Archive of Our Own

Chapter Text

“Another round, on me!” Satoru announces.

The entire club erupts in cheers. Satoru basks in it for a minute, allowing the backslaps, grinning at the whistles. Someone actually breaks away from a makeout session to shout you’re the man! at him.

“Satoru.”

Shoko materializes at his shoulder.

Satoru yelps, falling backwards, back colliding with the edge of the bar. “Warn a guy!”

Shoko’s face is a little green. Her hair is all over the place. Satoru isn’t quite drunk enough to tell her that, though. 

“We’re leaving,” she yells, face blank. “I am tired, and I am sweaty, and I am going to fucking kill you if you blow your entire bank account at this stupid club.”

“That’s impossible,” Satoru yells back. “I have a lot of money!” He peers at her. “Do you want a drink?”

“No,” Shoko snaps, blowing a greasy lock of hair out of her face. “You know what, I’m—I’m over this. I am so over this. I am done with you.”

“No! What? Stay, come on!” Satoru motions for the bartender. “Whiskey, neat—”

It’s packed in the club, that’s true, but Shoko’s drink is first priority. Satoru’s the one who asked for it, after all.

“Ta-da!” He sticks it in front of her, smiling winningly. “Come on, it’ll make you feel better! Basically Nyquil! Hey, who’re you texting?”

“No one,” Shoko says, sticking her phone back in her pocket. “Gimme my fucking drink. See you tomorrow. If you’re late to the show I’ll kill you.”

“What show?”

But Shoko’s gone, and that’s Satoru’s cue to go back to drinking and dancing and yelling at the DJ to play something actually good. He’s two steps from going up to the actual booth—sure, that’s really something they only let models do but Satoru could be a model if he ever got tired of being the best director the world has ever seen—

“Oh my god, you fucking loser.”

“Suguru!” Satoru crows, pivoting on his heel to throw his arms around Suguru’s shoulders. “What took you so long?”

“We’re leaving,” Suguru yells, right in Satoru’s ear, and then he drags Satoru out of the bar, cool hand tight around his wrist.

Satoru follows happily. It would be nice for Suguru to party with him, but Suguru doesn’t go out often. Which is fine with Satoru. He’s not actually big on parties, but Shoko assigned him her plus-one, and Suguru’s been spending a lot of time working recently, and he’s just been—a little—

They stumble out of the club and are immediately blinded by paparazzi. People are lining up, holding out phones—some girls have their tops open, and if Satoru wasn’t being dragged away by Suguru, he might have indulged them—but there’s a van on the sidewalk and Suguru’s hauling him inside and before he can blink they’re already moving, so insulated that the only sound is Suguru’s stomach growling.

“When’s the—”

“You’re shouting.”

Quieter, Satoru asks, “When’s the last time you ate?”

Suguru actually has to pause, thinking, so Satoru shouts ahead to the driver to find a pizza place. 

Suguru rolls his eyes. “Don’t bother him, now,” he scolds, but he’s grinning.

“It’s no trouble, sir! He’s right, you need to eat!” The driver is Itadori Wasuke, a man so old that his cataracts have cataracts, but Suguru refuses to be driven by anyone else. Honestly, Satoru kind of gets it. Itadori’s picked them up in a lot of really compromising positions, but he’s never said a word to anyone, and he always gets them places right on time, if not five minutes early.

“I hate when you two gang up on me,” Suguru grumbles, reclining in his seat. 

Satoru tugs his hair out of its tight ponytail and Suguru sighs in relief, pushing his scalp up into Satoru’s palm.

He waits, just to fuck with him, and smirks when Suguru opens one baleful eye. “Don’t piss me off, Satoru.”

“Demanding,” Satoru hums, but he massages Suguru’s scalp obligingly, scratching the crown of his head the way that he likes. Suguru’s hand fumbles at his side to recline his seat. His head rests against the seat, long throat exposed.

“Thanks,” he mumbles. 

“You picked me up,” Satoru excuses. He pauses, and quickly adds— “Which I’m mad about, by the way. Why’d you have to ruin my fun? Did Shoko call you?”

“Well, yes, but I was already on the way. I saw the pictures of you on Twitter and figured I’d come—and then she told me that you were making it difficult for her—”

“I thought she wanted to stay a little longer!”

“You’re the worst,” Suguru says, but he’s still butting his head into Satoru’s hand like a lazy, ungrateful cat, so it holds zero real animosity.

“How long was the shoot, today?”

“Seventeen hours,” Suguru grouches. “Tsukomo’s usually pretty good about that, but we’re in crunch time now.”

“She should plan better, then,” Satoru says, rolling his eyes. It’s not like Tsukomo’s the only director in the world. It’s no excuse. Suguru shouldn’t have to pay the price for her bad planning. 

“Don’t lie, you’ve done the same.”

“It’s different.”

“Sure.”

“It is,” Satoru defends. “I plan perfectly. If we go late, it’s because someone else hasn’t done their job—you know, tech, or the actors—I’m telling you, these new age actors, they need ten takes minimum—”

“As if you would be any different.” Suguru’s eyes are open now, crinkled. “You’d take at least five, and you’d improvise, thinking you know better than the writers, and then you’d get mad at the director for telling you to just follow the script for once and you’d probably storm off—oh, and all of this would be after showing up two hours late—”

“What?” Satoru squawks. “What the hell do you think of me? I’d be a fantastic actor, I already know how it all works from directing them all this time. The director would have no notes, they’d be clapping their hands after every line, they’d be thanking me for blessing them with my presence—”

“That, right there,” Suguru says, through laughter. “That’s why you would be the worst fucking person to work with. Actually, huh, you’re probably already the worst person to work with, aren’t you?”

“I’m a delight,” Satoru says mullishly. “Hey, Wasuke, how long until—”

“We’re here!”

“Fantastic,” Satoru says. “I’ll order.”

“You’ll—wait—”

Satoru clambers out of the van. There’s no paparazzi around. Not much of anyone, really. It's probably because the pizza place is an actual hole in the wall, stuck between a sex store and an old Blockbuster that hasn’t been replaced with anything else. 

He throws a thumbs-up in Wasuke’s general direction—he always finds good places like this, where no one would expect to find them.

The inside of the shop is similarly empty. The guy at the counter looks like he’s genuinely confused that Satoru would walk in.

“Hi,” Satoru says, waving. “I’ll pay you six thousand yen if you can get me a stuffed crust pepperoni in the next five minutes.”

The guy squints at him. “Do I know you from somewhere?”

“I won an Oscar this year,” Satoru offers.

“No, that’s not it.”

“I was on Forbes ‘Forty under Forty’?”

“Nah, I’m trying to think…”

Satoru sighs. “Taylor Swift reposted one of my TikTok’s.”

“Yes!” The guy snaps, pointing at him. “That’s exactly it. My daughter loves her.”

“A lot of people do,” Satoru says blandly. “So. Pizza?”

“Huh? Oh, yeah, sure, I was about to toss a pepperoni in the oven when you came in. You can have it.”

“Remember the stuffed crust!”

“Yeah, yeah, you got it.”

Satoru leaves the store five minutes later with a piping hot stuffed crust pepperoni pizza and his wallet six thousand yen lighter. Honestly, the guy probably would have done it for half of that, but after telling him about Oscars and Forbes and Taylor Swift, Satoru couldn’t exactly cheap out.

When he climbs back in the van, though—Suguru’s already asleep, dark lashes casting shadows on his cheeks.

Satoru closes the van door as quietly as he can. “Wasuke,” he whispers. “Take us back to his place?”

“Yes, sir,” Wasuke whispers back.

Satoru’s not even drunk anymore, to be honest. He’d had maybe three drinks back at the club. Most of it was just excitement. It’s fun to play it up for people, news—but he’s never been that big of a drinker.

Between the two of them, Suguru’s the one who can guzzle vodka like water—and Shoko can drink both of them under a table no contest. It’s possible the nicotine addiction gives her some kind of immunity. Satoru doesn’t know the logistics, he just knows that the one and only time he challenged Shoko to a drinking contest ended with him heaving his guts out in her family’s washroom.

Wasuke pulls up to Suguru’s penthouse in a clean twenty minutes. 

“Do you need help bringing him out?”

“Huh? Oh, no thanks. Have a good night!” Satoru unbuckles Suguru’s seatbelt for him, then lightly shakes him awake. “Hey, wake up, we’re home. Who’s the loser now, huh?”

“Wh…” Suguru scowls, refusing to open his eyes. The space between his brows wrinkles and Satoru presses it out with his thumb.

Suguru scowls up at him. The effect is somewhat diminished by the giant, sleepy blink that comes right after.

Satoru smiles down at him. “Hi.”

“...Hi.”

“We’re home. I got the pizza. You can piggyback me or you can walk.”

“Can walk,” Suguru yawns. 

Satoru has very little faith in this.

Satoru is right to have very little faith in this.

Suguru drapes over him like a weighted blanket, just short of actually piggybacking him. Every step he takes knicks Satoru’s ankles. His hair brushes Satoru’s cheek.

They make it across the lobby like this. The concierge has a smile on her face as she waves them through into the elevator. Satoru inserts the key to Suguru’s floor and Suguru sinks even closer, hooking his chin over Satoru’s shoulder.

“Pizza smells good,” he murmurs, breath tickling Satoru’s neck. 

“Yeah?”

“Yeah. Thanks for getting it.”

“No problem,” Satoru says, patting Suguru’s head.

Satoru, as a rule, doesn’t really like people touching him. It freaks him out a bit. Suguru, for some reason—and it’s really rude, honestly—just bypasses that. Not in a callous way. Not in a “doesn’t-respect-boundaries” way. It’s very probable that he doesn’t actually know that Satoru isn’t a touchy person. Because when it comes to him… Satoru loves touch. Satoru craves it. Sometimes Satoru goes a whole week waiting for it to be over just so he can see Suguru and have his hands on him for a couple hours.

If there was ever gonna be a reason that he couldn’t be an actor, that would be it. The constant—putting yourself into someone else’s body. Being fluid in who you touch, kiss, fuck, all of it under studio lights and the critical, impersonal lens of the camera. Suguru says it’s nothing, but Satoru would beg to differ. Despite everything his personality dictates, he’s always been more comfortable calling the shots than taking them.

The elevator opens. 

“Home sweet home,” Satoru singsongs. He shuffles forward, two hundred pounds of dead weight clinging to him, and deposits Suguru with a thump on the couch. “Pizza?”

“Pizza,” Suguru says, making grabby hands. “Gimme.”

“You’re the cutest Neanderthal I’ve ever seen,” Satoru says, very seriously. “I mean, seriously, if they had Pantene in the Paleolithic era—”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Suguru interrupts. “Gimme.”

“Yeah, I got you,” Satoru mumbles, opening the box and pulling out a slice. The cheese pull alone is orgasmic. 

Suguru moans loud and unashamed. “This is it,” he says, through a mouthful of pizza. “This is what I needed, oh my god, thank you.”

“Close your mouth, who raised you—” And then Satoru takes a bite, and makes his own R-rated noise. “Holy fuck.”

“That’s what I’m saying.”

They just eat in silence for a minute. Silence is maybe the wrong word, the chewing is loud and rude the way it will inevitably be when one person has been awake for over twenty-four hours and the other has spent three hours in a club filled to the brim with nepotism babies and assorted degenerates under the age of twenty-four.

“Hey,” Suguru says, sounding a bit more awake. “Put something on.”

“Preference?”

“That movie you did with the… uh… the kids one. With the fish.”

“Ponyo?”

Satoru made that movie for five-year-olds. Like, exclusively for children who couldn’t read yet.

Suguru is thirty-three years old. Satoru is almost ninety-nine percent sure that he can read, if only because his texts to Suguru always read Read even if the asshole can’t be bothered to respond.

Maybe that’s why Suguru always leaves him on read. Because he’s illiterate.

“Can you read?”

“What?” Suguru crams another slice into his mouth. He has abhorrent table manners. It really shows, sometimes, that they found him in the middle of nowhere. “Just put the movie on.”

Satoru pulls it up on Netflix.

And then he just… finds himself transfixed by Suguru. The way his eyes light up the second the movie starts, eyes tracking every moving frame. The way he taps his foot in time with the music.

His stomach grumbles as Sosuke and Ponyo have ramen.

“You’re eating right now,” Satoru points out, amused.

“Shh.”

“I literally made—”

“Shh!”

On screen, Grammamare asks, “Could you love her if she moved between two worlds?” Earnestly, Sosuke responds, “I love all the Ponyos.”

Suguru sniffles.

“Are—are you crying?”

“What, like you’ve never cried in your life?” Suguru snaps. “Shut up.”

Satoru puts his hands up and doesn’t say anything, just goes back to watching him. Suguru’s eyelashes look really pretty when he cries, even darker than they already are, framing his eyes in ebony. 

The movie comes to a close. Sosuke announces that he can see his dad’s ship in the distance. The credits roll in.

“Good movie,” Suguru says, nodding decisively.

Satoru stares at him. “I… didn’t know you liked it that much.”

“I was your date to the premiere,” Suguru says. “You were with me when I watched it.”

“I disassociate my way through premieres, you know that.”

“Regardless.”

“No! Not regardless! You cried! You cried like a baby, I didn’t know—”

Suguru rolls his eyes. “So what? I like a movie you made? Of course I do, it would be weird if I didn’t—” He stops. “Do you like my movies?”

“Of course,” Satoru says, frowning. “I have a shelf just for all your DVD’s, you know that.”

“Well, yeah, but that doesn't mean—”

“John Wick.”

“Yeah.”

Satoru exhales. “I can quote it. The whole thing. You could drop me at any part in it and I’d know it, beat by beat. Do I look civilized to you? The whole thing. All four movies. But the first is my favourite.”

Suguru stares at him. Heat rises over his cheekbones. “I was trying really hard to be normal at the premier,” he says, after a moment. “But it’s my favourite movie that you’ve ever made. My favourite movie, period. And sometimes it fucks me up, that—that you’re the one who made it.”

Satoru snorts, a little insecure. “Because it’s all cute and I’m the worst?”

“Because you’re my best friend,” Suguru says softly.

In one fell swoop, he steals every ounce of breath from Satoru’s lungs. 

Suguru’s not a demanding person. He just—he manages to take everything of Satoru’s on accident, just by existing. One look from his dark eyes and Satoru’s already on the ground, already pressing his forehead to the ground, already promising, pleading, anything you want, anything, as long as we’re still friends, okay?

He knows they’re best friends.

He is, in fact, very grateful every second of every day that they are best friends. 

But when Suguru says it—it’s just different, is all. It cements that this isn’t all in Satoru’s head. He probably loves Suguru a hell of a lot more than Suguru loves him but it’s not completely unrequited, which is already more than he could have ever hoped for.

“You know I genuinely like your work, right?” Suguru says. He tilts his head, and he’s very close, and the sliver of distance makes Suguru momentarily brave.

“I wanted to talk to you about something,” he says before he can lose the nerve. “I wrote a script, and I got the go-ahead for it and they’re talking about casting, and I want you to star in it.”

Suguru stares at him. “I think I misheard you,” he says.

Satoru huffs. “There are two male leads. You’re going to play one of them.”

“I’m—okay, first of all, you can’t say it like that, you’re going to, who the hell—at least ask!”

“Fine. Please?”

“No.”

“See, this is why I don’t ask!”

Suguru pinches the bridge of his nose. “Satoru,” he says. “Do you know why we’ve managed to stay friends for so long?”

“Because of my dazzling wit and personality?”

Suguru snorts. “No. Because we never do business together.”

“That’s only because you always say no!”

“Yes, because working with you would actually make me suicidal. And honestly probably get us both blacklisted in the industry.” 

“Just read it,” Satoru orders. “I’m not having this argument until you’ve read it.”

“Send it to me, I’ll—” And Suguru visibly fights the yawn, but it mercilessly interrupts him. He grins sleepily. “I’ll read it in the morning.”

Satoru tries to call him a loser, but the yawn catches him like a bad cold and he’s forced to admit defeat.

Suguru wakes up to the dulcet tones of both his and Satoru’s phones ringing at top volume.

Satoru’s head is shoved under the pillow but his hand limply slaps around for his phone. Emerging victorious, he powers it off and drops it on the floor.

Suguru’s a little more mature than that. It’s not an alarm, but a phone call, which means it might actually be important. He doesn’t check the name, just answers.

“What.”

“Wow,” Riko says. “Bad time?”

“Woke me up,” Suguru grumbles. “What’s wrong.”

“Woke you—it’s like, one in the afternoon.”

Suguru is not in the right mindspace for this. Normally, he loves Riko. Would slaughter a thousand men for her. Would go to the ends of the Earth for her. Right now specifically, he’s about two seconds away from hanging up and blocking her number.

“Riko,” he says, in a voice that swings between “sleepy” and “manically homicidal.” “Is there a problem.”

“I was just checking up on you and Satoru,” she says, hesitant. “After the… well, I guess you haven’t seen it. But basically—last night, when you picked him up from the club, there was some paparazzi—and then people outside of your penthouse too, and, uh—well. Um. The gossip mags are alleging that you’re both, like. Dating.”

Suguru’s sleep-fogged brain tries to catch up. He’d picked Satoru up last night and—and what. People thought they were dating? They hang out all the time, it’s not—

“Just because we got in a car together?”

“You kind of… dragged him into the van. And then later he carried you out of the van and you were draped all over him and the angle kind of made it look like—”

“Suguru,” Satoru groans, blindly swatting at him. “Shut the fuck up.”

Suguru reaches behind himself to hit Satoru back. “Fuck off. I’m on the phone.”

Riko makes a noise. “Is that… wait, but you said…wait, are you guys in bed together? Were they actually right? Shit, did I interrupt—oh my god, did you just have—”

Suguru hangs up.

“Get up,” he says, reaching underneath the pillow to yank on Satoru’s ear. “Something’s happened.”

Satoru yelps, kicking out with his ice-cold feet.

They do end up getting out of bed and dressed in under thirty minutes.

Satoru complains about having to trudge all the way to the trenches of the guest bathroom, but, while Suguru’s pretty good about sharing, his shower is where he draws the line.

Most of Satoru’s stuff is in that bathroom anyway, with how much he uses it. Suguru keeps it stocked with all his stupid skincare that is ridiculously expensive and completely unnecessary. Whenever he points this out, though, Satoru pokes fun at his hair products which is just—not the same thing, because Suguru has maybe three products and they’re all important. 

Between his shower routine and Satoru’s ten-step skincare, they rendezvous in Suguru’s bedroom at almost the same time, Suguru opening the door to Satoru rifling through his walk-in closet.

“Do you have any pants that aren’t seventeen sizes too big?” Satoru whines, flicking through his coathangers with a vengeance. “Seriously, just normal jeans. Khakis. A chino, even.”

“I think I have a pair of your jeans in the hamper,” Suguru muses. “It’s stained from the ramen we got last week but that should be fine.”

Satoru hurls a balled-up sweater at him. 

“Oh, real mature,” Suguru snarks. It is actually a really soft sweater, though, so he holds onto it.

Satoru liberates a pair of joggers from the very back of his closet that… are actually probably his, from the way that they fit him.

Suguru’s prepared to shove him out of the way to pick out his own pair of pants when Satoru tosses back a pair of cargos that match the sweater.

He’s got his back to Suguru, hiding his face.

Suguru is, for a brief second, overcome with emotion for him. 

Then Suguru’s stomach growls, and Satoru laughs at him, and the moment passes.

“So what’s the big problem?” Satoru says, picking apart his eggs.

Suguru frowns at him. “Can you just eat properly?”

“What, and just gulp everything down like you?”

“At least the food makes it into my mouth, you—”

“Hey, you can’t wake me up just to yell at me!”

“I didn’t.” Suguru pauses. He’s honestly still very fuzzy about all the details. “Riko said something weird. I didn’t really get it, but it sounded bad. Figured we should both be awake before we handle it.”

“Cool,” Satoru says, shrugging. “FaceTime her, I wanna see her, too.” He turns his phone back on while Suguru goes about doing that, eyebrows climbing his forehead. “Wow, Shoko really wanted to call me.”

Suguru hasn’t even opened his messaging app. The notification number itself is terrifying. Somewhere in the city, his publicist is having an aneurysm. 

Riko picks up on the first ring. “I can’t believe you hung up on me,” she says, struggling to glare, before giving up and smiling at the both of them. “So… how was last night?”

“It was great,” Satoru chirps, grinning back at her. “Suguru rudely interrupted my fun at the club, but we ended up getting pizza and watching movies.”

“You stayed over?”

“It was late,” Suguru says, wide-eyed. “Would you have me wandering around this city late at night by myself, Riko? I could get hurt!”

Satoru’s a black belt in three different martial arts, but sure. 

“That was it? Just pizza and movies?”

“What were you saying, earlier?” Suguru interjects. 

Riko doesn’t say anything for a moment, brow furrowed like she’s trying to work out a problem, gaze falling on Suguru, then Satoru, then back again.

“There were paps outside the club,” she says eventually. “Everyone got kinda crazy when you, like, bullied Satoru in the van.”

“Bullied is the perfect word, thank you, Riko—”

“Have you ever had to deal with him drunk? It’s like handling a toddler—”

“Anyway, a few of them went to camp out at your places after that, and when they saw you at Suguru’s…”

Suguru pauses.

He doesn’t remember a whole lot between their trip to get pizza and getting back home. It kind of felt like he’d blinked and teleported to his couch with a slice of pizza in his hands.

“Yeah…” Satoru rubs the back of his neck, side-eyeing him. He’s smirking. “You were really tired. And clingy.”

“Clingy,” Suguru echoes.

“I sent you some of my favourite tweets!” Riko says, grinning. “And a few articles, too.”

“Articles?” Suguru’s lost. “On what?”

“On our torrid love affair, I’m assuming,” Satoru says, delightedly scrolling through Riko’s texts. “Oh, this one’s good, look at the angle—it really does look like we’re kissing, doesn’t it?”

 “Kiss—” Suguru’s mouth goes dry when Satoru shows him the picture. It’s dark, all shadows—and Suguru really is clinging, draped over Satoru’s back like he would fall over without him, arms clasped around his waist, head shoved into his neck.

“Send me everything,” Satoru tells Riko. “Oh, should we say something? Maybe post a selfie of the two of us? Suguru, take your sweater off, it’ll make everyone go crazy—”

“Absolutely not,” Suguru says, mind whirling. Everyone knows he and Satoru are friends, and have been friends since they were young. They don’t orbit the same circles, and they’ve never worked together, but it’s not like their friendship is completely out of left field.

Well. This doesn’t look like they’re friends.

“So there’s really nothing going on?” Riko asks, still looking skeptical.

“No,” Suguru says, determined to nip that in the bud. Bad enough that the world apparently thinks they’re together now, let alone one of his closest friends. “I was tired, he was helping me up to my apartment.”

“And then he stayed over.”

“Friends do that all the time.”

“Sleepover,” Suguru echoes cheerfully. “Riko, you know you’re always welcome to join!”

“That’s really not what this is about,” Riko says. “Well, I’m glad you’re both okay. Suguru, you’re probably going to have to deal with a lot from your publicist though, so good luck with that.”

Suguru winces. “Thanks.”

“What’s the problem?” Satoru says, looking confused. “They’ve never seen two men hugging before?”

Suguru bites his tongue so that he doesn’t yell at him. The angles don’t do them any favours, but anyone with eyes could see that—that no man would hold his best friend like that unless he was in love with them. Unless he was the most important person in the world to him.

“I’m gonna call Mei Mei,” he says. “See you later, Riko.”

He tries to smile. It comes out flat. 

Mei Mei is very unhappy with him.

“I’ve been calling you all morning,” she snaps. “I am on vacation, you piece of shit. I was supposed to have the next week off in Marseilles, tanning and snorkelling and playing ping-pong.”

“Ping-pong?” Suguru blinks, momentarily distracted. “That’s your idea of vacation?”

“I’m rusty,” Mei Mei allows. “Mainly because I never get any time off.”

“You know I’m alright with you taking time off—”

“That is not the point here. This is a big time for your career, do you understand that? You can’t afford any scandals.”

“Yeah.” He knows.

Primal Fear, a movie he did with already well-known actor Nanami Kento thrust him into stardom. Ever since, he’s had a new problem—too many projects, too many press tours, and not enough time to just be.

Still, it’s a good problem to have. He’s living his dream, and he can’t afford to jeopardize it. Unlike Satoru, Suguru doesn’t exactly have a safety net to fall back on.

One of the big draws of Suguru is that he didn’t grow up amidst the glitz and glamour of the film industry. He got a scholarship to a good acting school and has quite literally been working himself to the bone to make something of himself. People like that about him. It makes him relatable.

It probably helps that most of the movies he’s done—courtroom dramas, neo-noir action thrillers—have built an image. A man’s man. Strong, confident, dependable. 

He hasn’t been typecast, but he hasn’t not been typecast.

If that fell away… well, it would be hard to find his way back.

“So, what do you want to do?”

“Deny it casually,” Mei Mei says. “It doesn’t have to be a big deal unless we make it one. You can post a video or just a post, that’s really your choice. Maybe say it’s the result of long filming days. If you act defensive it’ll look like you have something to hide.” She pauses. “Do you?”

Officially, no.

Unofficially…

“No.”

“I’d probably schedule a few more outings with your female friends. Ieri’s back from New York, and Amanai—”

“I’m not using them to prove I’m not dating Satoru,” Suguru says flatly. They’d be fine with it after they finished laughing, but it’s not their burden to bear. Besides, that would just start a whole other media storm alleging relationships with them which is just… not something anyone needs.

“Fine. But you still need to deny it as soon as possible. Honestly, you could turn it into marketing—tired from how hard you’re working with Tsukumo, and how excited you are for everyone to see it.”

“Sure,” Suguru says. “I’ll do that. Is that all?”

“For now,” Mei Mei says. “I’ll call you if anything changes.”

“Enjoy your vacation,” Suguru says. “This really isn't that big of a deal. I’ll deny it and it’ll all go away. There’ll be something worse by tomorrow.”

“Oh, absolutely,” Mei Mei says, laughing. 

Suguru ends the call and wanders back out to the living room. 

Satoru’s still sitting at the kitchen table but he looks—furious. Eyes blazing, tight-lipped, shoulders like a steel beam.

“Hey,” Suguru says warily. “Everything okay?”

“This is so fucked up,” Satoru spits. “I was looking through the stuff Riko sent me and then I had a bunch of tagged mentions, so I went through those, too, and—the things people are saying about you. It’s fucked up. It’s ridiculous, it’s—I don’t even—” He scowls. “They’re all cowards. If I start exposing them I doubt they’ll be as bold.”

“Please don’t doxx people,” Suguru says, sighing. His fans are lovely for the most part, but some of them… 

“You haven’t seen—”

“I can imagine.”

Satoru stops, then, and looks up at him. “Give me your phone,” he says, grabbing it out of Suguru’s hands.

“What do you need it for?”

“I’m blocking all these jackasses so you don’t need to see anything.”

It’s unnecessary. Suguru heard worse in his family home. 

But he looks at Satoru, hunched over his screen, furiously blocking accounts who have spent the last few hours spewing the most vile shit imaginable over a blurry picture of them hugging—and he can’t bring himself to take his phone back.

“I talked to Mei Mei,” he says, pouring himself a glass of water. “She said denying it casually should be enough. You were drunk and I was dead on my feet. It’s not a crazy story. She wanted me to go out with Riko and Shoko a little more but I told her that wasn’t happening. At least, not for the sole purpose of beating the rumors.”

“Is it really that big a deal?”

Suguru turns to look at him. Satoru’s frowning. 

“What?”

“I don’t get why we can’t just ignore it. It’s not a big deal. So we’re friends. So we hug each other sometimes. It’s not like we did anything wrong, so who cares?” 

“It’s different for you,” Suguru says. “Your image doesn’t matter, not to the same degree. What people think of me—it affects the roles I’m offered.”

“I get it,” Satoru says, even though he very clearly doesn’t. He’ll pretend to for Suguru, though, which means more. “Hey, if you want I can go out tonight and get caught making out with a supermodel.”

Suguru snorts. “Only if you want to.” 

Satoru leans back in his chair, stretching. “I guess I should go then, huh? Otherwise, it really does just look like we’re hiding away from the world in our cocoon of lovemaking.”

Suguru spits water all over him. “I’m going to kill you,” he sputters. “Stop—shut the fuck up. The hell is wrong with you? What the fuck?”

Satoru, drenched, is laughing his ass off. “How should I play it? I was really going for, you know, walk of pride, but I guess—”

“You’re not walking,” Suguru dismisses, rolling his eyes. “Just take one of my cars from the basement parking garage. There’s a back exit, it should be fine.”

“Oh.” Satoru pouts. “That’s less fun.”

“What a shame, that you can’t be hounded about our explosive sex life,” Suguru says flatly. 

“I know, I was really looking forward to it!” 

Satoru’s phone, abandoned on the table, rings. 

“Look, it’s Shoko,” Satoru says. “I should probably pick up, huh? I’ve got like thirty missed calls from her. Hey, how’s your day going?”

“How are you planning on getting to your interview on time.”

“My…”

“Your interview,” Shoko repeats. “On Utahime’s talk show. About the movie you directed and I produced. That movie.”

“Oh,” Satoru says. “I was just leaving.”

“Every single paparazzo in Japan is camped out outside Suguru’s apartment right now.”

“He’ll be fine,” Suguru speaks up. “I’ll get him there on time, don’t worry.”

“I texted you to pick him up last night,” Shoko says. “And you took him back to your place and got laid.”

Suguru clicks his tongue. “Small correction. I fell asleep in a car and he bought me pizza.”

“I hope you both die,” Shoko says, in a tone that could be construed as affectionate if Suguru was, perhaps, deaf.

Their plan to smuggle Satoru goes off fine. Or, at least, Suguru doesn’t see videos of him mobbed by camera flashes on Twitter, so he assumes it goes off fine. And then, thirty minutes later, Suguru sends him a selfie of him grinning in front of the studio, so Suguru feels comfortable taking a nap after a job well done.

Or, he settles down in bed, all ready, when his phone dings with an email from one Gojo Satoru.

heyyy just in case you forgot :)) here’s the manuscript you promised you would read last night!!!!! let me know what you think <33 love and kisses xxx your paramour, satoru

This fucking guy. It’s almost enough to make him not read it.

The keyword there is almost, because a) Suguru made a promise, b) one of the best directors in the world is offering him exclusive looks at a script, and c) his best friend is asking him to read something he wrote. 

Honestly, it’s a little odd. Usually, he’s the first one who reads Satoru’s scripts. But Satoru had said they’d already begun casting, which means this has been going on for a while. 

Suguru gets one page in, and he understands why Satoru had been gatekeeping this from him.

It’s different from his usual fare. Satoru tends to gravitate towards beautifully made, thought-provoking, generation-defining animated movies. Mostly 2-D, the occasional stop-motion.

This is a romcom. A straight out of the 90s, Nora Ephron-esque romcom. 

And it’s good. 

It’s really, really good. It’s clever and charming and funny. The characters jump off the page and the ensemble cast feels real and fleshed out. The risks aren’t catastrophic, but they feel valid all the same, and the ending, like all of Satoru’s stories, is so earnest Suguru feels like crying. 

Satoru must have been embarrassed, to have written this. He doesn’t do a lot of romance, choosing to focus instead on friendship and family and in-depth character studies—but when he does, it’s excellently done.

It’s the kind of movie that Suguru would genuinely love to be in. He never really gets asked for romcoms, probably because his resume is made of gritty, “serious” films—but he’s always thought about it. They just look really fun.

All of a sudden, Suguru is struck with the urge to see his face and just hear him speak. 

He heads for the living room and turns on the TV, channel surfing until he lands on Utahime’s show. They’ve already begun the interview, both of them sitting in chairs, Satoru’s non-negotiable, maraschino-topped Shirley Temple sitting on the table between them. 

“I’ve heard whispers that you’re working on a new project,” Utahime prods, shooting Satoru a teasing grin.

“You heard correctly,” Satoru beams. “I can finally tell everyone that I’ll be creating my first romcom! It’s not something I’ve ever done before, but I’m confident everyone’s going to love it. The writing is incredible, of course—”

Utahime’s face twitches.

Suguru wheezes. She hates Satoru. He adores how she’s one of the only interviewers who doesn’t treat him like a god. Watching their interviews is basically a vaudeville comedy. 

“I’m assuming you wrote it?”

“You assume correctly!”

“Have you made any decisions for the cast yet?”

And Satoru looks dead at the camera, like he knows Suguru is watching, and says, “I know who’s going to star in it, I’m just waiting for him to figure it out as well.”

“Oh?” Utahime leans forward, then looks disgusted with herself for willingly moving closer to Satoru. “Would that person happen to be the same man you carried up to his penthouse last night?”

Most people wouldn’t answer that.

Satoru is beloved by talk show hosts for the sole reason that he is a dick, and enjoys divulging everything.

“One and the same,” Satoru says. “The script is obviously different from the kind of thing he normally does, and I think he’s just a little insecure that he won’t be up for the challenge—”

Which is bullshit, coming from someone who was too insecure to show Suguru the script in the first place.

Suguru calls him to tell him so.

And instantly remembers that Satoru is not in fact just talking to a friend, but is currently on said friend’s insanely popular talk show.

Satoru’s phone rings on live fucking television, and Suguru watches, in mounting horror, as thousands of people bear witness to the fact that Oscar-winning director Gojo Satoru’s ringtone for Oscar-winning actor Geto Suguru is Nicki Minaj’s hit single, “Va Va Voom.”

“Who is that?” Utahime asks, eye twitching,

“IF-IF YOU’RE LOOKING FOR THE MAIN ATTRACTIONNN—”

“Hello?” Satoru’s visibly enjoying himself, answering the phone like he’s just stopping for a quick lunchtime chat, and not taking up valuable runtime. (Utahime’s ratings must be skyrocketing, though, so Suguru figures she can’t mind much.)

“Hey,” Suguru says. It’s too late to hang up. Too late to say that he just wanted to point out how much of a hypocrite Satoru is. “Just wanted to let you know that I’m in.”

Satoru’s face breaks into a satisfied grin—his brilliantly-white teeth on display, eyes crinkling behind his tinted sunglasses. “Yeah?”

Suguru should be mad that he doesn’t sound surprised at all, just happy—but he can’t find it in himself. It’s not Satoru’s fault that Suguru’s weak. He’d written a script that Suguru would love and he knew he would want to play the part. It’s not an insult. It is, in fact, the opposite.

“Yeah,” Suguru says, glad no one’s around to see the wide, goofy grin on his face. “We’ll talk more later. I’ll let you get back to your show, now.”

He hangs up.

The studio is pin-drop silent.

“He came around,” Satoru says, beaming. “I’ve got my leading man.”

And the room erupts.