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Kazumi rereads the same paragraph on actio iniuriarum for a third time, then a fourth time before finally just admitting defeat.
“God, I fucking hate Roman Law,” Honoka whines at the same time, head thumping against the desk, long black hair fanning over it. Kazumi shares the sentiment. “Who decided this was a thing?”
Yui shrugs while sipping from her thermos, shoulders brushing the tips of her blonde pigtails. “The Romans I think.”
“I hate them. They shouldn’t have ever existed.”
“They invented, like, the wheel I think. And other things. Bridges maybe.”
“Yeah, and Roman Law too. I think I’m winning this one. Right Kazumi-kun?”
Kazumi knows better than to get dragged into a dumpster fire like this. Honoka is too stubborn and proud to give ground, Yui too chill about everything to actually care. He ignores them instead, closing his eyes for a little while. Just to rest. Just for a second and then he’s good to power through the rest of this hell. Fuck finals season, man.
“Wow,” Honoka takes a hand to her chest when she realizes Kazumi’s not coming to the rescue. “Et tu, Brute. Anyway, when is my obviously superior friend Itoshi Sae coming today?”
Kazumi looks up and shrugs a little. “I don’t know. He told me he’d drop around later I think. Why?”
Honoka grins. “I’m so sure the librarian has a crush on him. I wanted to get out of a fine by having him be the one returning my books.”
Kazumi snorts. He can’t help it. He’s blaming it on the lack of sleep.
“That doesn’t even count as sneaky. Who doesn’t have a crush on Sae?,” Yui argues, pen balanced on her upper lip. It’s really a feat considering the cap on one edge has a giant floofball. “Also good luck getting him to help you.”
Kazumi thinks that's probably the first accurate thing anyone has said at the table today.
“He’s gotta help me,” Honoka pouts, pulling from one of the strings of her giant hoodie because she insists on dressing like a hobo. “I paid for his coffee the other day when he had forgotten his wallet! Plus we are friends, kinda!”
Yui snorts, pushing her glasses up her nose. “The day Itoshi Sae abides by basic social rules then hell will freeze over.”
“You idiots really need to find something better to do with your time than talking about me.”
Ah, of course. Always right on time and ready to make you regret your whole existence.
Honoka beams. “Hi Sae! How was tutoring?”
It’s fascinating in a way, how a room always changes the moment someone like Itoshi Sae makes an appearance. Kazumi doesn’t need to look around to know there’s people looking at their table now, subtly trying to take a peek. Kazumi’s kind of used to it by now. It comes with the territory, if you are around Itoshi Sae for a long enough period of time.
Sae is—Kazumi finds it hard to put into words just what exactly is happening there. There’s people and then there’s people. There’s boys and there’s pretty boys and then there’s boys like him, the type that make heads turn when they walk down the street just to double check they are real, that bring out blushes left and right just with a stare.
There’s just something to him—an aura, Kazumi thinks, glittering-blue and icy. Something about his skin or how long his neck is, the sleepy eyelids and doll eyelashes, girly but not quite. Also the greenest eyes you’ve ever seen must really help.
“Boring as always,” he takes a seat and starts spooling his scarf at the same time. “I could do that fatso’s job in my sleep.”
Kazumi looks up suddenly, alarmed. “I hope you didn’t tell him that.”
Sae barely arches an eyebrow, now taking off his coat too. “What’s wrong with telling people what they are?”
Honoka snorts. “He’s so gonna fail you dude.”
Sae tilts his head slightly, then stares impassively at them, eyebrow still arched. “He can definitely try.”
It’s an impressive stare, only gifted upon a few chosen ones. You have to be pretty enough, cool enough to pull it off. Sae ticks every box in the books and Kazumi is just glad not to be on the receiving end of it this time.
That stare is gonna be one hell of a weapon for him in the courtroom one day.
“Well anyway, at least you’ve been having more fun than us. This Roman Law essay for next week is killing me,” Honoka huffs, closing the book in front of her with a loud crack. Someone two tables down jumps a little. “I mean, ten thousand words? Who do they think I am, Shakespeare or something?”
Kazumi grins. “If they’ve ever read your writing then no one’s thinking that.”
Honoka turns to answer, but then a soft hum makes them all lift their heads at the same time.
“Ex—Excuse me, would you have a pen?”
There’s a girl there at the edge of their table. She looks slightly nervous, messy blush on her cheeks and her voice barely a thread.
She’s looking at Sae as she says it.
Oh boy. Poor girl.
Kazumi tries to save her from the inevitable, butting in. “Here, you can take mine.”
The girl turns around and takes it with unsure fingers, goes back to looking at Sae through her eyelashes a little.
She's beautiful, objectively. Honey colored hair falling down her shoulders in waves and warm brown eyes, barely a little thing with straight, pale legs so even if Sae's not that tall she's still way smaller than him.
They would make a killer couple, objectively again only, because Kazumi knows what happens next.
“Hi, um,” the girl stammers, this time directly at Sae. “Sorry, can I have your name?”
Sae tilts his head up, slightly annoyed at being addressed. The full strength of his stare hits her, eyebrows scrunching a little and yeah.
Man, at least Kazumi tried to save her.
“You are bothering me. I’m trying to finish this.”
The girl blushes even more if possible, face on fire. “I’m—I’m sorry. I just—”
Sae taps his pen against the table. “Why are you here?”
He’s not trying to be rude, maybe. Kazumi likes to give Sae the benefit of the doubt in this type of situations, just out of some fantasy that he’s just outrageously bad at reading the room and he can't simply empathize because he simply doesn't get things.
The girl seems on the verge of crying now, eyes glassy. “I—”
A phone suddenly starts ringing, making everybody on the table but Sae jump. Sae picks it up without even glancing at the girl, who takes advantage of the moment to mumble a shaky “excuse me” before slinking back to her own table. Poor thing.
Kazumi turns back his attention to the table. Sae is quiet, listening to whoever is speaking on the phone, staring boredly at nothing in particular.
"What." A couple of seconds. "No. No. Yes. Absolutely no, shut up, you dog."
Honoka looks at him and raises her eyebrows a little, like she’s asking Kazumi if he knows anything about it. Kazumi just shrugs.
"No. Under,” Sae continues, tone flat. “Of course it was there. Now leave me alone. Don't fucking say that kind of shit. Bye."
When he hangs up Honoka smiles instantly, grin sharp like she’s smelled blood.
"Wow," she grins, books forgotten, "who the fuck was that and what did they do for the great Itoshi Sae to hate them this much?"
“What are you saying, he always hates everybody this much,” Yui butts in while playing with one of her pigtails. “That’s news to no one.”
"If you all invested half as much time in your essays as you do in my life they wouldn’t turn out the way they do."
It’s not even aimed at him but Kazumi still blushes a little.
“Yes, yes,” Honoka dismisses, and because she’s shameless she adds, “Hey Sae, how do you feel about returning some books?”
Sae, in fact, does not feel like returning some books. He barely stays for half an hour more actually, bypasses the counter completely as he leaves, squeezing around tables. He even manages to make that look easy, barely making any noise as he shuffles around. A flock of girls three rows down start giggling once he's out of the room, all of them blushing red.
Later, having a coffee break by the machines, Honoka says out loud what they are all thinking.
“It’s incredible, it’s like he has no feelings. Straight-out demolished that girl like a bulldozer. She’s gonna have nightmares for weeks.”
Yui sips from her black coffee monstrosity, so at odds with her baby pink dress. “You’d think he could at least demolish them more gently.”
"Sae doesn't care about gentle," Kazumi reasons, knowing he’s right. Itoshi Sae is a lot of things, but kind is not one of them. Kazumi tries not to hold it against him often.
“It’s just amazing—I mean, does he even like girls? Maybe he just doesn’t?”
Honoka snorts, eyes glinting. “If I hadn’t already seen him destroy a handful of boys the same way I’d ask myself the same thing too.”
"It’s just—I don't think I've ever seen him even remotely like anyone. Have you?"
Yui turns back towards the machine, for sure intending to buy another black coffee like a heathen. “I mean, I don’t think he even likes us.”
"He has to like us a little at least, kinda" Honoka reasons while sipping her latte, “if he spends time with us. Right Kazumi-kun?”
Kazumi shrugs, not really sure where he stands in regards to this whole thing. He blows on his hot chocolate and tries to think. He can't tell her she's wrong. He can’t tell her she’s right either. Sae is so impossibly hard to read on a good day. They all got stuck together for a semester-long project for Eco-Law on their first year and the thing has just kinda stuck. Kazumi has no idea why though, has no idea why Sae keeps giving them the time of the day.
"I think he tolerates us, which is more than the average already. Maybe he doesn't want to look for new people that he at least tolerates."
Both girls seem to think about the words. Kazumi stares at them amusedly, like yin and yang, one dressed in a pastel colored dress and the other in what might as well be pajamas.
"At least he doesn't hate us like that person on the phone,” Yui shrugs in the end. “Maybe that’s all you can aim for in the Itoshi Sae scale of affection."
“Hate, tolerance or the most absolute indifference,” Honoka counts out loud while signaling with her fingers at the same time, snorting. “Take your pick and try not to cry.”
The alarm in Kazumi's watch suddenly starts buzzing. Eight o’clock. Time to go back and keep at it.
Kazumi sighs. “Anyway, come on and let’s get this done.”
Honoka whines a little but they do in the end, opening their books.
Kazumi finds it hard to concentrate though, mind drifting back to their conversation by the coffee machine.
Sae is just—he’s just so different from all of them. Honoka is pretty with her classical beauty even if she tries to stomp it by swimming in hoodies half of the time, Yui always catching eyes with her soft colours and gentle smile; even Kazumi knows he’s not ugly himself. You really can’t afford being ugly if you are aiming for the kind of world they are aiming for, after all—but even then, Sae is just a whole different breed. Kazumi sometimes expects he’ll just poof out of existence in front of him because how can a person like that exist like that and also be real.
Hate, tolerance or the most absolute indifference, Honoka had said. Is it true?
There’s a story there, Kazumi knows, somehow. Or maybe Sae is just really like this. Some people must be after all. Maybe he just can’t—connect , or something like that. Maybe he doesn’t care enough to. Maybe people have wanted him all his life and that’s precisely why he can’t want anything back.
Something suddenly hits Kazumi in the temple, making him jump.
“Earth to Kazumi,” Honoka sing-songs, laughing. “You in there, bud?”
Kazumi wills the blush down, shaking his head and staring at the crumpled piece of paper now on the floor. “Stop harassing me and go back to your Roman laws, you menace.”
“Aw, I love you too, Kazumi-kun.”
Kazumi checks his phone one last time before going back to his book, prepared to attempt to read the highlighted paragraph for a fifth and hopefully final time, putting aside for now all thoughts of Itoshi Sae.
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Waking up early, Kazumi thinks, is just not something humans were programmed to do. He knows nothing about biology but it just makes sense. Why, really? And when the Sun is not even out at that? Out with that nonsense. It’s wrong out of principle.
He manages to juggle himself out of it generally, has stacked his classes in a way that allow him not to step foot on college grounds before at least ten am on a normal day.
Which is why field trip days are an invention of the devil.
“t’s too early.”
“Ah, Kazumi-chan, cheer up!” Honoka smiles. For once she’s wearing proper clothes, plaid pants and a buttoned up shirt. “Aren’t you excited? Look at Sae, share some of his spirit!”
Sae just blinks, kitten-slow, like he’s just barely woken up too, nose twitching a little. Oof. Cute.
Kazumi quickly looks away.
The Supreme Court stands before them, somehow even more imposing than it always looks on the news with its sharp angles and slate-gray walls. Something warm wakes up inside Kazumi, stirring in his belly.
The professor in charge of the trip starts explaining something about the history of the building as they shuffle inside, big greek columns bracketing the entrance. They quickly encounter a queue though, have to stop barely the moment they have set foot inside.
"Ah, come on,” Honoka complains in front of him, stretching her neck. “Metal detectors? Isn't this a little bit overkill?"
"Right?" Kazumi holds back a smile. "You'd think we were going inside, like, one of the most well-guarded buildings in Japan and also one of the most important standing pillars of our democracy."
“Better than someone carrying a gun in,” Yui just shrugs, cheerily. “Anything that gets us away from following after the Americans!”
The detector looks bigger up close when it's finally their turn. Kazumi takes off his bracelets, picking up the loose change from his pockets. It is bothersome, there’s no way around it, but still—this is the dream, isn’t it? All he’s working for. To go through a metal detector everyday and then maybe sit on one of the chairs of this building as a juror, bring justice to this country.
Kazumi turns around, ready to ask Yui something about metal detectors and earrings and then stares.
Sae is watching the detector with slightly closed eyes, like he’s sizing up a predator.
"Something wrong?"
Sae looks at him, then back at the detector, then finally just sighs and starts unspooling his scarf.
"You don't need to—" Kazumi starts, because it doesn’t matter if your skin is covered as long as the detector clears you, but then he realizes why exactly Sae is doing that for.
Sae lets the scarf rest on a plastic tray and then brings his arms up to his neck, going around it, hands fidgeting around his nape. Kazumi stares as Sae unclasps something and then pulls carefully, bringing it out from the depths beneath his sweater. He settles it on top of the tray, cushioning it with his own scarf and then hiding it by folding the scarf over it again.
When they are finally done with the detector, Kazumi takes a sneaky peek at Sae’s tray. The scarf has been jostled a little so he can actually see what Sae had placed on it: a necklace, thick and black, nothing special—except a ring is hanging from it. Kazumi looks closer at it. Something sharp pokes from it at a certain angle, like two little spikes.
It takes Kazumi a second to realize the things poking out from it are cat ears. A ring with cat ears.
Sae snatches it from the tray in one sharp movement in front of Kazumi's nose, face unreadable, making Kazumi jump.
“Nosy.” It feels like Sae's chastising him. Kazumi blushes a little, but also his brain is running laps.
A ring? From who?
Kazumi knows better than to ask. A sister maybe? Kazumi knows Sae has a brother because he's famous, but that’s kind of where his knowledge stops because Sae doesn't really talk about friends. Kazumi had actually kind of assumed he didn't have them at all. Maybe he’s just obsessed with cats and too embarrassed to wear it out in public but that's dumb, Kazumi's absolutely reeling and deranged brain reasons, because the most obvious reason one would wear a ring is—
A girlfriend. Itoshi Sae has a girlfriend and judging by the fact that there are rings going on it's not barely a fling but something serious.
There's pop rocks going off in Kazumi's head. They are in the middle of the Supreme Court and he should stay serious, he really should but this ring—this ring changes everything. Itoshi Sae is keeping secrets , the kind of secrets that would make Kazumi forgive every single time Itoshi Sae has been rude to someone, because somehow this ring means things. Suddenly Itoshi Sae is also a person with feelings.
“Move along, Kazumi!” Honoka shouts from the front, unaware, making him jump.
Kazumi scrambles, pushing all the thoughts from his head. He gets his own bracelets on again a little shakily, and the group as one enters the halls of the building.
He steals one last eye-wide glance at Sae.
Ring tucked once again safely inside his sweater, you wouldn’t even be able to tell he was hiding anything at all.
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“So what?”
“So a ring!"
“I mean,” Yui starts, fidgeting with her ear. “It’s a ring. Not the craziest thing in the world.”
"A ring with tiny little cat ears!!"
Honoka sips from her straw, cheeks hollowed out, like they have all the time in the world and Sae hasn't just gone a second to the bathroom.
“I don’t think it necessarily means something. Maybe you just confused the shape. Also I mean, Sae is weird, he just has pretty boy privilege so we normally let him off the hook. Can we focus on the important things here now maybe?”
Kazumi doesn’t get them. This is—this is huge. This is the first sign of something lurking behind the Itoshi Sae persona that betrays the existence of a normal person at all in there. This is world-changing, front-page news.
“Important things like what?”
"Like I’m never becoming a lawyer at this pace, I can't even remember any of my notes!” Honoka moans, letting her head thunk against the table. “I’ll just be jobless forever and sleep under a bridge."
"That's a bit dramatic," Yui hums. "Maybe we can find you work at a car wash. You can even take up any lawsuit their way. Used the wrong soap, my dog licked the backseats and now he’s in the ER. Fascinating stuff I’m betting.”
Honoka looks up. “There’s no way to use the wrong soap. That has to be legally regulated or something.”
Yui grins, baby-faced still, like she’s not lighting a fucking fuse. “That’s the spirit.”
Incredible. They are just gonna ignore this whole Sae thing like it’s business as usual.
A phone screen lights up.
Kazumi checks it’s not his, patting his own pocket. Then he stares at it a bit more, and that’s—that’s Sae’s phone, with the transparent casing and all, just laying casually on top of the table.
Did he leave it here before going to the bathroom? Kazumi hadn’t noticed.
He notices now.
“Is that—”
The screen lights up again. And again, buzzing on the table.
The three of them stare. There’s an onslaught of message notifs: the only thing addressing the sender is the word idiot, which could literally mean anything, and then—
Kazumi has to literally blink to make sure he’s seeing right.
It's silent for a good ten seconds. The messages just keep pinging, now hidden under the more tag.
"What the— "
“I fucking told you!!!”
“Oh my god.”
Kazumi is—what the fuck.
“Oh my god,” Honoka repeats.
"I said it, I fucking said it!!!"
"Shit! Sit down, he's coming!" Yui hisses.
Kazumi scrambles to go back to his chair quickly, settles his hair a bit, tries to will down the blush on his face like he’s not just snooped around someone’s personal messages without permission.
Sae stares at them for a second, then sits down slowly. Kazumi’s brain won’t stop running laps around itself.
So Sae really has a girlfriend. A girlfriend. He not only has a girlfriend, he has the most disgusting, cutesy, domestic girlfriend in the world. Which he happens to be living with since god knows when. Just. It makes no fucking sense. Honoka talks about the boys she hooks up with occasionally all the time. Kazumi has even shared his last dating disaster from which he still hasn't recovered. Couldn't Sae even tell them he had a steady girlfriend who he's going to marry in, like, maybe a year's business time going by the prospects?
Kazumi tries picturing the girl immediately through the words. A soft girl, small, warm smile. Maybe warm enough to melt Sae's ice a little. Maybe that’s what they’ve been missing the whole time; someone soft to fill in Sae’s edges a little, to make him see the world in a different way. Someone cute, gentle, someone who could balance out the harshness.
Sae looks down, suddenly catching sight of his phone. Kazumi catches the precise moment he realizes he left his phone on top of the table, unguarded.
Kazumi looks up, stares at Sae's face sneakily as he reacts to the messages on the screen.
Sae reads them, face stoic. Then he locks the phone and goes back to his drink.
Incredible. Not even a twitch of his lips.
Is this—is this guy made of ice or something? Kazumi would melt at messages like that. He would mentally propose on the spot.
Sae doesn't even bat an eyelid.
Maybe the word idiot as the contact name is not a joke. Maybe Sae really doesn't like her. Maybe he's been planning to break up with her for a while—that would explain it at least. But then the ring ? Why is he still wearing it? Maybe it's not a gift from the girlfriend then? It's so confusing. Nothing makes sense.
For a second, Kazumi feels a little bit of pity for Sae's supposed girlfriend, at least if she’s dating the version of Itoshi Sae they see every day. If this is the only version there is. Kazumi doesn’t even know her but that girl probably deserves a boyfriend that lights up at a message like that, about the idea of creating a family of their own, not just an idiot and a smooth face as reaction and then radio silence.
When they leave, Kazumi leaves towards the subway, each of them going their own way.
He turns around one last time before turning the corner, takes a peek at Sae by the sidewalk, waiting patiently for his bus. He's fiddling absent-mindedly with a certain spot over his sweater, right where Kazumi knows the ring must sit under all his clothing.
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So, the whole cafeteria-reaction-fiasco is not enough to stop Kazumi from being invested in this whole thing. There’s a ring, and with ears no less. There’s messages. There’s a cutesy little girlfriend out there somewhere and Kazumi will not rest until he discovers just what kind of person caught the interest of Itoshi Sae and held it this long, and also maybe until he gets to meet her and see Sae blush and get embarrassed for a turn.
A sweep of Sae’s very limited social media presence renders virtually nothing. Kazumi checks his Instagram once again. In the last few weeks Sae has posted a grand total of three pictures: one of a skyline from somewhere up high in Shibuya, one of some sort of football field and then a picture of a painting at what seems to be some kind of gallery. The painting is so weird, too. A big canvas filled with black and in the middle of it some kind of giant bonfire and a cut out silhouette in the center, like some kind of afterimage, like what happens when you stare at the sun for too long.
Kazumi wordlessly shows Yui the screen, letting her shuffle between Sae’s posts. He's glad it's Yui today and not Honoka. Yui sees patterns better, and even better than that, is willing to go along without laughing in Kazumi's face.
Yui stares at the last picture. "She could be an artist, I think. The girlfriend.”
Kazumi looks up, eyes wide. “What? What makes you think that?”
“I mean, why would he post this kind of thing then? What’s he doing in a gallery? I didn’t even know he liked football.”
Kazumi shakes his head. “That’s just about his brother probably. He’s a football player I think.”
Yui grins. “Wow, you sure have done your research.”
Kazumi ignores her, tries to keep his face from burning red.
Anyways, an artist?
Kazumi scrunches up his nose. "I don’t think that fits him. An artist as a girlfriend, I mean."
Kazumi has thought about it. After all the new intel, Kazumi can’t help but imagine a nice girl, something to counterbalance Sae’s harsh nature, yeah, all those things—but she must surely be someone smart as well. Wicked smart. Sae is not top of their class by chance. That girl must be someone Sae can engage with in deep conversation probably, someone who can keep up with his thoughts. A literature student, maybe. A philosophy major. Even politics.
Art is just—a little simple, isn't it? A little bit too meaningless.
"I mean, doesn't it fit him though?" Yui pinches her ear as she thinks. "He's always been a little bit weird. Can't imagine him settling for someone average. She must be weird too."
Someone weird. Is that it? That’s the key to understanding Itoshi Sae? What does weird mean, anyway?
Kazumi wonders if he's weird himself. Yeah, he doesn’t do a lot besides college but he can play a little bit of piano, maybe, and he likes pickled radish and—wait, why is he even thinking about this? Who cares anyway?
He directs his attention back to Yui, shakes his thoughts.
“So, weird.”
Yui shrugs. “That’s what I think.”
Kazumi thinks about it the whole way home.
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"Did you hear?"
"About what?"
"Maruyama's party tonight. At her house, no parents."
Honoka grins. For a second Kazumi thinks she looks a little bit scary.
"That's—"
"What time?"
They all three turn around. Itoshi Sae is staring at them, asking about the time of the party because he's apparently gonna go.
"Like, eight I think—"
"Text me location later," he says. "There better be alcohol."
Kazumi blinks. Then blinks again. Then grins.
Sae? Drinking?
This is gonna be the best fucking party ever.
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They are drunk. Way past drunk. Kazumi at least has gone past the point of laughing and dancing with loose limbs to the point of cotton brain and cotton tongue, to the point where time slips a little like water and the room doesn't turn but certainly swirls a little.
He looks to his left. Honoka is out there dancing with some random boy because of course she is. Yui is giggling, sitting with one leg on the armrest of the chair, holding a glass of neon-blue drink that's almost a second away from spilling.
Kazumi searches for Sae last, still not believing they managed to rope him into this. For a moment Kazumi barely sees him. Then he looks closer at the corner of the room, a frown escaping from him before he can stop it.
Sae is bundled up in a corner of the sofa, scarf almost up to his nose, hands around his own body. A girl is talking on him, clearly drunk and clearly trying to get something out of Sae even if Sae's not listening, eyes far away. Man. Can't people read the room?
Kazumi knows Sae is pretty, okay. Beyond pretty. They all know. Can now people start acting normal and leaving him alone when he clearly wants to be like with any other human being?
Kazumi treks his way there, a maze of avoiding spilling glasses and bodies.
"Off you go, bird," Kazumi pushes the girl away immediately and gives her back her glass, before settling next to Sae on the sofa. The girl complains a little but Kazumi is honestly too drunk to care.
Sae looks at him slowly. His eyes are glassy, a bit unfocused.
He must not be used to drinking, then. Kazumi feels slightly guilty now for all those pink gin drinks he encouraged Sae to drink so he could loosen up, they really creep up on you if you are not careful. Plus Sae's obviously fucked up about something non-party related. Kazumi hadn't realized before, but it's so obvious now with Sae's guards kind of down. The way his eyes are wandering, his body bundled up to occupy as little space as possible.
"Hey, r'you okay?"
Sae stares at him and blinks slowly, then shrugs. "Weird. I—" he stops. "J'st weird."
Then Sae hiccups a little. "'m dizzy," he whispers, voice soft, closing his eyes and twitching his nose like a little vulnerable forest creature or something.
Something sharp and sudden stabs through Kazumi's chest.
Thing is, Kazumi had a plan. Had, in the past, because this was supposed to go like any fun night between friends who maybe tell each other things if they want to and if alcohol has loosened things up a bit. Not much, just— just the nice-and-funny kind of overshare that everyone does when they are equally drunk in a room, the kind of overshare they secretly kind of want to do anyway. This is obviously not that, because Sae has drunk too much or his tolerance is too little and now Kazumi even through the fog of the drinks feels bad, specially seeing that Sae is feeling like shit. Man.
“Sae, hey. Sae,” Kazumi pokes softly his side a little. “Can you call someone to come get you?”
Sae blinks, slow, then nods. So cute. His eyes are so green, wide and glassy.
God, Kazumi’s so drunk too.
“Good. We're gonna sit here t'wait and then and I’ll go out with you so they pick you up. D’you need me to text them for you?” he tags at the end, because he’s drunk but he’s also not a shitty friend. Sae tilts his head a little, but ultimately shakes his head in the end, bringing out his phone to do it himself.
That dealt with, Kazumi rests his head on the wall and lets the cold seep into his skin a little.
When he looks at his side again, Sae has curled already into a little ball on the sofa and has fallen asleep, sides rising and falling softly with his breaths, features slack for once and loosened by sleep.
He's so pretty. There's—he's pretty in ways no one is ever pretty in, Kazumi thinks. The button end of his nose, the little strands of hair framing his face, thick eyebrows to break the doll illusion and bring him into the real world a little. He's—sharp, smart as hell, and he's ruthless but always in a very analytical way that Kazumi has yet to decipher but which he knows doesn't arise from being bad people. It's just—too many walls, maybe. Is Sae soft in private? Does his girlfriend maybe get to see it? Kazumi wonders what that must look like. How Sae must—
A buzzing phone makes him jump, thankfully wakes him up from one fucking hell of a drunk daydream.
It's Sae's phone. Kazumi doesn't snoop this time, just slowly pokes Sae's side, getting him to wake up.
"Hey, Sae, come on," he whispers, pulling a little from him. "Someone's come to pick you up."
Kazumi helps him up and then pats his way outside with a sleep-sticky Sae against him, taking some of his weight.
It's bitter night outside, the lamps painting what look like puddles of light on the floor. It’s so cold, damn. Kazumi wishes he had grabbed a coat beforehand, but just limits himself to tuck Sae's scarf better, make sure he's warm.
"Who's coming?" Sae mumbles, and Kazumi—Kazumi doesn't know the answer, actually.
For one deranged second, Kazumi realizes he's most probably a couple of minutes away from meeting Sae's girlfriend. Like—surely, right? Who’s Sae calling if not at 3 in the morning on a Thursday for them to take him home?
Before he can really think about it, a roaring coming from the other side of the street makes him jump out of his skin, heart-rate picking up. Kazumi pushes Sae against him instinctively, makes sure they are both out of the way.
It’s—It’s a bike. A sleek, black thing, muscled and purring. It almost looks like a big cat looming in the middle of the road like that.
Sae barely jumps. In fact, Kazumi catches him staring at it and then struggling out of Kazumi's grasp, moving in its direction. Sae must know this bike then, but then—
The rider steps down from the bike slowly, helmet on. Kazumi can barely see shit in the darkness, just the shape of a male body clad all in black.
For a second Kazumi feels disappointed. Like, he doesn’t even know why he expected the girlfriend to come pick Sae up. It’s three am. Of course Sae has other friends, closer friends that are not them and who could come pick him sloshed drunk instead of having him come home like this.
Sae latches onto Bike guy instantly so Kazumi guesses that Sae knows him even in spite of the helmet situation, knows the bike at least, so he finally lets go of Sae’s waist. Huh. He hadn't even realized he was holding him this close.
“Wow, you really are sloshed, eyelashes.” The guy’s voice is throaty, sounds like smoke and way too many cigarettes. "You'd think by now your little bro would've stopped being able to get you like this."
Eyelashes? Well, he’s not wrong at least. Sae does have a very pretty pair of them, in Kazumi’s very unbiased opinion. His head is too fuzzy to follow any of the rest.
“J’st shut up,” Sae answers wobbly at some point, grabbing onto Bike guy's jacket more firmly.
“Hi,” Kazumi starts, tries to get the attention of the two but gets promptly ignored one second after.
They waste no time. Bike guy holds Sae like he weighs nothing, carefully placing him in the front seat of the bike, artfully sliding right behind after. Kazumi has never seen something like that before. People always ride in the back, right? but he also guesses Sae is in no condition to hold on properly, plus his body is just small enough to fit in front of the guy and still leave him enough space to reach the handlebars comfortably, so it should be okay.
Still—
“You sure that’s safe?” he starts. “Maybe I should call his girlfriend instead.”
Kazumi is not sure if there’s even a girlfriend but come on, of course there’s a girlfriend. This is genius in fact, because maybe he's gonna get information about her now. Kazumi perks, staring more closely. Does this guy know her? What can Kazumi get from him about her?
Bike guy suddenly stills, head finally turning his way. "What? You worried about your boy or something?"
The way he says it, acid and teasing, your boy—Kazumi blushes immediately, heart stuttering in his ribcage. Sae's not his boy. Sae's not—Okay yes, he's very pretty, but Kazumi not—Kazumi can't—
Bike guy suddenly chuckles. Kazumi looks down, tries to hide his own face with his hands. He's too drunk for this. His mind is doing weird things and summersaults and he hates it.
Kazumi can’t see it, but he knows Bike guy for some reason is grinning behind the helmet.
“Relax a little, dimples. Nothing’s happening to Sae while I’m here.”
As he says that, Bike guy takes off his own helmet and wrestles it onto a mildly uncooperative Sae, who starts pathetically pawing at it at the same time.
"Hey now, be good," Bike guy complains, gliding his hand up Sae's jaw.
Instead of complaining, Sae looks up at the guy through his eyelashes, lips slightly parted open and for one deranged moment Kazumi thinks, he's looking at this guy the same way girls always look at him.
When he focuses again, Bike guy already has managed to wrestle Sae into the helmet and is now brushing his hair a bit.
Kazumi tries to get a good look at Sae’s friend now that the helmet is off but the night is too dark, the lamps too far away from one another. There’s barely a glint of blonde and metal, and that’s as much as he gets.
“Feeling fine for the ride, eyelashes? Not gonna puke in my helmet or anything?”
“J'st get me home, asshole.”
Bike guy chuckles and then sneaks a hand around Sae’s waist, palm spread over his lower belly, pressing Sae back against him. “Your wish is my command.”
Kazumi stares. The gloved hand spans almost the whole of Sae’s abdomen, making him look tiny in comparison. For a second, Kazumi feels—
Wow, he needs to go to fucking bed already.
Kazumi tries to wave again, this time goodbye, but of course neither of them care.
Sae must say something more, something Kazumi can’t catch because of the helmet muffling his voice but Bike guy laughs, presses down on Sae’s stomach a little, nosing at his nape beneath the helmet.
“Ah come on, you know you love this,” he grins. “Now hold on tight, kitten.”
One second later, the bike roars in a cloud of petrol and smoke and they are flying down the road, barely a chrome glint, disappearing in the blink of an eye.
Kazumi stands there for—He doesn’t know how long for.
Kitten.
He blinks.
He blinks again.
When he finally goes inside, the world is swaying a little. He knows he’s on the verge of losing it so he chugs two full glasses of water and then lays his head against the sink.
It doesn’t take long for Sae to answer his last message at least.
He guesses that’s as good as he’s going to get.
"Where's Sae?" Honoka looks sweaty and pumped-up and all the things Kazumi is kind of not feeling right now.
"Have you ever ridden a motorbike?"
"Huh?"
"Nothing." Kazumi looks around. "Where's Yui?"
"Don't know. Think she went to stare at the stars or something," she says. "Hey, feel like playing cards? I heard there's a group in the kitchen and they are about to start the next round."
Kazumi just nods, a little bit dazily, lets Honoka drag him by the arm.
Kazumi falls asleep on a sofa two hours later, and when he wakes up the only clear memories of the night are the roar of an engine, green eyes and the smell of petrol and exhaust fumes.
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There’s a column of love bites peppering Sae’s throat.
They are deep purple, messy, running down his jaw and disappearing down the neck of his sweater at some point.
Kazumi blinks, then blinks again.
Nope. Still there.
Is Sae aware of it? He must be. Kazumi doesn't know what feels weirder: that Sae knows and is consciously flaunting them when he's never even shared anything remotely personal in the year and a half they've known each other, or that he doesn't know and then maybe Kazumi should maybe say something, but man. What do you even say to that? Hey, a wolf mauled you I think? Yes, yes I know, thank you? Kazumi cringes.
Now, Kazumi—Kazumi doesn't care about the lovebites specifically. He does not. It's just—
Is the mystery solved then? Is it not? Is there a girlfriend? Is just Sae doing this for fun now?
His head hurts. It’s late in the library. Kazumi is feeling a bit high on case study and red-bulls, a bit off the kite and flying. It’s late but it isn’t, the blinking lights of the room a second sun.
“Do you have a girlfriend?”
Sae’s fingers stop tapping against his notes.
He turns in Kazumi's direction. He has one pair of impressive purple bags under his eyes. It’s just by the fantastic miracle of him being Itoshi Sae that this fact somehow only makes him look prettier.
“You really are an idiot.”
Sae goes back to his book after that, ignoring Kazumi’s stare.
So that settles it at least, Kazumi thinks, except it settles nothing at all.
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"This one, you think?"
Sae hums. "I think it's better. The chapter dedicated to litigation is way better written at least, I think."
"I like Hakamura better normally. Way less obscure than parsing Wilson's hieroglyphs."
They don't do this often, being alone, Yui and Honoka tied up in a class running late. Still, Sae is an endless source of knowledge about good books to study from and he has a soothing voice. Kazumi could get used to doing this as well.
It's nice. Being with Sae like this is nice, sharing thoughts, shuffling books. The peace and quiet of the library is nice.
“Hey, who the fuck are you calling mutt?”
Kazumi jumps, heart-rate picking up. A chair flies across the room, hits hard against the floor.
"You deaf or what? You fucking asshole!!"
“Hey, hey, break it up you damn idiots!!”
Kazumi turns towards the noise, stares at the sight by one side of the room, eyes wide. Like, it’s Thursday. At noon. Who has even the energy to be fighting like this?
Sae looks too, then looks again, eyes-wide. Kazumi has never seen that expression on him.
Kazumi turns in his direction. "What?"
Sae just returns the book he has in his hands as an answer, then sighs.
A second later, one of the weird guys from the fight catches them in his line of sight and stops in his tracks. Kazumi wonders what he must be thinking about, but right after the guy changes courses and starts legging it their way, a giant weird smile on his face.
Kazumi starts a little. What the fuck?
Kazumi analyzes him as he makes his way towards them, wary. The guy stands out a lot, dark skin one shade too dark to be a tan. Which is not like, Kazumi's not—he doesn't care about it, okay? He's just pointing out a fact. It's not a usual skin tone in Japan, it's just normal that he notices.
Except, then he focuses on the rest of him and everything else melts away.
His clothes are—Kazumi stares. He doesn't even know where to begin. The hot pink of the jeans assaults him. They are loose, high-waisted, the kind of pants a girl would wear except coupled with thick combat boots dirty with mud, tracking all over the floor. The top he's wearing is sleeveless, just a black band with the logo of a movie Kazumi doesn't even recognize, an oversized black leather jacket to top it all off. He's even wearing a black band around his neck. Kazumi doesn't even want to know if that thing hanging from it is a hook for a leash.
The craziest thing about the dude has got to be the face, though. Bright-blonde hair all gelled up, tips dyed in the same hot pink he seems obsessed with, thick eyeliner rimming his eyes.
The guy grins. Those are not canines. Those are fucking fangs.
For a second, Kazumi feels something cold tighten itself up in his belly, makes him scramble mentally to prepare himself to run. He tries to keep mental tabs of the position of his phone and his tablet back on his table, gets everything ready.
Except the guy doesn't even spare a glance at him, zeroing instead in on—ah, of course. Sae is not to blame for being this pretty, Kazumi knows. Still, maybe this one time Kazumi can blame him a little for attracting this kind of weirdos to their surroundings.
"Books suit you, eyelashes."
The glint of a tongue piercing shines through when he speaks. Now that Kazumi is staring the guy has other piercings too, lined up in a row by his ear.
Eyelashes. Something sparks itself in Kazumi's memory, there and gone.
"Aren't we ingenious," Sae replies, uninterestedly.
"Must be the nerd in you."
Kazumi feels his eyes open comically, jaw almost going slack.
Sae hums. "Being an idiot must be a lot better, I'm sure."
"Don't worry, I find nerds hot," the guy grins. "You are lucky today."
What—Just who the fuck is this guy? And why is Sae not shutting him down immediately?
As Kazumi thinks about words, the guy wanders closer to Sae, eyes not dropping from him. It's—pathetic. He's almost drooling. Like he's stalking prey, eyes locked, cheeks blushed with adrenaline. Kazumi feels—disgust, of all things. The guy drips sex in a bad way, drips desperation and compulsion and no kind of self-control.
Sae raises an eyebrow. "Can't imagine what I'm lucky for. Certainly not this."
The guy grins again, wide and suggestive and revolting, a hand aiming for Sae. "Well—"
He touches him, grasping his shoulder, and suddenly that’s enough.
"Leave him alone, asshole."
Everything seems to freeze in place.
The guy zeroes in on him. It's like being stared down by a predator: something sharp shakes Kazumi's spine, electric and alive, warning him that one wrong move and he's only going to have the Criminal Law book in front of him to defend himself.
Still, he's not backing down. Kazumi holds his stare firmly.
"My, and who might you be?" the guy asks.
"A friend of the person you are literally harassing right now."
The guy grins. "A friend? Damn, you really feed into the stereotype. Cute outfit by the way. About to visit your grandma, perhaps?"
"What?" Kazumi is dumbfounded. His clothes, that’s really where he’s going?
The guy stares at him, like he’s waiting for something, then huffs a breath with a frown. "Come on, do better. Don’t waste my time like this."
"You are the one wasting our time, moron."
The guy's eyes glint. "Well, let’s take it outside then and settle it out."
Kazumi stills. The guy is ridiculous, yes, but that doesn't mean harmless. Everything about him screams danger in bloodied knuckles and fast movements and only bruised ribs if you are lucky enough.
Before Kazumi can answer, Sae sighs. "Behave."
For a crazy second, Kazumi thinks Sae is speaking to him, which—but he's staring at the guy as he says it, one eyebrow softly raised.
"Behave"? This guy's harassing them and Sae can only think about that? Kazumi has seen him make people cry for less. Also this guy is not gonna take patronizing like this well, Kazumi just knows.
Kazumi readies himself for—for what? A fight maybe? He can't punch to save his life. Was it thumb inside or outside?
Then the guy turns to stare at Sae and—and pouts.
Kazumi stares dumbfoundedly at the transformation, grin melting to give space to puffed cheeks, eyebrows dipping down, even his shoulders crumbling in a little. It's—Kazumi can't believe it. A rabid dog turned puppy in the blink of an eye.
"Oh, come on, you never let me have any fun, Sae-chan!" he complains, voice whiny.
Sae-chan.
Kazumi is about to combust or throw a punch.
Wait—How does he even know Sae's name?
Then the weirdest thing happens: the guy hugs Sae's waist from behind, and Sae doesn't kick him immediately in the balls.
"You are so clingy."
The guy rubs his nose into Sae's neck. "I just missed you."
Kazumi stares at the guy's hands: his palm is stretched possessively over Sae’s belly, which on itself sparks something in Kazumi’s memory, but as he does, he catches bloodied knuckles and also a glint of metal on his heart finger. The ring is subtle, made of silver, but it has a weird shape on top. When Kazumi realizes they are imitating floppy dog ears, the world tilts a little sideways.
Is that.
Is that not—
"No way," Kazumi closes the book in his hands, eyes wide and looking at Sae for answers. Sae just stares ahead impassively, but—
The guy raises an eyebrow and grins, arm wrapping a little tighter around Sae, letting his chin rest on Sae's shoulder. “Oh, now I recognize you. Took me a while. Did you like my bike the other day, dimples?”
Kazumi readjusts. He tries to stare into this guy's eyes and connect that with the disgustingly sweet text messages some couple weeks ago, with the ring, with everything. This guy was the one to pick up Sae the other day. He lives with Sae. This jackass is—
"We are leaving," Sae suddenly proclaims, getting rid of the guy's hold like he's a pest.
It's just—Kazumi is stuck. It just cannot be.
"Wait—"
Sae doesn't wait.
When it's Kazumi and only him the guy grins again, saluting Kazumi with two fingers as a farewell. "Shidou Ryusei. Look me up, maybe. Nice to meet you, dimples-chan! Find a better stylist!"
Then he turns around, following Sae out of the library like a puppy, metaphorical tail wagging.
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So, Shidou Ryusei.
Kazumi looks him up.
Turns out he’s not a literature student, not even an artist. He’s a football player—not even a normal football player even, but Japan’s enfant terrible of sorts. Kazumi’s not sure of the general opinion of the public about him yet, encounters just as much ban-worthy harassing as he does deranged tweets of adoration. People hate him. People love him. There’s a tiktok compilation of him just getting red cards and then almost kicking referees in the face with kicks that have no business going as high as they do—unless you are a gymnast or, like, a black belt or some shit. Hell, he might as well be that too.
The video has twenty three million views.
Kazumi stalks his twitter next.
Well, so that was that.
The guy is—crazy is not the right word, Kazumi thinks. Deranged. Unstable. Unhinged. Kazumi would even say dangerous, going by the retellings of the thousand fights this guy has apparently had with everyone famous in the football world and their dogs. The one about him knocking out Michael Kaiser shocks him the most. Even Kazumi knows who Michael Kaiser is.
Point blank this guy is dangerous. Just what the fuck is Sae thinking? What do they even talk about? Football? Fights? The best way to kick someone? Kazumi is speechless.
He clicks on his instagram too, just to make sure about his judgement.
There's a lot of football pictures, as could be expected, and also a full stories circle exclusively devoted to videos of apparently random dogs Shidou encounters across the streets, which, okay. Kazumi goes to the posts. There's pictures of food, and also some teammates, and—
And pictures of Sae.
They never show his face, but now that Kazumi knows about this it's so obviously Sae in them. The body, the skin, the angle of his jaw. It's kind of obvious they want to keep whatever they have kinda secret, Kazumi guesses, but still Sae is everywhere. Kazumi thumbs down Shidou's profile: pictures of Sae on the street caught unaware, of him sleeping, reading a book and—Kazumi stares.
There's a post, from yesterday apparently, Shidou's hands grabbing Sae's ass. Kazumi blushes.
It's not like he's never looked. Of course Kazumi knows Sae has a good—a good ass or whatever, a small waist. No one would compare him with a doll if he didn't actually look like one sometimes. Still—Kazumi stares some more. Shidou's hold is possessive, which checks out with his general personality but Sae is the one taking the photo. Sae is okay with it. Sae likes it.
Kazumi thinks back to the tweet.
I fuck my boy good, don't worry about him.
The image barges in unannounced. Sae blushed down to his neck, eyelids sleepy, grabbing the blankets in fists as—
Kazumi quickly clicks locks the phone, plunging the room in darkness.
The beating of his heart takes a bit longer to slow down.
————————————————————————————
When he meets Sae again the next day, at least Kazumi knows exactly what to ask him.
"Why?"
Sae looks up from his notes. He looks just exactly as always. "Why what?"
Kazumi doesn't sugarcoat it. He’s starting to realize that Sae appreciates honesty in a person. It’s dumb that he realizes only now, but that’s what it’s always been about Sae that ticks people off. Unfiltered, raw honesty to a fault. With others and with himself.
"He's crazy. Like, for real. Nuts. Mental. I think he peed a little yesterday on a chair before leaving."
It takes a moment.
Then Sae, for the first time ever, only for a second, does a thing Kazumi has never seen him do in all the time they’ve known each other.
He lifts slightly one of the corners of his mouth at the words, barely a thing, and gets what could be considered a smile.
Kazumi stares. Even that tiny shift softens his whole face, shakes the ice from it. The angle of his cheekbones, his jaw, it all melts.
It's a good thing that he doesn't smile on the daily, kinda, Kazumi thinks. Kazumi had always thought it was his signature cool stare that was lethal, but a full grin from Itoshi Sae must be a weapon of mass destruction.
"Don't threaten him again," Sae just says in the end, like he’s warning him, like he’s expecting them to meet again at some point. "He'll really put you in the hospital next time."
He sounds fond, what the fuck, or as fond as Itoshi Sae can sound.
Nice. So Itoshi Sae, resident genius and pretty boy, has a weird psychopathic biker guard dog with a cutesy burikko alter-ego and a meathead-worthy football career for a boyfriend.
Kazumi sighs, going back to his book.
He so, so doesn't look forward to admitting to Yui that she was right about the whole weird thing.
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