putting the finishing touches on their hair or their makeup. The green catches the light, makes the shine look like morning dew on a patch of grass in the middle of spring when the sun beams down on it, and he realizes then why the color stunned him.

There’s no way I’m this desperate, he thinks, scolding himself. Get a grip, Kaoru. 

The wedding venue is a few miles away at a botanical garden in the middle of the city. The outside has expansive, sweeping fields of flowers and trees of various colors and types, small ponds with rocks artfully arranged around them and traditional bridges stretched across them, and a carefully carved out path for guests. The wedding itself is taking place in front of an enormous, towering gazebo, with ivy crawling up the poles of the building and lights strung along the roof. There are at least fifty chairs spread out in front of the gazebo, in a clearing outlined with purple and pink flower beds. It looks like a wedding venue that anyone could rent out - likely why Chiyoko and Jae-hyun chose it, as they aren’t fans of excess - but anyone with eyes would be able to tell just how high-end and luxurious this botanical garden truly is.

The staff at the garden lead Chiyoko and her bridesmaids to a small, still lavish building nearby the gazebo for her to meet with her father, and to keep her from being seen by her fiance before the wedding properly starts. It’s honestly a bit stuffy, and Kaoru has never been good around crying people - Chiyoko has started to cry, as well as some of her bridesmaids and her maid of honor - so in the meantime, Kaoru decides to step outside by himself for a breather. 

Despite having gone to many weddings before, Kaoru has never once been in the wedding party. Honestly, if someone asked him to do it again, he would refuse. The experience today has been stressful and soul-sucking enough that he doubts he would ever want to be in another wedding party. Showing up to them with a gift and with no other obligations to the couple is much more preferable. 

He steps out into the garden, arms across his chest as he feels the breeze sweep through the air. The wind tousles his hair, threatening to pull some strands loose from his bun. He sighs, aggrieved, and tucks the hair behind his ear as he looks off to the side, in the direction the wind is blowing, as if glaring into the breeze would be enough to make it stop altogether.

When he looks over, though, he sees a person coming up the winding path behind the building, hands in his pockets and completely alone. Kaoru doesn’t need to look twice to see who it is. And, it seems, Kojiro only has to glance up briefly before stopping in his tracks when he recognizes Kaoru, standing up the road from him. 

Kaoru finishes tucking his hair back, wondering when he got transported into one of his dramas. 

He likely won’t admit it, at least not to his face, but Kojiro cleans up well. He always has - he’s in a simple black suit with a white button up, a couple of the buttons undone for comfort. His hair, still a mess of curls despite his best efforts to get it under control, is pushed to the side, fluttering in the wind. It should be a boring outfit. It’s one that Kaoru would make fun of him for wearing rather than something more fashionable, if not for the fact that he looked so damn good in it. 

When he gets close enough, after stopping for a moment to stare at Kaoru (which he is pretending didn’t happen for his own sanity), Kaoru tilts his chin up at him. “What are you doing over here?” he asks, still having to call out to him.

“What does it look like? I’m taking a walk,” he replies, coming up from the trail to stand in front of him. “The wedding’s not starting for another half hour or so, right?” 

“Right.”

“So I decided to take a walk.”

Kaoru glances over at the gazebo, which he can see off in the distance. There are people still arriving, gathered around the clearing or sitting and catching up with each other. It’s not as if Kojiro would have been by himself had he stayed at the gazebo, but Kaoru knows he probably felt a bit awkward around the other guests there. Especially if Kaoru’s parents have already arrived. “Did Jae-hyun tell you about the friend?”

“Yeah,” he says, staring off at the gazebo too. They can both see Jae-hyun there, standing at the altar with the priest and welcoming guests. “I apologized about last night too, but he said I did him a favor by making it end early.”

There’s a touch of humor in his voice, so Kaoru allows himself to let out a soft little puff of a laugh. “Chiyo told me he didn’t even want to go out drinking.”

“Honestly? I don’t see him as much of a bar hopper.” 

Kaoru hasn’t seen him since last night, the last thing he had seen before trying to fall asleep. His nose doesn’t look too badly bruised, and his lip, while still healing, doesn’t look too bad either. He quickly takes his eyes off his lips and, in an attempt to keep Kojiro from making some kind of comment, says, “You look better compared to last night.”

“You think so?” Kojiro asks, and he absentmindedly touches his lips. Kaoru remembers touching them himself last night, and he feels his fingers tingling. “It doesn’t hurt as much as it did last night.”

“You should be glad you didn’t get a broken nose.”

“I don’t know, maybe it would’ve made me look hot,” he says facetiously, rubbing his nose now.

Kaoru scoffs. “You look good the way you are,” he says. 

The meaning of his words - though not the best, most flirtatious compliment he’s ever given (and Kaoru can be flirtatious if he wants to be) - catch up to him shortly after he says them. His eyes widen in distress, realizing what he’s just admitted to, but he isn’t fortunate enough for Kojiro to ignore them. No, instead, he stops touching his nose and his eyes light up. Of course, he has to rub it in. “You think I look good?” he asks, and he begins stepping up the small concrete curve separating them. Kaoru backs up near the wall, feeling a bit like prey. It’s frightening; it’s exhilarating. He can feel his heart rate pick up the closer Kojiro gets to him, but he doesn’t push him away or tell him to stay back. “If I knew that, I wouldn’t have let myself get punched in the face.”

“So it’s my fault you got into that stupid fight?” Kaoru retorts, but there isn’t much bite. Not when he’s being forced to look up at Kojiro, face his overwhelming gaze, and become a willing victim to it.

“I didn’t say that.” Kaoru has his back against the wall now. Kojiro isn’t completely crowding his space, still offering him an escape if he chooses to take it. The thing is, though, that Kaoru doesn’t even think of doing so. If anything, it feels like a challenge, and the two of them have always been competitive. 

“All I meant was you don’t need to get beat up to look -” Kaoru starts, but he stops himself, knowing what word would come next. He isn’t ready to admit that to Kojiro. Maybe, in a world where the two of them are actually dating, he would tell him that he already looks dashing enough as he is, maybe even see if he could make him blush. But Kaoru isn’t living in that world. He has to keep himself from finishing his sentence, if only to preserve his dignity. 

Kojiro has flirted with enough people, though, to be able to put two and two together. His eyes rake over Kaoru’s form, taking in the silky green dress, the way it falls on his body. Kaoru feels completely naked, even though some traitorous part of his brain enjoys the attention. His eyes meet Kaoru’s again, and Kaoru, not for the first time this week, feels small. “I think you look good too, princess.”

Kaoru has flirted with enough people, too, but this time he feels utterly at a loss. With Kojiro, he sometimes isn’t able to tell if his nicknames are flirtatious or friendly. He’s always called him a myriad of nicknames, ranging from full on insults to ones that sound too much like pet names. 

This time, though, the princess sounds like a pet name, and it throws Kaoru for a loop - he’s never heard Kojiro mean it that way, and it makes something burn deep in his stomach. It stuns him, scares him, excites him, but he can’t even do anything with all of these erupting emotions before the back door flings open.

“ Kaoru - oh.” 

Kiriko stares blankly at the two of them - at Kojiro having Kaoru with his back up against the wall, like a scene out of a high school drama where the love interest has his arm bracketing against the main character, except Kojiro is merely standing there, hands still in his pockets. 

Kaoru could die. No, he will die. He would rather die than have to hear anything that Kiriko might say about the position she found them in, because he knows she’s going to roast him the second she gets him alone. While trying to figure out some way to disappear and get to safety, Kojiro glances at her with a relaxed look on his face. “What’s up?”

“...The wedding is about to start soon, and Chiyoko was wondering where he went,” Kiriko says. Kaoru wishes he hadn’t stepped outside at all anymore. “I didn’t know you were out here, too.”

“I was going for a walk,” Kojiro informs her.

“It looks like you were trying to do something else.”

“ Kiriko.” Kaoru finally decides to glare at her, after he’s unable to come up with ways to vanish off the face of the earth. “I’ll come in in a moment.”

She simply looks between the two of them, giving Kaoru a look that says I see what’s going on here, and goes back inside, leaving the two of them alone. Kojiro sighs, stepping away from Kaoru to give him some more space. 

“Guess it’s starting sooner than I thought,” he remarks, rubbing the back of his neck awkwardly. Kaoru notices that he’s not looking at him, instead glancing at the ground or casting his eyes over at the gazebo, where more people have gathered since he arrived over here. “I should go.”

Kaoru wants to stop him, but he doesn’t. He can’t. Even if he did, what would he say? You should know that I realized I’m in love with you? That’s not even an option - not for Kaoru, not right now.

So he lets him go, and watches him go back down the trail he had come from. From afar, he can see that the trail actually forks off in two different directions - one towards a bridge, the other towards the gazebo. Kaoru thinks it’s strange that Kojiro happened to walk up the path to where he was. 

If he was naive, he’d say it was fate, or instinct. But he isn’t, so he calls it a coincidence.

The wedding ceremony was beautiful, as was to be expected. The aisle was lined with flower petals, pink and green and yellow, the same color as the flowers adorning Chiyoko’s low bun and in the hair of all of the bridesmaids, a last minute touch she had insisted on. They had written their own vows, both bringing tears to everyone’s eyes, and then laughter as Chiyoko lamented not being able to write as well as Jae-hyun after his vows made her cry. Jae-hyun had gone in for the kiss too early, but after a do over, they were pronounced husband and wife, and Chiyoko held her bouquet in the air triumphantly as everyone clapped, cheered, and dried their eyes.

Kaoru searches for Kojiro in the crowd of unfamiliar faces and finds him, already looking at Kaoru, with a little smile on his face. He can’t help it - the emotions swirling in his brain, around the garden, among everyone in the crowd, all add up and make Kaoru smile back at him, just as small and subtle. Despite being at a wedding, it feels like they’re alone, sharing this moment together, just the two of them. 

The party moves to a large swath of land, covered by tall, white canopy, draping down over wooden stakes with greenery and lights wrapped around them, keeping the fabric in place. There are large, circular tables with white tablecloths draped over them, covered in dishes and cutlery and blush pink and sage green flower arrangements. It’s nothing like Kaoru has ever seen before, on TV or in real life - it gives off a sort of luxe, affluent vibe without being too over-the-top and opulent. He isn’t totally sure how they managed to do it, but it feels welcoming, homey, and totally lavish. 

Of course, Kaoru, Kojiro and Kiriko are seated next to each other, at a table where two other bridesmaids and their respective partners are seated as well. One couple, a lesbian couple who came all the way from England, completely take over the conversation with their spirited retellings of their adventures across the globe. The bridesmaid is one of Chiyoko’s oldest high school friends, so the communication barrier is pretty much non-existent - she and Kojiro get along instantly, as he tends to do with normal, notably not stuck up people. Kaoru and her girlfriend, a quiet, mousy librarian, get along as well, filling in their time at the reception discussing art and literature. Not surprisingly, their table ends up being the loudest one, earning the ire of the ones surrounding them, but no one seems to care. Kaoru had almost forgotten, since being on this trip, what having normal conversations with normal people is like. 

After dinner is served, and after the first dances with the bride and groom and their parents, more people start to filter onto the dance floor. The DJ plays a mix of dance music and slow songs, giving everyone a chance to dance with each other and then couple up with their plus one. 

Kaoru, strangely enough, feels at ease tonight. Usually he’d wonder when it’ll all come crashing down on him, but it’s a wedding - nothing bad should happen tonight, and that’s what he takes solace in as he lets his guard down.

His own plus one comes back from the open bar with a couple of cocktails for himself and Kaoru, after being ordered to fetch them for him. He’s taken his jacket off, rolled up the sleeves to his shirt, and his hair has come unraveled from the deliberate side-sweep he had attempted earlier in the day. As he sets their drinks down on the table, a slow song comes on over the speakers. The songs have started to bleed into one another, especially the slow songs, which aren’t very different from one another. Even so, Kojiro straightens up and glances over his shoulder at the dance floor when he hears the slow tempo start. “Hey, Kaoru.”

“Yes?” Kaoru isn’t paying much attention to the song change, instead focusing on picking the lime wheel off of his cosmopolitan.

“Let’s dance.”

Kaoru’s heart stammers in his chest. This entire week is going to make him develop heart problems, and he’s definitely going to make Kojiro foot the bill when said heart problems rear their ugly head. “But I just got my drink.”

“And it’ll be there when we’re done,” Kojiro replies. He holds out his hand for Kaoru, waiting patiently for him to take it. “Come on. You’ve just been sitting here all night.”

“Excuse me for not wanting to make a fool of myself in front of everyone,” he says stubbornly. Really, though, he knows how to slow dance. He’s done it plenty of times before at plenty of other weddings. But he’s never done it with Kojiro - whenever they went to weddings, he’d bring whoever he happened to be dating at the time, and Kaoru would bring Ainosuke - and the idea of doing it now, of being that close to him with everyone staring at them as they danced…Kaoru thinks he would rather not. 

“You aren’t gonna make a fool out of yourself, and no one’s going to be paying that much attention to us,” Kojiro reasons, and he waves his hand, bringing Kaoru’s attention back to it. “I’ll lead, if you’re really that scared,” he says. There’s a smirk growing on his face though, like he’s challenging Kaoru to dance, and he cannot let that abide. 

Hesitantly, after shooting a glare at him for good measure, Kaoru slips his hand into Kojiro’s. That same feeling at the beach house, when their hands had touched in Kaoru’s bag and his hand had felt electric, returns. This time, though, Kaoru’s hand is cold from the cool night air, so the sensation is intensified, as Kojiro’s hand warms his own up. He lets Kojiro guide him to the dance floor, though, trying to ignore the feeling of lightning in his palm, racing up his fingers, into his arm, and throughout his entire body. 

It’s difficult, though, when Kojiro puts his hand around Kaoru’s waist. He pulls Kaoru closer, and Kaoru places his hand on his arm, just barely hovering over his bicep. 

“You can touch my arm, you know,” Kojiro says, amused, as his other hand takes Kaoru’s. He pulls him even closer, until their noses nearly brush together. He can’t help but watch how Kojiro’s hand nearly swallows his hand up, how his hand on his waist threatens to sear through his dress, into his skin.

If it makes a fire rumble inside him, he tries his best not to stoke it.

Kojiro does seem more suited to slow dancing than him. While Kaoru feels a bit stiff and awkward, even after getting over himself and resting his fingers on Kojiro’s arm, Kojiro manages to lead them both like he promised. Kaoru tilts his head down, not feeling brave enough to look him in the eye like this. Maybe, if he had more to drink, he could have. It feels too intimate, too close, and if he had more to drink, he wouldn’t have just looked at Kojiro - he might have even laid his head in the curve of Kojiro’s neck. 

Strangely enough, they don’t talk at first. They take their time getting used to the beat, getting used to dancing with each other. It’s a calming, rhythmic sway, and after a minute, Kaoru starts to relax. 

“Told you you wouldn’t make a fool of yourself,” Kojiro says. Since they’re so close, he lowers his voice, and it comes out deeper, huskier. Kaoru can feel his breath next to his ear before he even hears Kojiro speak. “It’s not that hard to just sway.”

“It is if you have a bad partner,” Kaoru retorts. 

“Yeah, but I’m not a bad partner.”

“I liked it more when we weren’t talking.”

Kojiro chuckles, and he glances to the side, taking in the other couples who have taken to the dance floor as well. “You know, weddings always make me want to get married,” he admits. He sounds wistful, sighing softly. “Especially really nice ones like this. I guess I’m a sap.”

“I could have told you that,” Kaoru says, but him mentioning marriage makes him remember the talk in the cafe with Kiriko and Chiyoko. Was that really only four days ago? “I didn’t think you were the type of person to want to get married,” he adds, feeling daring. 

“Why not?” Kojiro asks, and he pulls back just the tiniest bit so he can look at Kaoru, his eyebrow raised in interest.

“Maybe the fact that you haven’t had a relationship that lasted longer than a year?” he replies, though he doesn’t say it in a rude way. Rather, he sounds matter of fact, like this is the most logical conclusion. “Someone who wants to get married would probably date a little more seriously.”

“I don’t want to settle for just anyone, though,” Kojiro says. “I’d rather be single. But I still want to get married.” 

Kaoru mulls it over. He’s not had enough to drink to lay his head on Kojiro’s shoulder, but he has had enough to ask questions that he wouldn’t otherwise. He isn’t brave enough to outright say We should date, I’m in love with you and it scares the everloving shit out of me but I want to, but he does manage to say, “If you haven’t found the one yet, then what kind of person are you looking for?”

Kojiro is silent for a moment. Maybe he wasn’t expecting the question, or feels like Kaoru is asking too much of him. Kaoru is about to take it back, right as Kojiro says, “I want someone who challenges me, I think. Someone who knows everything about me. And I’d want them to be smart, and…and witty, and kind, and beautiful.” 

“Surely that’s not too hard to find,” Kaoru says, though his voice sounds choked. It was a mistake to ask this, because while the adjectives are vague enough to apply to anyone, the more specific preferences - someone who challenges him, someone who knows everything about him - those are traits Kaoru has. Maybe Kojiro just subconsciously wants someone like his best friend, or maybe…

“Well, despite what you think, I’m picky,” Kojiro says, a clear attempt to lighten the mood. But Kaoru is too deep in thought to really notice. The atmosphere has shifted between them, and whatever Kojiro says next - whatever Kaoru says next - has the potential to reveal all the secrets the two of them have been keeping from each other. 

Kaoru rests his hand on Kojiro’s chest, unable to look away from him. He feels like he’s walking on a tightrope suspended hundreds of miles in the air, and any wrong move might make him teeter off and plunge to his death. He feels Kojiro’s breath hitch when his hand, the one Kojiro had been holding, flattens against his chest. “Maybe you haven’t been looking in the right places,” he says, though his own voice has lowered too, a step above a whisper. 

Kojiro looks desperate, like he’s close to cracking, ready to spill all of his feelings out on this dance floor, in a foreign country, full of people he doesn’t know beyond a superficial level. The mere idea of it mortifies Kaoru, but then, Kojiro has always been more courageous than him when it comes to expressing his emotions. “Kaoru, I -”

“There you are!”

Kojiro merely blinks, having been interrupted so unceremoniously. Kaoru, on the other hand, turns his head towards the voice, and finds his mother standing in front of them. Hanami looks displeased, her mouth turned slightly downward and pressed into a firm line. Her exclamation sounded less excited and more relieved, as if she had been looking all over for her son. “Your father and I wanted to speak to you and Kojiro,” she says. 

Kaoru instantly frowns. “Why?” he asks. He hasn’t moved from Kojiro yet, not wanting to pull away from the warmth that’s enveloped him unless he absolutely has to.“Does it matter why?” she snaps, uncharacteristically. It’s enough to make Kaoru’s eyes widen, and for Kojiro to be the one to pull his hands away from Kaoru, as if they were caught red handed. “Come with me,” she says, composing herself, and begins to walk away from the reception area, towards a more secluded part of the garden.

Given virtually no choice, the two of them follow after her. 

They come to a spot in the garden that is shrouded with trees, hanging over a couple of benches like a natural archway. Sitting on one of those benches is Itsuki, looking severe. 

The only thing his father does when they get close enough is hold out his phone with a picture displayed on it; that of a man with a black eye, broken nose, and bruised jaw, his hair an unruly mess and a splint covering his swollen nose.

Kojiro stops in his tracks. He looks completely blindsided, eyes widening as he lays eyes on the photo. Kaoru looks from the man to Kojiro, brows furrowing. “Kojiro, who-”

“You should really listen to your mother and I every once in a while,” Itsuki says, standing from the bench. He looks infuriated, but in his restrained, polite way, when he wants to keep up appearances. Even at twenty-six, the look still instinctively makes Kaoru’s anxiety spike. “We’re really supposed to believe that a man who could do this -” he gestures at the picture, “would be a good match for you?”

Kaoru puts two and two together quickly. This must be the man who Kojiro beat up - the man who, because of it, was disinvited to the wedding. He looks rich, and Kaoru can tell just by looking at his picture that no one has ever wronged him and gotten away with it. Especially not a man poorer than him. “Father , Kojiro only did that to defend me!” Kaoru exclaims. “Who did you even get that picture from?”

“He got in contact with us and sent us the photo, after getting uninvited from the wedding your boyfriend was welcomed to,” Itsuki says. “You think he deserved this? That it was alright for him to do this because he got slightly offended?”

“What did he tell you?” Kaoru demands. His anxiety has turned into anger in record time, and he clenches his fists, stalking up closer to his father. “Whatever it was, I can guarantee it was a lie!”

“He informed me that Kojiro beat him up until he was bloody and his nose was broken, all because he made one bad joke about you,” Itsuki says, and his voice begins to raise, matching Kaoru’s rage. “Kaoru, we cannot accept you being with someone who would resort to violence so quickly!”

“He only punched him because he made more than one ‘bad joke’ about me,” Kaoru spits back. “If you knew what he actually said, how much he had been insulting me, you’d be on Kojiro’s side!”

“Violence should never be the first option,” Hanami adds, a bit unhelpfully. Kaoru can imagine it now - the two of them getting a text from an unknown number, with falsified information about what happened the night before and a picture to prove it. It all pointed towards Kojiro being the one completely in the wrong, as if he had resorted to getting into a fight before anything else. He can imagine his parents planning to completely bombard them with this as proof that they were right and Kaoru was wrong, in an attempt to break up their relationship.

Clearly, to his parents, context didn’t matter; what mattered was that he did it, not if the guy had deserved it or not.

Kaoru, once figuring out their game plan, feels enraged in a way he never has before. It boils up inside of him, climbing higher and higher to the surface, until he fucking snaps. “Kojiro would never resort to violence! He had tried asking him to stop, and the guy took it as an invitation to make things worse!” His own voice is rising, getting louder and louder in volume, and he can’t stop himself. “But you don’t care why he did it. You just want to use it as an excuse to break us up!” 

“Kaoru, we’re concerned about you -” his mother starts, coming up from behind to gently grab his arm, but Kaoru jerks his arm away in retaliation.

“What is there to be concerned about? That he isn’t rich? That he doesn’t make over a hundred million yen a year? That he isn’t a doctor, or a lawyer, or a CEO?” Kaoru asks, mind becoming fuzzy with nothing else but anger. “What is it, if not that?”

Finally, Itsuki finally plays his hand. He lays it all out on the table, forgoing niceties, passive aggression, and exclaims, red in the face, “We’re worried he’s using you for your money, Kaoru!”

Kaoru is not blind with rage very often. Usually, he has a good reason to be. In fact, he does right now, but he can feel the rage in his body taking over his senses. Nothing else matters right now, except being rightfully and justifiably pissed. “ What?!”

“Think with your head, Kaoru! He makes much less than you, and you’re more than happy to foot the bill - you really think we’d believe he could buy expensive clothes with his own money, like what he wore at that first dinner, or when we ate out a couple of nights ago? Not to mention that he feels completely comfortable with talking back to us, when he should be nothing but respectful to us! He saw you, knew you had money, and used his cooking and whatever else to get you to date him, so he could mooch off of you!” Itsuki is not quite yelling yet but getting very, very close to doing so. “And when we saw what he did last night, we just couldn’t sit by and let you make the mistake of being with him anymore!”

Kaoru is stunned. The expensive clothes he had bought for Kojiro in an attempt to help him fit in, the sugary sweet story he had made up about how they got together - it all blew up in their faces. While Kaoru expected his parents to not like Kojiro, he never expected it would be because they think he’s a gold digger, or that he’s supposedly violent. 

He remembers him, then - that Kojiro is still there, listening to this abuse without saying a single word. He turns his head to look at him, and finds him standing positively still, though his fists are clenched and his head is tilted downward. No one speaks for a moment, the gravity of Itsuki’s words sinking in. 

Then, Kojiro lifts his head. His brows are firmly turned downwards, as is his mouth, and Kaoru can see the anger simmering beneath the surface in his eyes. How he keeps from blowing up after this abuse is nothing short of a miracle. “If you’re so sure that I’m using Kaoru,” he starts, voice steady and struggling to remain calm, “then I guess there’s nothing I can say to change your mind.”

With one more defeated glance cast in Kaoru’s direction, he turns on his heel and stalks away, back up the path the two of them had arrived on. The reception is in full swing still, and life goes on, as if Kaoru’s is not tumbling to the ground at this very moment.

Kaoru watches as he leaves, just like he had earlier this morning, although this time only a cocktail of sadness and fury twists his stomach. He immediately makes to follow after him and turns his back on his parents, but his father stops him by saying, “Let him go, Kaoru -”

“ No!” Kaoru yells, whipping his head around to glare at him. He cries it out, his voice sounding broken, visceral, embarrassingly like he might actually start sobbing. “You’re wrong about him! You have never even tried to get to know him - or to get to know me! If you had, you would know what he means to me!” The stress of the situation, the rage still buried deep within him, all comes toppling over and out of his mouth as he makes his parents subject to all of the feelings he’s been holding inside. Nothing he says is a lie - how could it be, when he feels it so passionately that it stabs his heart, threatens to tear him in two? “I don’t care that he isn’t rich! I don’t care that you liked Ainosuke more than him, or that you think he’s violent because he stood up for me after spending this entire week being judged for simply being poorer than the rest of you! I love him, more than I’ve ever loved anyone, and I’ll rot in hell before I let you keep me away from him!” 

Funnily enough, he feels like a teenager again. He feels like he’s defending the shithead stoner boyfriend he had in high school, who he didn’t last a full six months with before having to come back with his tail between his legs and admit he was wrong. Except this time, he means it. Even if Kojiro doesn’t feel the same way, even if after this he’s going to go back and try finding the one to spend the rest of his life with, even if it isn’t Kaoru - Kaoru knows, in some place deep in his heart, hidden away from everyone but himself, that Kojiro is worth defending. 

Kojiro is worth loving. 

Kaoru has nothing else to say to his parents, and even if he did, they were both stunned into silence after his outburst. He runs back to the reception, and not expecting to find Kojiro, seeks out Kiriko instead. He finds sitting at their table and sipping a margarita. “Kiriko,” he wheezes, catching his breath, “Have you seen Kojiro?” 

She blinks quickly, taken aback by Kaoru’s abrupt entrance. “He left to go back to the hotel like, three minutes ago.” She frowns, standing up from her chair. “Did something happen? He looked pissed.”

“Yeah, my parents,” is all Kaoru is able to get out before Kiriko nods in understanding. “Can you tell Chiyoko something came up? I need to see him.”

“Of course,” she says, before Kaoru bolts off.

Kaoru really shouldn’t be running in heels, but he’s able to make it work in wedges, flagging down a taxi driver and ordering him to drive Kaoru back to the hotel as quickly as possible. It’s the longest ten minutes of his life, but there’s nothing else he can do except sit and wait, cursing Seoul traffic as he does. He manages to get back, though, and rushes to the elevator, ignoring the sideways glances from the other guests in the lobby and coming off the elevator. In his rush, he closes the elevator on another guest about to get in, but he can’t find it in himself to really give a shit. 

He can’t put his keycard in the door fast enough, and when he flings the door open, he finds Kojiro with a suitcase on the bed, and the closet doors wide open. 

“Kojiro!” Kaoru breathes, the adrenaline rush catching up with him. He closes the door gently, venturing further into the room. Kojiro has stopped packing his clothes for a moment, keeping his eyes on Kaoru as he approaches. “What are you doing?” he asks, feeling panicked.

“I can’t deal with this anymore, Kaoru,” he says, but he doesn’t sound angry - it’s more that he sounds defeated. “Your parents think I’m a piece of shit. Nothing we can do or say is gonna make them change their minds, so why even stay?”

“Because -” Kaoru starts, and while he wants to say ‘because I want you to, would that even be enough to keep Kojiro here? “Because we only have to be here for a couple more days.”

“I don’t think I can stay that long,” he says. He goes back to folding his clothes, a blue silk shirt Kaoru had bought him just days ago in his hands. “Not unless they leave first. I’m tired of this shit.” He nearly smacks the shirt into his suitcase, getting more worked up the more he talks. “I’m tired of being treated like I’m not a good person because I don’t have as much money as all of you, or because I don’t have the perfect job, or because I’m apparently ‘ violent?’” Kojiro doesn’t yell - he rarely ever does - but Kaoru can feel the anger brewing in the room. “They care more about appearances than being good people. I know I told you to let it go and that I’d suck it up, but I just - I don’t think I can anymore.” He looks at Kaoru then, and Kaoru is struck by just how saddened he looks by this whole ordeal - guilt eats at his stomach. “I thought I could deal with it when you asked me to come. I only came because it was you asking me to.”

“Wait,” Kaoru starts, feeling dizzy, “You said you came because you didn’t want me to come alone.”

“Isn’t that the same thing?” Kojiro asks, irritated.

“You said it was a favor,” Kaoru says, feeling indignant. He raises his voice, fighting back against Kojiro, against the idea that this could be anything more than a favor, because if it is, then Kojiro…he... “That’s what you said last night! It was just a favor to you!”

“It’s not just a favor to me!” Kojiro snaps. It’s one of the only times Kojiro has ever truly raised his voice at Kaoru, but it’s not even volatile - if he doesn’t, Kaoru will start speaking over him. He gets more spirited as he talks, finally cracking under the pressure. “Kaoru, the whole reason I came to this wedding with you, the whole reason I put up with your family’s shit, is because I love you!” 

Time slows down. It feels like everything is happening in slow motion. Even the deep, shaky breath he takes feels too damn slow. There is absolutely no way in hell this is happening, that this is real, that Kaoru isn’t dreaming this right as he’s about to wake up. “...What?”

“I love you, Kaoru.” Kojiro repeats, though this time his voice isn’t raised. It’s steadier, more level, but it’s clear that it’s taking a lot of strength for him to get it out. “I loved you before we went on this trip, before you broke up with Ainosuke, before I went to Italy. And some dumb part of my brain thought that, if I couldn’t be with you, at least I could pretend for a week,” he says, his voice falling off at the end. “But it’s pretty damn clear that it was a bad idea.” 

He zips up his suitcase then, and Kaoru isn’t able to react quick enough before Kojiro has stepped around him, towards the door. “Kojiro, wait -” 

“Kaoru, I can’t -” 

“Stay.” Kaoru blurts it out without thinking, grabbing his wrist. His mind is just now catching up with him, but too much has happened for him to be able to process it all. “Just stay here, and I - if you really want to be alone, I’ll stay with Kiriko until we have to go home.”

Kojiro’s face falls. He pauses in the doorway, about to leave, his broad frame blocking the only way out. “You don’t have to do that,” he says, gently.

“I will,” Kaoru decides stubbornly. “I can stay with Kiriko, but where are you even planning to go? Buying a plane ticket for tonight will be impossible.” 

“Kaoru -”

“Just listen to me!” Kaoru cries, letting his emotions get the best of him. Kojiro shuts up, eyes wide at the outburst. “I’m sorry about this whole trip, Kojiro. I’m so, so sorry. I should have just admitted that I didn’t have a boyfriend. This is all my fault, so just -” Kaoru stammers, taking a deep breath and gathering himself. “Just stay in this nice hotel room alone, and if you really still want to leave tomorrow, I’ll buy your ticket. Please.” 

Kojiro seems to hesitate. He opens his mouth to speak, before closing it and sighing. “Let me help you pack a bag, at least,” he says. 

The two of them, in an awkward silence, put together an overnight bag for Kaoru to take over to Kiriko’s room, whenever she returns from the wedding. It’s during this silence that Kaoru really realizes what Kojiro admitted to. 

Kojiro loves him. Is in love with him. Has been at least since they were third years in high school. Every moment that has happened on this trip - him unpacking Kaoru’s clothes for him, draping his jacket over Kaoru’s shoulders, bringing them drinks at the beach, holding Kaoru in the water and carrying him to the beach house on his back, glancing at his lips in Chiyoko’s kitchen, flirting with him before the wedding and naming his ideal partner when they danced - all of it happened because Kojiro has been in love with Kaoru for nearly ten years, and Kaoru hadn’t realized his own feelings until three days ago. 

I always have more fun when you’re traveling with me.

Isn’t it enough that I love him?

I don’t like it when people talk shit about you. 

I think you look good too, princess. 

Kaoru, I - 

Kaoru can’t return the sentiment. At least not right now, after Kojiro has laid his heart bare, and now acts as if he hadn’t said anything at all. Casually telling him that he loves him, too, would probably make Kojiro think that he’s lying or just trying to make him feel better. He probably wouldn’t believe him. 

So Kaoru keeps it to himself and doesn’t bring it up out of the blue in one last effort to protect Kojiro’s heart. After everything he’s put him through in the past week, he decides the least he can do.

Kaoru wakes up on an uncomfortable couch, with a throw blanket pulled up to his chin and his feet poking out at the bottom. The room he’s in doesn’t look much different from his own, but when he turns onto his back, he notices the couch is wine red instead of navy blue.

Right. He’s in Kiriko’s room. 

When she had gotten back to the hotel, she let Kaoru into her room, and the two of them had ordered an abundance of room service and Kaoru had told her everything. About the confrontation with his parents, about how Kojiro wanted to leave, about how Kojiro had said he loved him, though he didn’t have to say as much for her to know. She had listened, letting Kaoru get it all out, until he had thoroughly worn himself out and passed out on the couch. 

Last night felt like a fever dream. When Kaoru sits up on the couch, his head spins, and he slaps his hand over his forehead in a weak attempt to ward it off. He runs a hand through his hair, scrunching the loose strands in his fingers and stretching out his arms - the couches here aren’t very comfortable, he’s beginning to realize. 

Kiriko is nowhere to be found. She may have left to get food, or go shopping, or see her parents, but either way she didn’t leave Kaoru with any notes or clues. He picks up his phone, laying next to an empty glass of wine, and turns it on.

There are two texts from Kojiro, from thirteen minutes ago.

Against his better judgment, he opens it. 

Kojiro [07:20 am]: you still good for that airplane ticket?

Kojiro [07:21 am]: apparently I gotta go back home

Kaoru blinks, his eyes squinting as he reads the messages. He holds his phone close to his face, not thinking to search for his glasses. His mind catches up with him, and a sense of dread claws its way into his chest. 

He has to go back home? he wonders. He texts him back, rather than leaving him on read.

Kaoru [07:35 am]: Yes. Give me a second, I’ll come back to the room

Kaoru is still in his pajamas, and as he slips his shoes on and packs everything he brought over up, he looks at the bridesmaid dress slung over the back of a chair. It makes him falter in his step, if only for a moment, before he throws it over his arm and leaves Kiriko’s room. 

Their room is a floor down, so after a short elevator ride and about thirty seconds of hesitation, he opens the door, though not as dramatically as he had the night before. 

“I’m gonna see what I can do,” he hears as he walks in, and he sees Kojiro lounging on the couch, a leg crossed over his knee. He’s rubbing his eyes, looking stressed, and Kaoru wonders if he even slept last night. He may not have even gotten Kaoru’s text, making his look of surprise when Kaoru walks into the room make sense. “Listen, I gotta go, but I’ll tell you when I can get back, okay? Alright, bye.”

“What was that?” Kaoru asks. Kojiro sighs, leaning his head back on the couch and closing his eyes tight. Clearly, whatever it is is inconveniencing him. 

“My sous chef’s grandfather passed away this morning,” Kojiro tells him, “and he lived in Tokyo, so he has to go back for the funeral planning.”

“That’s awful,” Kaoru says, and he genuinely means it. He knows his sous chef - a no-nonsense type of guy, in and out of the kitchen. He’s the one Kojiro leaves in charge whenever he can’t be there, and the one left in charge this time, which means… 

“I have to get back there as soon as possible,” he says, sounding stressed out. “The earliest flight I could find was for 10:30 this morning, but -”

“I’ll buy it,” Kaoru interrupts. “You need to get back.”

Kojiro finally looks at him for the first time that day. He doesn’t look like himself - he looks like he’s barely holding it together. Between the drama of last night and the situation this morning, Kaoru doesn’t think he would be able to keep it together, either. In all honesty, Kojiro is doing a much better job of it than he would be, though his shoulders are a little more slumped than usual, his eyes a little more sullen. 

“If I had the choice,” Kojiro says, “I would have stayed here.”

It feels like he picked up a glass and smashed it on the ground, grinding it back into sand with his foot. It’s always the simple things he says or does that take Kaoru’s breath away. The air is still thick with tension between them, but his admission breaks through it. 

“You didn’t have to,” Kaoru says shakily.

“I would have.” Kojiro exhales, getting up from the couch. “But I can’t,” he adds, coming around the couch to go back into their room, where he has his packed suitcase from last night balanced against the wall. Kaoru follows, sitting on the edge of the bed. Deciding to make himself useful instead of just staring at Kojiro, he takes out his phone and begins swiping through flights, until he finds the one Kojiro mentioned. 

He buys it without batting an eye at the price, sending the tickets to Kojiro’s phone, which dings in the other room. 

“Thanks,” Kojiro says, in the midst of packing up the rest of his things. A travel-size bottle of cologne, an electric razor, more clothes that he had left in the dresser. Kaoru’s mood shifts when he realizes that Kojiro is really leaving him here, as he watches the dresser drawers empty out, the clutter on the bathroom counter reduce. “I feel bad asking you about it, but…”

“Don’t be,” Kaoru says quickly. “I offered to do so last night, and it’s for an important reason.” 

“Still,” Kojiro frowns, zipping up his second suitcase. He stares at it, noticeably not at Kaoru, as he talks. “I’m sorry about last night.”

Kaoru, in disbelief, blinks. “What?” Then, more eloquently, “You didn’t do anything wrong.”

“I was pissed and emotional,” he clarifies. It feels like he wants to say more, needs to say more, but simply can’t find the words. That, or he’s too scared to. “I’m sorry about that.” 

“It’s fine,” Kaoru says, desperate to not let Kojiro feel any sort of shame or guilt. “I would have been, too.” 

He hates when things are awkward between them. It’s such a rare occurrence that Kaoru sometimes forgets just how painful and plain weird it feels. Sometimes, both of them have things that they need to keep hidden away deep inside, and no amount of open communication is enough to get it out of them. 

Kojiro doesn’t want to outright say what he’s sorry for; Kaoru doesn’t want to outright tell him why he shouldn’t be sorry. 

The next hour passes in a blur. Chiyoko and Jae-hyun, who have waited to go on their honeymoon until after everyone has left in a couple of days, offer to drive them to the airport after hearing about what happened back home. The two order breakfast together, eating in awkward, tense silence. Kojiro doesn’t ask about what, if anything, happened while staying at Kiriko’s last night, and Kaoru doesn’t ask if Kojiro got any sleep. Like many things between them, there’s a silent, tacit agreement not to ask. 

Chiyoko and Jae-hyun arrive at the hotel at 8:30 on the dot, both of them looking refreshed and happy, the typical appearance of newlyweds. For some reason, it puts even more of a damper on Kaoru’s mood, though he doesn’t say as much to them. Kojiro, though there’s still a delicate feeling in the air, manages to make half-hearted conversation with the both of them on the way to the airport, blaming his lack of sleep the night before for his low energy. 

Kaoru watches the skyscrapers pass by, the people on bicycles or taking walks together, sights he hadn’t seen the first time they drove from the airport, and tries to control the unsettling feeling in his stomach. There’ll be a moment of reprieve once Kojiro gets on the plane and leaves Kaoru in Seoul, but after those couple of days, what then? What will this whole trip mean for their friendship, their lives that are so interconnected that they were able to convince people they were actually dating? 

Maybe Kaoru could come clean, tell Kojiro that he feels the same way. Now that he knows his feelings, it makes doing so less impossible, but not less frightening. If they decide to start dating, what if they realize they’re better off as friends and don’t last? Would they ever really be able to go back to normal? There are so many variables, so many possibilities, that it makes Kaoru’s head spin. 

As things are now, he could just not confess, and things would be more or less the same. Kojiro’s confession will be swept under the rug, never to be seen or heard from again. But on the other hand, there’s no way Kaoru could let that happen. 

He has to tell him. 

He just doesn’t know how. 

The four of them all venture into the airport, so Chiyoko can pick out which gate his plane is at. He glances off in the direction she gestures towards, then back at the three of them. Kaoru is off to the side, and Kojiro’s eyes find him almost instantly, as if there’s a magnetic field that instantly draws him to Kaoru. Or maybe it’s just twenty years of instinct. “I’m sorry I’m leaving on such short notice,” he starts, pulling his eyes back to Chiyoko and Jae-hyun, “but thank you for having me.”

“Of course!” Chiyoko exclaims, and she comes over to hug him, like she had the first time they met. Kaoru can’t tell if she doesn’t realize something has happened between them, or if she’s pretending not to. “It was really nice to meet you. I told Kaoru beforehand if you weren’t good to him, I’d put you in your place, but I’m glad that I don’t have to now.”

At that, Kojiro laughs, although it’s less cheerful than it would have been under different circumstances. It sounds almost sour, like his heart isn’t in it - it very likely isn’t, honestly. “I’m glad you approve of me,” he says, a little smile on his lips. It’s all an act, from the forced grin to the weak laugh, but he manages to pull it off. When she pulls back, he grins at Jae-hyun, before clapping him on the back and getting a shocked oof sound out of him. “It was nice to meet you, too,” he says. “I’ll have to read your book some time.”

Jae-hyun, still recovering from being smacked on the back by someone twice his size, coughs. “I-I’ll send you a copy,” he wheezes, and Chiyoko laughs, rubbing his back for him. 

His eyes glide over to Kaoru, who, under the circumstances, has little to laugh about. Kaoru returns his gaze, and it feels too intimate, too tense, to be looking at each other like this in a public airport. Kojiro’s eyes flit down to his lips, and Kaoru has one thought, one that he wishes would shut up and leave his mind at once but absolutely refuses to - is he going to kiss me?

I might let him.

Instead, Kojiro gives him a soft smile, and pulls him into a hug. It might just be for show, or it might be genuine - the lines are becoming more and more blurred the longer they stay together. Either way, Kaoru wraps his arms around Kojiro’s waist, closing his eyes as he holds on. It isn’t their first hug, and likely won’t be their last, but for some reason Kaoru doesn’t want to let go.

He has to, though, when Kojiro pulls away from him and says, “I’ll see you in a couple of days.” 

Kaoru nods, slowly. “See you,” he says, softly. 

Kaoru does not chase Kojiro through the airport to give his declaration of love; he does not grab him from behind to keep him from leaving; he does not try to sneak on the plane with him. He stands with Chiyoko and Jae-hyun and waves as Kojiro walks away from him, suitcases in tow, towards home.

As it turns out, Chiyoko was not unaware of the weird tension between the two of them.

“Did something happen?” she asks, turning her head to look at Kaoru in the backseat. They’re caught in traffic, a car crash jamming up the road ahead. “You guys were both acting weird. He didn’t even kiss you goodbye or anything.” 

Kaoru can see Jae-hyun glancing back at him in the rear-view mirror, trying and failing to not be interested. Kojiro is gone, the wedding is over, and there’s really no need to keep pretending that they’re anything more than what they are - best friends who might not be best friends anymore once Kaoru gets home. What they will be is anyone’s guess.

“He never kissed me this week,” Kaoru says dryly. Chiyoko frowns, playing the week over in her head. 

“I guess you’re right,” she concedes, sitting back in her seat. “I thought you just didn’t like PDA, but - not even in private?”

He shakes his head. “Not even in private,” he repeats. Kaoru keeps his voice level as he finally, finally admits, “We were never even dating to begin with.”

Even Jae-hyun turns in his seat, exclaiming “ What?” alongside his wife. Kaoru doesn’t have the energy to find it amusing that they were pretty much in sync, merely wincing at their cries. “You weren’t dating?” Jae-hyun asks, stunned. 

“I hadn’t told my parents that I had broken up with my last boyfriend, but you seemed so happy when you asked if I was going to bring him, that I said yes,” Kaoru explains, eyes on Chiyoko. “Kojiro was the only person I could get on such short notice to say yes. I didn’t want to tell you that I lied.” He looks in his lap now, feeling a bit like a scolded child under Chiyoko’s gaze. “I’m sorry. I should have just sucked it up and told you the truth, but now things are weird between Kojiro and I, and -”

“Whoa, hold on,” Chiyoko interrupts. The car pulls forward slowly, as the crash ahead gets cleaned up. She waves her hand, forcing Kaoru to stop talking. “You and Kojiro spent a week here pretending to date, all because you couldn’t tell me that you had lied?”

“...Yes.”

“And now the two of you are acting weird with each other, because I’m assuming something happened last night?”

“Yes.”

“What happened, then?”

Kaoru didn’t want to rehash what happened last night ever again, but being stuck in a car in the middle of a traffic jam gives him no other choice. He tells her everything, how his parents had hated Kojiro since they were teenagers and how it had followed them into adulthood, how they used the fight against Kojiro to make him look bad, how they were determined to break them up. How Kaoru had realized his feelings for Kojiro, and had finally stood up to his parents at her wedding. 

“He left the wedding early, and I followed after him, and he -” Kaoru’s recounting of events stops. He hasn’t really said it out loud yet, not even to Kiriko. In fact, he got this far before Kiriko understood what he was getting at, and offered him wine instead of making him keep talking. But Chiyoko doesn’t know, likely hasn’t been paying attention to them the way Kiriko has, so he has to keep going. “He told me he only did all of this because he loves me.”

Chiyoko gasps, her hand covering her mouth. “Did you tell him how you felt, too?” she asks. 

“...No,” Kaoru admits, then quickly adds after seeing Chiyoko’s jaw drop, “I thought that if I did, he’d think I’m lying, or just trying to make him feel better, or something. And neither of us brought it up this morning, so I thought maybe he just wanted to forget about it!”

“Of course he didn’t bring it up! He probably thought it would be weird, but if you had said something, maybe he would have, too!” Chiyoko replies, matching Kaoru’s energy. “And if you were worried that he’d think you’re lying or something, then it wouldn’t have mattered if you told him right then or days later!”

“Don’t yell in the car,” Jae-hyun pleads, but it’s lost among Kaoru, Chiyoko, and their tempers. 

“And you just let him go home without telling him,” Chiyoko continues, not giving Kaoru the chance to breathe. “And now he’s getting on a plane, all alone, wondering if he ruined your friendship because you decided for him not to tell him how you feel!” 

“I’m going to!” Kaoru exclaims. The two of them are fully arguing now, and though it’s not as heated as his and Kojiro’s arguments can get, it’s still intimidating to watch. “You don’t have to tell me all the different ways I fucked up when I already know!” 

“Please,” Jae-hyun butts in, turning his head around to look at Kaoru. He raises his voice for the very first time since Kaoru has met him, and it sounds unnatural, like someone has taken him over. “Stop yelling in the car!” 

Both Kaoru and Chiyoko shut up. Jae-hyun sighs, turning back in his seat and slumping a little. “Chiyoko’s right. You should have told him as soon as he told you he loved you. But you didn’t.” Kaoru winces at that. “But the best thing you can do is go home and tell him how you feel, instead of feeling bad about all the things you didn’t do,” he concludes, calmly. Chiyoko has relaxed some, letting out a soft huff before turning back around in her seat. Jae-hyun takes her hand and squeezes it, and it seems like any residual anger dissipates.

The mood has calmed down, and it settles over Kaoru, making his temper melt away. He had been hesitant to confess - still is, if he’s being honest - but Jae-hyun and Chiyoko are right. The only thing he can do to clear the air between him and Kojiro is sucking it up and tell him he loves him, too. 

He can’t do that when Kojiro is likely already boarding the plane, miles away from Kaoru. Kaoru can’t very well leap out of the car and run back to the airport in the middle of a congested highway. 

Kaoru’s only option is telling Kojiro everything, as soon as possible, the second he lands in Okinawa. 

Kaoru spends the rest of his day in a daze. He orders room service, cleans up the hotel room, and begins packing up all of his things for the flight home tomorrow. He feels like he’s floating through the hours. He goes out to eat by himself. He wanders around the shopping district, passing by the chocolate store he had dragged Kojiro to before their first family dinner, and impulsively buys a box all for himself. He spends some down time at a park, and it reminds him of the conversation he and Kiriko had just a few weeks ago, where she had suggested Kaoru take Kojiro with him. Throughout the day, he checks his phone intermittently, and only finds a text from Kojiro when he lands in Tokyo for a layover at dinnertime. He considers calling him, but decides against it. 

As for what he’ll say to him, after cycling through various possibilities, he eventually gives up. He knows his plane is landing late, and that the ride itself is almost 17 hours long with a layover in Osaka, but that he’ll get home in time to possibly catch Kojiro at his apartment. He has no plan in mind, except for getting off the plane, getting a cab, and immediately rushing to Kojiro’s home. No rehearsed, carefully formulated confession is good enough, or gets across everything he wants to confess. It feels too clinical, too logical, too unemotional. A love confession should be spur of the moment , he thinks, logically.

For once, he decides not to plan anything. Kaoru hopes that, once he sees him, he’ll know what to say.

The plane ride does not go as planned.

To start off with, the flight is delayed for an hour and a half. Kaoru is stuck in the waiting area by his gate, his annoyance growing with each passing minute, until they’re finally able to board passengers. When he lands in Osaka, his luggage gets misplaced, prompting him to spend an hour hounding the help desk about it until they find his suitcases. He gets a headache from the whole affair, and naps during his layover, only to be woken up by a large family insisting they needed the bench he was sleeping on. 

Kaoru is irritated by the time he gets on the plane to Okinawa, and it doesn’t help that he’s absurdly anxious - butterflies in stomach, about to confess to your first crush anxious. The closer he gets to Naha, the more it builds in the pit of his stomach. He tries sleeping to ignore it, then drinking, then eventually decides he really can’t ignore it and must get used to it instead. 

When he lands in Naha, it’s eleven at night, two hours later than he was meant to return home. While he may not catch Kojiro in his apartment - he tends to fall asleep earlier than Kaoru, though he could call Kojiro to wake him up - he might be able to catch him still closing up Sia La Luce for the night. Maybe, just maybe, Kojiro left the door open for him. 

Kaoru waves down a taxi and quickly tells him the address, promising to pay him extra if he speeds. He has to hold on tightly to the hand grip, but the taxi driver books it out of the airport as fast as he can, incentivized by extra pay from someone who looks like he has money. It only takes about fifteen minutes to arrive. Kaoru pays the driver handsomely as promised, takes his suitcases out of the trunk, and finally looks up at Sia La Luce.  

The lights are on. 

Kaoru’s heart stutters in his chest. He’s spent the last two days agonizing over this exact moment, what he’ll do, what he might say or not say, how Kojiro will react to the confession. Will he be relieved? Shocked? Upset? Angry? Possibly all four options? Kaoru has no possible way of knowing, and as someone who likes things to be exact and predictable, the uncertainty is overwhelming. 

It’s something he has to do though, so he takes a deep breath, steels himself, and carries his suitcases with him into Sia La Luce. 

The door chime jingles as he opens the door. All of the chairs are already stacked up on the tables, and there’s a wet floor sign out, though the wood seems to be dry. There’s some movement in the kitchen, soft music floating out into the dining area, but it doesn’t sound like there’s more than one person here. Kaoru hears the footfall on the tile and is frozen in place, as non-slip shoes step onto the wood flooring underneath the bar. 

“Sorry, but we’re closed -”

Kojiro stops when he sees Kaoru, standing more than a foot away from him, his hands firmly holding onto the handles of his luggage. Kaoru had the chance to check himself in the mirror at the airport, brush his teeth, but there was nothing he could do about the dark circles from failing to get more than four hours of sleep for the past two days. He doesn’t look perfect, but he figured he should rush here immediately, in his old, oversized shirt from his teenage years, rather than go home to change into a yukata first. Honestly, he might look like a ghost, considering the way Kojiro’s eyes widen in surprise when he sees him.

“I didn’t know you got back,” he says. He doesn’t make any moves towards Kaoru, except for coming around to the front of the bar, likely because he thinks he isn’t allowed to. Kaoru takes the initiative instead, leaving his luggage by the door and taking a careful, measured step towards him.

“I just did,” he says. “Twenty minutes ago.”

Kojiro gapes at him. Kaoru can see his brain putting two and two together. “And you came straight here?”

Kaoru nods. If he has something to say, now would be the time. He takes another step towards Kojiro, as if he’s about to sit at the bar. 

“Well, shit - are you hungry? I was just cleaning up, but -”

Kaoru has never been good with words. At least, not in an emotional, vulnerable way. He’s never really confessed to anyone before. His past boyfriends all had to make pleas for him to date them. It wasn’t that Kaoru is emotionally distant, but rather that he had never been able to open up enough to say “I love you, I want to date you.” It had always rested on whoever he had a crush on to make the first move. 

Kaoru hasn’t changed much. When he digs deep down he finds no words he can use that would let Kojiro know how he feels, how much he means to him, how he loves him and might have loved him for much longer than he realized. 

So, instead, Kaoru cups his face, and impulsively cuts off his words with a kiss.

It doesn’t start off chaste at all. Kaoru doesn’t want to be chaste, and Kojiro hasn’t known how to be since he was a teen. The tension of this past week, something neither of them truly addressed, has built up to this inevitable collision. They’ve never been able to hide anything from each other for very long, and the kiss has all of the untouched nerves and passion they had been holding in pouring out. Kojiro very quickly adapts, after being momentarily shocked, by grabbing Kaoru by the waist and tugging him closer, almost flush to him. Kaoru has to wrap his arms around Kojiro’s neck, though one hand still presses on warm skin, making sure he doesn’t try to move away. As if he would - he’s very nearly pulling Kaoru into a hug with how tightly he’s holding him. 

Kojiro has to rest his weight against the bar top, leaning back as Kaoru leans in further and tries taking more and more and more. He hadn’t expected that kissing him would be this addictive, but he doesn’t want to stop, and Kojiro is more than happy with giving him whatever he wants. The only thing stopping Kaoru from fully climbing on top of him - besides the bar not being sturdy enough - is Kojiro’s wayward hand as he accidentally knocks a wine glass on the ground, shattering it on the floor next to their feet. 

They pull away from each other, panting, catching their breath as they come up for air. Their eyes lock together, and while Kaoru is still waiting for his brain to come back online, Kojiro beams . A big, dopey grin, dimples and all, like he’s just won the lottery, like this is the best thing to ever happen to him. 

Kaoru wants to kiss that stupid look off his face. 

Kojiro doesn’t pay the glass any mind; he takes a hand off of Kaoru’s waist and his smile softens, gently cupping Kaoru’s cheek. His hand feels warm, calloused from years spent in the kitchen, and Kaoru can’t help but lean into the warmth like he always has - like he always will . “I guess you’re not hungry,” he says, amused. 

“I am,” Kaoru corrects him. He doesn’t slip away from him, even as Kojiro stops leaning against the bar. “But I had more important things to do first.”

Kojiro huffs a laugh, and it makes Kaoru smile. He feels light, like the weight of the world is off his shoulders. He wonders if, had he told Kojiro while they were both distressed, right after the fight with his parents, if it would have gone this well. 

“Leave it to you to tell me like this,” Kojiro says, fondly. 

“I don’t think you would have believed me otherwise,” Kaoru replies. “And it was the first thing I could think of.”

“Well, it worked,” he admits, and Kaoru smiles, a little more sly this time. Kojiro glances down at the shattered wine glass, the only flaw on his exquisitely cleaned floors. Kaoru’s eyes trail down as well, feeling bad for a moment that he caused some property damage.

“I’ll buy you a new one,” Kaoru promises, and he feels a little brave. “In fact, I’ll buy you an entire set. It’s about time you update the glassware here.”

At that, the hand on Kaoru’s face pinches his cheek hard, making him yelp in pain. “You little shit,” Kojiro says, although there’s no malice in his words. In fact, he’s smiling, even as Kaoru is rubbing his reddened cheek and giving him the stink eye. “You should stay here tonight.”

Kaoru stops licking his wounds for a moment to glance up at Kojiro. “Take me on a date first before you invite me over.”

“No -” Kojiro sighs, running a hand down his face. Kaoru feels a little too pleased at the way he gets under Kojiro’s skin, and that despite it all Kojiro decided to love him. “It’s late, and you just got home after a long flight. You’re already here, so you may as well stay the night, too.”

“Well, when you put it like that…” Kaoru starts, “I suppose it makes sense.” 

“I’ll help you carry your stuff up, just give me a second,” he says, pulling away from Kaoru to fetch a broom and dustpan. Kaoru mourns the loss of heat, the feeling of his hands on his skin, his waist, but consoles himself with the fact that it’s not the last time he’ll ever get to feel it. 

At the start of new relationships, Kaoru tends to be nervous. He gets in his head, thinking about all the possible ways that it could end up not working out, playing out each scenario meticulously in order to prepare for the worst. But with Kojiro, even though he had still simulated all of the different rejections that could have happened, all he feels is a sense of security. It feels as natural as breathing, to have confessed without words and then immediately go back to lighthearted bickering. 

Kaoru leans up against the bar as Kojiro sweeps up the glass, and he watches him, his heart full to burst. That someone as thoughtful, kind, loving, and safe as Kojiro loves him - and Kaoru knows it’s every part of him, as Kojiro has seen the good and the bad, as has Kaoru for him - it feels like it shouldn’t be real. But somehow, some way, it is, and all it took was pretending to date for them to both accept their feelings, express them out loud, and have their feelings reciprocated. 

What may happen in the future, Kaoru doesn’t know; all he knows is that it won’t be frightening, as long as Kojiro is there, as the steady, constant presence he’s always been in Kaoru’s life.

The next time they get to see Chiyoko and Jae-hyun as a couple is a little bit before their second anniversary, at their one-year old son Yeong-gi’s doljanchi celebration. 

Kaoru remembers getting the text from Chiyoko saying she was pregnant - it was only a couple of months after the wedding, and he got it in the evening, while laying in bed. 

“Damn, already?” Kojiro had asked, getting on his side of the bed next to Kaoru, instinctively pulling him close. Kaoru had let him, laying on his side while tucked into Kojiro’s arm. “I didn’t think Jae-hyun had it in him.”

Kaoru had smacked him on the arm, scolding him for making him think about his cousin and her husband having sex, before texting back a “Congrats, that’s wonderful!” to Chiyoko. 

Now, a year after she had had her son, Kaoru and Kojiro were back in Seoul, this time as an actual couple. This time, though, there isn’t as much anxiety or stress surrounding the visit. While doljanchi celebrations typically include family, Chiyoko hadn’t invited Kaoru’s parents, knowing that he had gone no contact after he and Kojiro began dating. Needless to say, the trip goes a lot smoother than it had two years ago. 

They head out to Chiyoko and Jae-hyun’s place - they had moved into a bigger place, a small two story house just outside of Seoul - the day after arriving, with Kaoru renting a car and making Kojiro drive. Even though it’s January, and Kaoru is bundled up in a turtleneck and peacoat while Kojiro opted for a sweater and his old varsity jacket, there isn’t much snow falling as they drive. They get stuck in traffic on the way, an inevitability in Seoul, but manage to arrive fashionably late. 

The moment Chiyoko opens the door, she grins wide and nearly attacks Kaoru, wrapping him up in a huge hug and squeezing the life out of him. “I can’t believe you made it!” she cries. She’s dressed in a light blue hanbok with a purple skirt, the first time Kaoru has seen her in traditional clothing since the New Year’s before she moved to South Korea.

“I can’t breathe,” Kaoru wheezes, although he manages to hug her back. “You’re squeezing my rib cage.”

Chiyoko laughs as she pulls away, switching to Kojiro, who takes her hug in stride. “I haven’t seen you two in forever, I can’t help being excited!” she says, laughing.

“We’re excited to be here,” Kaoru says. “Kojiro couldn’t wait to take a vacation,” he adds, nudging him slyly.

“Why are you making it sound like that’s the only reason I came?” he asks, frowning at Kaoru. He merely grins smugly at Kojiro, as if challenging him to an argument. 

“Weren’t your exact words before we left, ‘I need a break so bad, I’ve been working too damn hard’?” Kaoru asks, lowering his voice in an attempt to mock Kojiro’s.

“Sure, but weren’t yours, ‘You’ve been working yourself to death, I think a trip is needed’?” Kojiro shoots back, putting on a haughty tone when he throws Kaoru’s words of comfort back in his face.

Kaoru gapes at him, offended. “I do not sound like that.”

“Why do you think I call you princess?”

“I guess dating hasn’t kept you two from arguing,” Chiyoko says with a laugh. She waves them in, saying, “Get out of the cold and argue inside.” 

The house is clearly new, but the interior design makes it seem homey and comfortable, with hues of light green and brown and natural wood accenting the home. The kitchen cabinets themselves are painted a muted green, and the couch in the living room is beige with green throw pillows and a light wood frame. The walls are painted a nice taupe color, with darker wood floors to contrast it. There’s a plastic, multicolored high chair at the kitchen table and toys collected in an out of place toy box in the living room. It’s all incredibly cohesive, something one might see in a home magazine, but it looks very loved and lived in. 

Jae-hyun, dressed in a hanbok that matches his wife’s and currently preoccupied with family conversation, sees Kaoru and Kojiro arrive and greets them with a smile. So does Yeong-gi, propped on Jae's hip and reaching out with little arms to try and grab Kaoru’s hair, once he gets close enough. “It’s nice to see you two again,” he says, “and when you’re actually dating, too.”

Kojiro chuckles. “A lot has changed, huh?” he replies, looking down at Yeong-gi with a smile. “Can I hold him?” he asks, his paternal instincts kicking in. It’s really not surprising to Kaoru anymore; the amount of times he’s suggested having a baby after visiting his family and friends who have babies is absurd.

“Actually, that would be great,” Jae-hyun says, and hands Yeong-gi over to Kojiro, who holds him carefully against his hip. Now that he’s closer to Kaoru, he gets a grip on Kaoru’s hair, though he doesn’t pull on it yet. “I need to help set up the dolsang, but I can’t do that with him in my arms.” He leans over a little, smiling at his son. “Be nice, okay?” he says, and Yeong-gi replies with a little babble of nonsense, giggling when Jae-hyun gently pokes his chubby cheek before leaving to help his mother with the dolsang. 

More family arrives over the next half hour, and as they filter in and the dolsang is set up, Yeong-gi, who had been showing off his ability to walk with his little plastic walker, is picked up by Chiyoko to put him into his own little hanbok . Kojiro rests his arm over the back of the loveseat, and Kaoru leans into him, making polite conversation with the rest of Jae-hyun’s and Chiyoko’s families, a few of whom they remember from the wedding. 

“Alright, everyone!” Chiyoko calls out, setting a confused looking Yeong-gi down on an elevated table, so the whole family can see , “We’re ready to do the doljabi!” 

This is the main event of the day, and everyone gathers around with rapt interest. On the table are an array of various items; a stethoscope, a small microphone, a tiny soccer ball, a pencil, a thick thread of yarn, and a stack of money. Kaoru had read up on the tradition before coming - that whatever the baby chooses would predict what their future would hold - though he hadn’t known what items they would use for the doljabi. 

Yeong-gi, who looks like he might be swallowed up by his little hanbok, looks down at all of the items. He likely thinks he’s gotten new toys spread out for him, and with no one stopping him from grabbing them, he reaches his arm out. Everyone watching waits on bated breath, waiting for him to choose an item. 

Finally, his little hand rests on top of the stethoscope, and he lifts it up as if trying to put it in his mouth. 

Chiyoko rushes forward to take it from his hands before he can choke, but she looks prideful, smug even as she holds the stethoscope up in triumph. “I told you he would pick the stethoscope!” she exclaims to Jae-hyun, who looks on with a fond grin on his face. 

“Looks like we’ll have a doctor for a son,” Jae-hyun says, picking him up from the table as the rest of the family laughs at their antics, some of them clapping at and congratulating Yeong-gi’s pick, others swapping money from bets they had made earlier in the day. 

The party goes on until lunch time, where miyeokguk, tteok, and plain rice is served, and they have to pull in chairs from other parts of the house for everyone to gather around and eat. Strangely enough, Chiyoko’s parents seem to be more relaxed than the rest of the Sakurayashikis ever have been, and Kaoru wonders when, and how, that happened. He briefly wishes his own parents could be that accepting, but decides to not dwell on it for too long; he prefers the energy around the table right now, full of distant family members and people he’s never met before, alongside people he’s extremely close to. 

Eventually, though, the party gets to be too much and Kaoru has to sneak outside for some air. Chiyoko lets him into the guest room that has a balcony attached that faces the city. It’s cold, colder than it ever gets in Okinawa, but the bite of the chill is relaxing in a way. Kaoru curls his arms around himself, conserving some of his own heat. 

“Aren’t you freezing your ass off out here?” 

Muscular, sturdy, warm arms wrap around his waist, and Kaoru can’t help leaning back into the chest behind him, towards the heat that’s so familiar to him now. “Not anymore,” he replies, “Even though you smell like seaweed.”

“What, was I supposed to tell Jae-hyun’s aunts that I was full when they kept offering me another bowl?” Kojiro asks. He huffs, and Kaoru watches a puff of warm air sweep past his cheek. 

“Yes, you of all people know how rude it is to reject food,” Kaoru says dryly. “That’s why you’re so huge.”

“Exactly,” he says, and Kaoru rolls his eyes. He pulls Kaoru closer to his chest, until he’s fully enveloped by his arms. “Today was fun, though.”

“It was,” Kaoru agrees, eyes closing. He could fall asleep like this, if he wasn’t standing up.

“It’s nice to not have stuck-up rich people breathing down your neck the entire time,” Kojiro mutters, and Kaoru snorts a laugh. “It may be funny to you, but I still have trauma from that wedding,” Kojiro jokes, lighthearted. Kaoru would believe him if he meant it literally, though. 

“I know.” Kaoru rests his hands on Kojiro’s, and Kojiro takes his hands, entwining their fingers together. They simply stand there, on the tiny little balcony, enjoying each other’s presence. Kaoru leans his head back on Kojiro’s shoulder, nestling into the crook of his neck. These are some of Kaoru’s favorite moments; when they can just be, with no expectation to be entertaining or have something to say. 

“You know,” Kojiro starts, resting his cheek on the crown of Kaoru’s hair and breaking the silence, “sometimes I think, if I had to go back and do it all over again, knowing what I know about your family now, I still would do it.” 

Kaoru, frowning, turns his head up to look at Kojiro. “Why?”

“It made us start dating, didn’t it?”

When he puts it like that, it makes Kaoru feel all warm inside, like he’s just had a hot cup of amakaze that heated up his whole body. Even though lying about having a boyfriend was possibly one of the worst decisions Kaoru had ever made, it did, after all, make him realize he was in love with Kojiro. Usually, when he looks back on that week, or when Kojiro brings it up when people ask when they started dating, he feels nothing but embarrassment. But maybe, reframing it like Kojiro has, he can let go of some of that lingering humiliation and look at it in a different light.

If he had never lied to Chiyoko about still having a boyfriend, then he never would have started dating Kojiro. In a roundabout, complicated way, it led to the best decision of his life, when he and Kojiro started dating. There were probably much, much easier ways to start dating, to realize his feelings for his best friend, but then again, Kaoru only ever realizes these kinds of things when he’s forced to confront them.

After thinking it over, Kaoru replies, “I think I would, too.”

“Really?” Kojiro asks, sounding surprised. “I thought you’d tell Chiyoko the truth so you could avoid the whole situation to begin with.” 

“I wouldn’t have wanted to miss her wedding,” Kaoru says, matter-of-factly, “And I would have wanted to go with you, because I love you.”

Kojiro’s eyes soften at that. They always do, whenever Kaoru tells him he loves him, because drawing out those words from him is still a very rare occurrence. Kaoru prefers to show his love, rather than say it out loud, so every time he does, Kojiro treats the words like they’re the most precious thing in the world. If he’s honest with himself, Kaoru likes saying them just to see his reaction.

“I love you too,” he says, gently, like if he says them any louder he might accidentally shatter them. 

Kaoru smiles - a real, genuine smile, one that Kojiro has been able to pull out of him more and more often - before pressing his hand against Kojiro’s cheek and pulling him down for a kiss, happier than he’s ever been, all because his past self asked Kojiro to pretend to be his plus one.