Chapter Text
When Sendou got his art degree, he didn’t expect that he’d be using it in a tattoo parlor. Had been planning to go into something more traditional, like gallery art. Painting had always been his calling, always something that he could look forward to. However, his college roommate and now friend Shidou Ryuusei had crashed head-first into his life, introduced him to tattoo. Sendou couldn’t help but be enamored by the art form, the skill of someone who drew using a person’s body as a canvas. That was how he ended up opening a tattoo parlor himself, along with the boy that had pulled him into the profession in the first place.
“We should be able to finish it in the next session,” Sendou informed his client as he led her to the door. “Your skin takes ink well.” She hardly swelled compared to a lot of others he’d tattooed, and her skin hardly reacted with the ink.
She bowed her head with a smile. Had a bit of a punk-ish aesthetic going on, with the leather jacket and high tops, but she seemed polite enough. “Thank you very much. Is next week at the same time okay?”
Sendou nodded. “Yeah, I’m free.”
The two said their farewells and she took her leave. Sendou sighed when he was left alone. Stretched out his back a bit. She’d been surprised when she first walked in and saw him working — Which couldn’t be helped, he didn’t look like the sort of person that would be a tattooist. Usually dressed in cleaner fashion, his hair done nicely and his glasses slightly askew. He had no tattoos or piercings of his own, either. He looked like he belonged in perhaps a lecture better than around a place where yakuza frequented. She seemed satisfied with the results, though. As always. Sendou knew he was damn good at his job. Confidence was certainly one of his virtues.
“I’m headin’ out,” Shidou declared, standing up from the stool near his client bed.
Sendou’s eyebrows flicked up as he glanced back. He could’ve sworn the guy was just tattooing one of those big yakuza guys that frequented their place. “Where’d your client go?”
“Finished a while ago. Next appointment ain’t for an hour and a half?”
“You’re going to leave me with all the walk-ins?” Sendou whined.
“I’ve got a date.”
“You always have a date,” Sendou protested. Shidou’s boyfriend, Sae, was a professional soccer player for a Spanish team. Meant he usually wasn’t in the country. It was off-season, though, and Sae came back (unlike most years prior, from what Sendou knew) to be able to spend time with Shidou. And it was sweet, really. Didn’t make it any less obnoxious when Shidou took off in the middle of work.
Shidou ruffled Sendou’s hair. “Y’can handle these small fry tattoos. None of these projects are makin’ my heart sing.”
Selfish bastard. Sendou shoved Shidou’s hand away, scoffing. “Fine. Leave me here to die alone under the crushing pressure of work.”
“You sayin’ you can’t handle it?” Shidou asked with a shrewd little grin. “You truly are second-rate.”
Well, when he said it like that… “I can handle it fine! Just watch! I’ll do so many amazing tattoos that your portfolio could never compare!”
“Great, thanks.” And with that, Shidou left. It wasn’t until a few moments after the door swung shut that Sendou realized how he’d been manipulated. He groaned, pressing his forehead against the cool surface of the counter. It wasn’t even the first time it had happened. No matter how many times Shidou seemed to trick him, he never saw through it. It was infuriating. (Of course, he’d likely be over it within a few hours, as had become customary in their friendship, but, for now, it was time for him to seethe.)
Maybe he’d be lucky, and it’d be a slow hour…
“I think that’s all. Thanks for your help, Don,” Aiku said in well-practiced Italian as he placed down the last flower pots he was moving in.
The lanky Italian yawned. Shrugged it off. “Yer payin’ me. Ain’t nothin’ special.” The two had met while Aiku was studying abroad in Italy. They’d roomed together for a while. Don showed him the sights, gave him the street knowledge that was essential to the area. In exchange, Aiku had shown him around Sweden when they had the chance, all the ups and downs of Stockholm. Now, though, Aiku was taking his first steps outside Europe to set up this little flower shop. “Why ya wanna live all th’ out here, ‘nyway?” Italian was always accented heavily with that tone he got from living in the periferia for so long.
“It’s where my ma’s from…” She was sick, now, and it was bad. She probably wouldn’t last too long. She always talked about wanting to head home at some point, breathe in the same air she did when she was young. So, he decided to carve out a little section of Japan for himself and her, so she could spend her final moments back home. Besides that… “It’ll be nice to understand her a bit better. See where she grew up and all that, you know?”
“Sent’mental bullshit, a’ight, got it.” Don held out his hand with a scowl. “Cash. An’ give it in yen, wanna try th’ bars ‘round here.”
“Yeah, yeah, yeah. Money’s all you think about.”
“Least ya unda’stan’ that.”
Aiku snorted, pulled out his wallet. Began leafing through bills until he had about the equivalent of what he’d promised in euros. He held them out with a grin. “Don’t spend them all in one place, yeah?”
“‘Bout as likely as ya not gettin’ yer ass handed ta ya by some lady by th’ end o’ th’ week,” Don deadpanned.
“Maybe I’m turning over a new leaf.” Though they both knew that was about as likely as a penguin flying. Oliver Aiku was a womanizer through and through. He liked fun, and sex, and romance, and his heart went faster than people kept up with. Others couldn’t keep up. Didn’t dance the right way to keep him on the floor. It wasn’t as though he liked the heartbreaking aspect of it, it was just a byproduct of the way his heart wanted him to live. No one person had been able to satisfy that, male or female. “New country, new me.”
“An’ I’m th’ fuckin’ Queen o’ Englan’,” Don countered. “See ya ‘round, Ollie.”
“Don’t die,” Aiku replied lightheartedly, waving as Don walked out the door. When he was left alone, he turned to look over his new store. He’d gone to school for a double major in art and agriculture, so floral arts weren’t any sort of new subject to him. This area was supposed to have a big mix of people, from happy families to criminals. He figured that casting a wide net was best if starting a new business. Besides, the high school wasn’t far, and Valentine’s Day was coming up. He was sure he’d make plenty of sales with the local teenagers.
He’d already set up signs for the opening, so now all he had to do with his time was wait. He’d made a big deal about advertising online and all that, to be sure he had customers from day one. Still, he knew there would be a wait. He glanced out the window, at the shop next door. A tattoo parlor, based on the sign. (At least, that was what he was about 85% sure it said. His knowledge of Japanese writing was mostly from university, and therefore slightly rusty. He could speak it fine, did so with his mother as he grew up enough, but reading it was difficult.)
He shrugged and decided to head over. Might as well greet the neighbors, be hospital. It wouldn’t do any good to be on bad terms on them, at any rate. Besides, he got bored easily. Didn’t want to just sit around and wait.
He opened the door out and began on his way to the building next door.
Sendou startled as he heard the bell ring on the front door. Stood up automatically and bowed his head. “Welcome in.”
“Oh, maybe I got the kanji wrong,” a voice with a lilting Swedish accent mused. Sendou paused, looked up. Standing there was an imposing man of 190 centimeters. His broad frame took up most of the space of the doorway, and his pretty, heterochromatic eyes began to flick about, taking in the parlor. A foreigner. Sendou almost panicked, feeling that his English would be inadequate to deal with someone from outside the country (confident as he was in himself, that language was a hellscape and he almost failed his classes in it for a reason), but his brain seemed to eventually catch up with the idea that the man had been speaking Japanese.
“It says Dragon of Jizou Doori Tattoos,” Sendou informed him. (Shidou had picked the name after winning a coin toss when they first purchased the building.)
“That was what I thought…” The man approached the counter, leaned upon it on his elbows. Brought himself level with Sendou. The short man swallowed, looked away from the ruggedly handsome face now a tad too close to his own.
“A-Are you here to get a walk-in?” Sendou asked.
“Nah, ain’t my scene.” He offered a large hand across the counter to shake. “I’m Oliver Aiku. I’m gonna be working in the building next door. Nice to meet you.” Spoke casually, despite them having just met.
Sendou hesitated before taking the hand in his own smaller, daintier one, shaking it gently. “Sendou Shuuto. A pleasure…” The hand was warm, calloused. Felt like it could snap Sendou’s arm in half without much effort. What was he even going to run next door, a fighting club?
“You do tats, then?”
“That is kind of the point of this place, yes,” Sendou deadpanned.
“Didn’t realize that tattoo artists were so cute,” Aiku said with a wink. Boyish, lopsided grin spread across his face. Hand still not releasing Sendou’s own.
Sendou paused, certain for a moment that he’d heard incorrectly. When he realized that the man had, yes, in fact, been that bold, heat immediately began to flood his cheeks. A bit of pride swelled in his chest at being praised, too. “My co-owner isn’t cute,” he said, point-blank.
“Ah, so you’re just special. Got it.”
“I bet you say that to everyone…”
Aiku leaned closer, thumb rubbing circles on the palm of Sendou’s hand. “Only when it’s true.”
Sendou nearly leaped back at the proximity, the feeling of the touches, the implications of the words. He heard plenty about playboy foreigners coming to Japan, trying to pick up women (and, occasionally, men), but he didn’t realize that a man likely of that nature was truly that easily charming. He cleared his throat, glanced away. “You have a store to run, right? Wouldn’t want to hold you up here.”
“I have time. Opening day’s bound to be slow… Unless you want me to go, Shuuto.”
Using his first name like it was nothing. Making it drip honey with the tone of his voice, making it a fucking melody in a person’s ears. He knew what he was doing. Sendou couldn’t find it in him to tell him to go away, either. No wonder girls ended up swept off their feet by guys like this… He cleared his throat, shaking his head. No. No, he was working. He was busy. “I need to work.”
“Aww, I heard you guys were all work, no play over here…” Aiku pouted.
“Aiku-san—”
“No need for that, just call me Oliver.”
Right, foreigners were… very casual. There had been something about that during a public relations course Sendou had taken during his time at university for a required credit. “Right, uh, Oliver…”
“Right, right, I can go. When’s your lunch break?”
“I mean, I can take it whenever the bastard gets back…”
Aiku winked. “I’ll pick you up. It’s a date.”
And Sendou couldn’t get two words out from his flustered sputtering before the florist left the building, heading back to trim flowers or whatever the fuck florists did. The tattoo artist buried his face in his palms, groaning. “It’s not a date,” he mumbled weakly, but by the time he managed it, Aiku was gone.