Hyoma’s ushered off the press conference stage by a bodyguard, his agent, and the hums of murmured disbelief. He’s fed the vultures; the press is having a field day, and he’s about to make it even better. Hyoma squares his shoulders, flashing the cameras a bright, final smile, tilting his chin ever so slightly in mock bravado.

They want a show? Hyoma’s been performing since BLTV aired its first stream. He’d once treated the media with apathy at best, and disdain at worst, but now more than ever, he’s going to need every global news outlet on his side. His agent, Charlene, swings the white double door open, and Hyoma murmurs a thanks.

He’s greeted with a massive bouquet of red and white roses, and a smile that has Hyoma falling in love again, and again, and again.

Rensuke wraps his arms around Hyoma, grip firm and resilient, touch warm and welcoming. In a country that Hyoma’s never felt fully at ease in, Rensuke’s the closest thing he has to home. He buries his face in the crook between Rensuke’s chin and neck, taking in its comfort, and Rensuke leans down, pressing a kiss to his temple. There it is—the reporters go wild, hooting and hollering in excitement, the gentleness of Rensuke’s embrace lost to the sea of camera flashes and blinding lights. It’s fine.

Hyoma had left him precise instructions.

From the size of the bouquet, to the kind of flowers, to how Rensuke would swoop in and grab his waist: this had all been planned. Rensuke’s a mere pawn in Hyoma’s latest post-retirement scheme, a factorial in a calculated series of PR moves, and Hyoma loves him so, so much for his willingness to play his part. Rensuke leans down to whisper in his ear.

“You’re insane.”

Rensuke chuckles, exasperated and fond, and Hyoma beams, allowing himself the briefest, most indulgent spark of sincerity. It’s fine. The press will lap this up.

“Maybe I am,” Hyoma says, lacing their hands together as Rensuke leads him down the hall, taking him to their car where his agent has their doors open. He offers the camera one last wave before stepping inside, heaving a sigh of relief as he sinks into their Mercedes’ plush leather seats. He turns to Rensuke, who’s revving up the engine in the driver’s seat.

“Let’s go home,” he says, waiting for Rensuke to drive off and the camera flashes to fade before he dares to press his hand to his temples. “I’m tired,” he whines, soft and vulnerable in a way he’ll never show the cameras. Hyoma hates the game but understands its necessity, something his sixteen-year-old self would have struggled to grasp.

At least he has Rensuke by his side, which would have stunned sixteen-year-old Hyoma as well.

The years have been kind to Rensuke. The gray at his temples suits him, as do the crease between his brows and the softness in his stomach, one he’d have fought valiantly to train off during the apex of his career. Like any professional athlete, they’d left their peaks back in their twenties, but Rensuke has taken on a different, calm maturity to him, a stoic sincerity Hyoma loves and admires.

Hyoma glances to his right to see Rensuke click his tongue, slamming the brakes to stop short behind a bright red Porsche. Hyoma smirks, noting how his eyes crinkle in the rearview mirror.

Perhaps years ago, Hyoma would have resented his laugh lines, or the slightest hint of crow’s feet when he smiles. He’d certainly resented his body when injury had spiraled his career to a careening halt. Hyoma had cursed the flesh prison that failed him while his peers won games and scored goals, sprinting down the football field with a bright, unbridled freedom that Hyoma was robbed of in his late twenties. Far too young to retire, the tabloids had written with saccharine sympathy, every passage laced with sucrose-laced simpers about the tragedy of Hyoma Chigiri. Hyoma had wanted to tear each thinkpiece, each article to shreds, wanted to destroy his fragile, broken meatsack from the inside out.

Turns out, he’d just needed something else to focus his energy on. The thought of returning to Japan has given Hyoma renewed purpose; this is just the start of a long, arduous fight. Hyoma reaches over to Rensuke in the driver’s seat, giving his hand another squeeze.

“How long till we get home?” he asks. Rensuke shrugs.

“Depends. How quickly will you take us there?”

Chigiri laughs. He’d been talking about their shared penthouse in King’s Cross, but Rensuke’s thinking ten steps ahead. “So confident in me, Rensuke.”

“Of course I am.” The Porsche finally starts to chug along, and Rensuke sighs with relief, slamming his foot on the accelerator. “If there’s anyone who can take me home, it’s you.”

At least it was a direct flight.

Hyoma groans as he collapses onto the soft, inviting sheets in their London apartment, the faint smell of detergent still lingering on the Egyptian cotton. Rensuke wheels his suitcase in after him, unzipping it and beginning to unpack. “You should go take a shower,” Rensuke says, extracting a haphazardly bundled-up shirt from where Hyoma had stuffed it into a corner. He chucks it into the laundry basket. “Don’t get your dirty clothes all over our nice bed.”

“Ugh,” Hyoma whines, turning around to bury his face in the pillow. Rensuke clicks his tongue, marching towards the bed and placing his hand on Hyoma’s shoulder.

“Come on. Go get yourself cleaned up.”

Hyoma kicks his feet, relishing the satisfying thuds they make as they make contact with the down comforter. “Five minutes,” he pleads. Even business class has nothing on a real bed, especially one that’s soft and warm and smells like his Rensuke.

Rensuke sighs. He leans in, breath warm against Hyoma’s neck as he whispers into his ear.

“You can go to bed after you’re cleaned up. It means you can actually get under the sheets, not just on top of them.”

Rensuke doesn’t mean it, but this is the perfect combination of words to make Hyoma’s eyes snap open. He whirls around, sitting up to face Rensuke, suddenly brimming with energy despite the long-haul flight and his earlier exhaustion.

“Or,” he says, wrapping his arms around Rensuke and tugging him close, “we could do some other sort of bedroom activity. Together.”

Rensuke laughs, pressing a kiss on Hyoma’s forehead before pulling away.

“Go shower and I’ll consider it, princess. Don’t pout like that—” Hyoma is not pouting, just pulling a face, but whatever— “Your adoring fans would lose their minds if they saw you now. The current face of Japan’s queer movement, acting like this?”

Hyoma huffs and throws a lock of hair behind his ear.

“Fine,” he whines, making the monumental effort to heave himself up from his safe, peaceful haven into the cold, cruel world. He scrambles to his feet, cringing at how cold the wooden floor is when his feet make contact with it. Life is so hard. “Besides,” Hyoma adds, leaning in to tap Rensuke’s nose with his finger, “I’d argue this makes me better representation.”

“Brat representation?” Rensuke scoffs. Hyoma raises an eyebrow.

“If that’s what you want to call it.”

The fight isn’t over.

Hyoma steps out to the sea of flashing lights he’s gotten re-accustomed to, grinning and waving as he exits the court building. He might have won, but it’s a hollow, symbolic victory until the Constitution is changed; nevertheless, if this fills any other queer person in Japan with hope, then perhaps it will be worth it.

He’s starting to sound like Rensuke. That’s what marriage does, he supposes. There are worse things to absorb from your lover than hope.

Kagoshima is too warm in the spring. Hyoma unravels the knitted cable scarf Rensuke gave him as a Christmas gift, tucking it underneath his arm. It’s been more than two years since he filed his case, and while many things have changed, his hometown and the Constitution remain the same. Not for long, he supposes. He’s going to fix the latter.

“How are you going to celebrate?” one of the reporters barks over the crowd, and Hyoma figures that he can field this question while he’s paused anyway. He leans in towards the microphone, staring the camera in the eye.

“By campaigning to the Diet, of course. And then I’ll get some karinto manju while I’m still in Japan, before I fly back to London,” Hyoma adds. “It’s not the same anywhere else.”

Kissing ass isn’t Hyoma’s strong suit. He’s too selfish to pander to others’ needs, too blunt to traipse delicately around others’ feelings and figure out what makes them tick. Playing to the press is one thing; appealing to politicians is another entirely. It takes more scheming than he’s comfortable with.

Hyoma thanks the taxi driver when it drops him off at the mansion, staring up at its majesty, at the ornate Palladian architecture, the grounds covered in bright green grass and rose bushes that sprawl for further than his eyes can see. He scoffs. “And I thought we were rich,” Hyoma mutters, ringing the doorbell. He doesn’t know much about gardening, but enough to put together that it must be a feat of nature to keep a lawn this pristine in Okinawa in the sweltering, humid summer.

This Diet member must be paying a huge team big bucks for this.

Hyoma’s welcomed in by a butler who looks uncannily like the younger Itoshi brother, and ushered from the grandiose entrance hall into a parlor he’d only seen in Western Regency films. He takes a seat in a plush velvet armchair, and immediately offered mineral water, coffee or tea; Hyoma requests some sencha and the butler takes off. He reviews the binder of papers in his lap, checks his phone, sets it down, and then checks it again. Hyoma hates that he’s nervous. This isn’t a league football game where the consequences are either you win or you lose and you’re upset about it.

It feels more like Blue Lock than anything he’s experienced in a long time: failure means death, and that possibility terrifies the shit out of Hyoma.

“Chigiri Hyoma?”

Hyoma comes face-to-face with the man whose office he’s been emailing desperately for months now, hoping for some sort of acknowledgment or an answer. Shindo Ainosuke is in the tightest-fitting suit and has eyebrows almost as bizarre as the Wanimas’, but if he’ll help Hyoma, then kiss his ass he’ll do. Hyoma gets up from his seat and bows politely at him.

“Nice to meet you. I’d like to request your help.”

This doesn’t feel real.

Hyoma slams the hotel door behind Rensuke as soon as they’re inside. They kick their shoes off, haphazardly shoving them away, and Hyoma doesn’t wait for bed before grabbing Rensuke by his starched collar and kissing him stupid. Rensuke tastes like beer and hope and victory. Hyoma wants to drink that in, bask in this giddiness, this radiating triumph better than any football game, any winning goal. Rensuke shoves him against a wall, and Hyoma grins back at him, wild and unbidden, seeing his own delight reflected in Rensuke’s eyes. He hopes Rensuke can see how incredible he looks too, panting, flushed, breath hot against Hyoma’s skin.

“Thank you,” Hyoma says, breathless. He pulls Rensuke in for another kiss, and then another, and then another. “Thank you, thank you, thank you.”

“You don’t have to thank me for anything—” Rensuke begins, but Hyoma doesn’t want to hear it, instead leaning in close to suck a hickey into Rensuke’s neck. The small gasp of surprise that falls from his lips is music to Hyoma’s ears, and so is the way Rensuke edges his leg between Hyoma’s, grinding up against him in slow, measured motions. Hyoma moans, relishing in the pleasure that sparks through his veins, and he knows this is just the beginning: the beginning of their future together in Japan, but for now?

The start of a long and incredible night.