Work Text:
‘Without you, I just can’t-‘
Keigo found himself once again squinting with growing annoyance at his phone screen as he sat in the small, quiet coffee shop that evening.
Or rather, squinting at the script.
This director made both physical and digital forms of the scripts, with physical to strictly remain at work or with the director, and all actors with access to the digital, with their respective passwords (apparently one guy was a known public spoiler, so he could only see his own parts with his).
This particular scene kept rubbing Keigo wrong.
Maybe because he has no experience with relationships? Every mushy scene with drabble like this always bothered him.
A child and parent?
He was adopted by a stern pianist who taught him how to play 5 different instruments, enrolled him in private schools, and had been pleased to hear Keigo went into theatre. “A respectable art,” he had said with an affirmative nod. “With what I have taught you, it should be easy to always find a role with the stage!”
And it was.
If Keigo couldn’t get an acting role like he wanted, he could support with piano, violin, viola, cello, or bass.
But the pianist who raised him only had conditional ‘love’ to spare. More like approval.
His actual parents weren’t any better, then again, and were actually by all means worse, or else Keigo wouldn’t have been taken away from them by authorities in the first place.
A lover to their beloved?
Keigo had no such time in school. He had to focus on his grades, instrumental practices, and theatre activities.
After two years of being completely plunged into his acting and stage career, and straight out of high school, the twenty-year-old had still yet to find someone who caught his fancy in such a manner, either.
Then again, he worked mostly around actors and actresses he found to be more shallow and narcissistic than even some of their roles had them be. The few genuine ones he had come across seemed to always be taken already, unsurprisingly enough.
There was one man who had been wonderful to work with, and single, but one of the girls took the shot before Keigo, so he let that be.
He could live without someone else this long; why would such a relationship change that?
It wasn't as if he and the other man had anything going between them in the first place anyway, besides working together for a short while.
“Need another cup?” Keigo jumped a bit when he heard the unexpected deep voice of the crimson-haired man with the one thin white streak at the front-left of his hair. The man who had before been at the register and had now seemed to materialize before his table. Keigo’s wings had even slightly fluffed from the startle.
“Ah, sorry! Yes, please!”
“Sorry?” The well-pierced man with startling sky eyes chuckled. “Seems I’m the one who should apologize! Startled you! But whatcha reading? Must be good to have you so focused on it.”
Keigo would’ve asked how he knew he was reading if it weren’t for the thin-rimmed red reading glasses Keigo was wearing. It seemed they really did reflect well.
“It really isn’t that grand,” he admitted as he returned his gaze to his phone. “At least, not this part.”
“Hm?”
Keigo chuckled. “I’m not much of a romantic,” he explained, “so every time I read some mushy, ‘oh I need you’ part in my scripts, I just. Don’t get it?”
“Don’t get it? Wait, scripts?”
“Mhm.” Keigo reached up to tuck a bit of hair back behind his ear. “I’ve only been in the business a couple years, so not a big name yet, but I act. Sometimes play an instrument or two.”
“Impressive.” The employee looked to the cup on Keigo’s table. “Guessing you had something iced and sugary, actor?”
“Keigo, and yep!” He smiled bright. “I like my coffee sweet!”
“Allergic to anything, by chance?”
“Hm, not that I know of?”
The employee retrieved the cup before giving Keigo a grin. “I got an idea you might like, then, Keigo.”
After a moment, the same employee returned to place a new cup before Keigo. “Enjoy.”
“Thank you! Oh, but how much-?”
“On the house this time.” He also placed a cherry danish beside it. “My treat.”
Keigo watched him with wide eyes as the man returned to the counter, heading to the back, leaving him out of sight as Keigo took a curious sip of the coffee.
Cold, sweet, and with a hint of cinnamon. There was definitely vanilla, and a touch of caramel, too.
Just what his sweet tooth wanted.
A small paper had been tucked under the cup, which he picked up to inspect.
‘Touya’ was on it, with a number underneath.
Keigo never knew this was about to be the experience he was missing when he happily finished his coffee and danish before leaving Touya a tip, heading home, and texting him a ‘ty!’ with a little smiley licking its upper lip.
The coffee shop soon became Keigo’s evening reading spot, right when everyone else was gone except for him and whoever was closing.
Touya closed 5 evenings a week, and was off Fridays and Saturdays. At first, Keigo didn’t mind, but he learned rather quick that he would miss Touya those evenings, both for conversation and his now usual coffee.
The girl who closed those two evenings was sweet, but she never got it right, and even admitted to him the first time he requested said coffee that it wasn’t a menu item, so they had no set recipe to follow.
Whatever it was, Touya had specifically fixed it up.
He himself even told Keigo one Sunday that he was the first, and so far only, customer he’s made it for.
It had been 6 months when Keigo finally mustered the courage to catch Touya by his apron one Thursday, causing a pierced brow to raise inquisitively. “You, uh. Wanna get together tomorrow evening? I know of a few nice places, but I’m also ok with anywhere you wanna go, too!”
Keigo was a great guy in Touya’s books, and Touya wasn’t busy. “I’ll text you when I get home,” Touya decided, “just to be on the safe side. But I’d be up for it.” He smirked. “We calling this a buddy hangout, or a date?”
Freckled cheeks flushed as Keigo glanced away. “I-I mean, if you would wanna maybe, if you’d be ok with calling it a date, I, yeah!”
He had never sounded like such an idiot in his life. Some 'actor'. If Touya walked away and never texted him, Keigo would understand.
Touya instead caught him off-guard with a gentle kiss on his forehead. “I’d love to call it a date, li’l birdie.”
Keigo didn’t mean to chirp, but Touya only chuckled.
“That was cute.”
“I, sorry-“
“There you go again apologizing when you shouldn’t, birdie.” Over time, that became a habit Touya had noticed, and worried about. He was certain something had to have caused the cute little actor to keep faulting himself for everything. “I meant it. That was cute.”
Keigo’s lips pursed as he watched Touya retrieve his cup. “But, uh, before we, before tomorrow’s officially called a ‘date’, I. I need to say something.”
“I’m all ears.”
Keigo glanced down at his hands, fingers nervously going over each other in his lap. “I’m. I'm not. I don’t have a, uh.”
“Would it help to know I’m pansexual, birdie?”
“You’re wha?”
Pretty gold eyes looked at him in confusion. “I’m alright swinging with either party. I’ve had my fair share of exes in school, guys and girls. One was certain she was a girl, so I called her that.”
That seemed to give those crimson wings a hopeful flit.
“So whatever you’re struggling to say, it’s alright.”
Keigo nodded, but he still wanted it out. And was still a mess with it. “But I’m not just. I’ve had top surgery, and there’s scars, but I like wearing any clothes-“
His wings fluffed when Touya bent down to swiftly kiss him, effectively cutting him off.
“So you’re trans?”
“I. Yes.” And brain-fried.
“Alright.” Touya smiled. “Thanks for telling me, dove.” He was adoring every second of watching that lightly-tanned skin blush deeply, and with all its little freckles. “We can definitely still call tomorrow a date, Keigo.”
For the first time, after plenty of dates with Touya and him proposing after a year and a half of coffee shop sit-togethers, Keigo felt he finally understood where those mushy directors and their mushy characters were coming from.