Work Text:
There’s nothing Niragi wants more than to go home right now.
He’s only been back at his job for a little longer than half a month since being released from the hospital and cleared to work. In a way, he’d been fortunate he hadn’t been fired for all his time off, but he thinks his boss is worried about the bad press of firing a 'meteor incident victim'.
He hates that. Being known as a victim. A 'survivor'. People keep calling him 'lucky', but what about his situation is lucky? When he looks like he does? When he’s in pain every day, stamping it down with medication? Just because he’s alive, he should be grateful? This life he has, it’s just some sick joke that’s being played on him. By God or by the universe or by whatever higher power people wanted to believe in.
At work, he’s been keeping his head down. A lot of his old projects have been taken on by other workers, so he’s forced to do the shitty busywork that he considers below him and a waste of his skills. His boss tells him it’s so that he can 'get back into a rhythm after so much time off'. So he agrees and he sits at his desk and he works efficiently and he pretends that he’s not aching, that the joints in his hands don’t numbly tingle with pins and needles, that he can’t feel the stares of his co-workers.
By the time the work day is over, he’s at his desk, packing his stuff away. His hands are sore and overworked. As if his risk of tendinitis wasn’t bad enough, now he’s got issues with his burn scars to deal with. His fingers are stiff and he stretches them out after stuffing his laptop into his bag.
He hears the sound of approaching footsteps and his shoulders stiffen slightly before he forces them into a more relaxed looseness, standing straighter as he turns. His boss, Okajima, stands waiting, smiling in a way Niragi is sure is meant to be polite but comes off slightly tense. A few of his other co-workers are standing a little ways off, watching them. People here have been walking on eggshells around Niragi since he’d come back.
“Niragi, come drinking with us tonight,” Okajima says, “To celebrate your return to work and your survival of that awful accident.”
There’s a twitch in Niragi’s jaw and he clenches his teeth before his disinterest can become obvious. He wants to decline. He wants to go home, but he can’t say that when his boss is giving him such a direct invitation.
“Of course, sir,” he says instead.
“Wonderful!”
Sometimes, it feels a little like Karube’s co-workers forget he almost died. In fairness, he was one of the lucky few when it came to the survivors. He didn’t have any huge injuries that weren’t easily hidden, just some scars, and he’d gotten away without many lingering pains. He’d even managed to leave the hospital early and get back to work fast. So what if he has night terrors some nights? So what if he sometimes feels guilty about surviving when better people died?
He’s alive, still kicking, even if he is still in the same place he was before he almost died.
There are people like Arisu who’d turned their lives around after the incident. Karube, by comparison, feels stagnant. As much as he acts like he’s not, he knows he’s just a loser drop-out destined to work a dead-end job forever. It’s fun to talk about dreams like a farm in Australia, but it’s not realistic. It won’t happen, not in this lifetime, not unless he somehow gets incredibly lucky a second time and comes into some large sum of cash.
But since Karube had almost died, it’d been pretty easy to lean on that sense of guilt in Yasui and get his old job back. Albeit it meant he and Emi weren’t 'allowed' to work shifts together anymore. Not that it really mattered. In the time that Karube had been in hospital after the meteor, they had … drifted apart, for lack of better terms. For whatever reason, something had changed. Emi didn’t seem to care much when he mentioned breaking it off. A flutter of her lashes and a smile and his boss was sucked right back in, and then it was almost like she and Karube had never happened.
It’s a good thing, he supposes, since he does like this job. Decent pay, decent hours, decent location. It could be worse.
Tonight, he’s on bar duty with another ‘tender named Hirota and there’s a couple of waitresses scurrying around as well. He doesn’t know any of them all that well, a couple of new hires that had been brought on while he was still recovering. They’re nice enough and he gets along pretty well with them. He’s always been a personable type of guy, finding it easy to make friends.
The bell at the door chimes as more customers come in and the team calls out in welcome as they work. Karube’s tidying up the rows of clean glasses behind the bar as his fellow bartender serves a customer. One of the waitresses is balancing a tray of drinks as she skirts around tables.
Distracted as he works, Karube’s still surprised to hear his boss’ voice cheerily greeting one of the members of the new throng of customers.
“Okajima! How wonderful for you to come,” Yasui says, a hand landing on the older man’s shoulder. “Come, let me get you a table. Consider your first round on me.”
“Yasui, you’re too kind,” Okajima replies as he leads the team through the bar.
“Anything for an old friend.”
Karube glances up to look at the group that had entered. Great, a bunch of tech-y businessmen, they must’ve just gotten off work. His eyes trail over them. An older man who must be their boss, followed after by a group of younger workers and — Karube blinks.
Well, that is not the look of an average business guy. The guy, he’s the kind of attractive that isn’t often seen. A real gorgeous black sheep in between the rest of the unimpressionable dorks. He’s got a piercing through his left brow, in his nose, Karube spots a couple more in his ear when he turns his head. They’re silvery and shiny where they catch the light.
For the too-long handful of seconds he’s staring at the piercings, he doesn’t even notice the scars. It’s when his gaze flicks along that he sees them. The pink mottle of burn scars up over his right cheek and temple, disappearing beneath the wave of his dark fringe. Scars or not, Karube can’t deny he’s a pretty good-looking guy.
Yasui turns, looking toward the bar, “Karube!”
He tenses slightly, but keeps his cool, smiling easily as he meets Yasui’s eye.
“Some drinks for my friends. Make sure to take good care of them.”
“Sure thing, boss,” Karube replies.
Niragi sits himself at the corner of the table, giving himself a quick escape towards both the bar and the exit. His boss might’ve invited him, but Niragi has no presumption that this has anything to do with him. No doubt he’ll just end up ignored like every other time he’d felt forced to come along to one of these nights.
So it seems, Okajima is friendly with the owner of the bar. When the man calls out towards the bar, Niragi’s gaze turns to look at the bartender as he replies to his own boss.
What the hell kind of guy wears a bright orange hawaiian shirt?
The guy - Karube, apparently - steps around the bar towards them as Yasui leaves towards what must be an office in the back. Niragi takes him in as he comes to a stop at the end of their table. He’s bleach-blond, tanned with a spray of sun-freckles across his face, a flat piercing glints in his ear. It seems like the bar lets its workers dress casually, if it wasn’t the name badges pinned to their shirts, they’d look like anything other patron.
Light shines off the silver chain on Karube’s wrist as he takes up a pen and thin notebook. He smiles, easy and charming, as he goes around the table taking the other’s drink orders. Soon enough, his gaze falls onto Niragi and he pauses. Something flashes in his eyes.
Some part of Niragi gets a sense of familiarity, as if he’s seen Karube before somewhere but can’t put his finger on where or when, but that part is quickly overwhelmed by a simmering annoyance.
Karube’s staring.
By now, maybe Niragi should be used to it, but it still frustrates him. As if he doesn’t already know that he’s got burn scars, that his eye’s all messed up, he doesn’t need people staring at him to remind him about it.
“What can I get you?” Karube asks. There’s a slight quirk in his smile.
Truthfully, with the medication he’s on, Niragi shouldn’t be drinking at all. But his boss invited him and he can’t decline or make excuses. He’ll just have to drink slowly to drag it out until it gets late enough that he can excuse himself to leave and go home.
Niragi’s tongue flicks across his bottom lip and Karube shifts slightly, a tilt of his head, his eyes not straying.
“Beer, thanks,” Niragi answers, his tone clipped, slipping slightly acidic but trying to keep up a polite facade in front of his co-workers.
Karube marks it down on his pad, smiles to the group again, then heads back to the bar. Niragi works his jaw, his teeth set tight and gritting. Deaf to the conversations around him, his gaze drops down to the slightly-worn, water-stained tabletop as he massages his thumb into one of his aching scarred palms.
Stepping back behind the bar, Karube takes a breath as he starts to prepare drinks for the group. As he gathers bottles and glasses, his mind flickers back to that guy at the table. The pretty one with the piercings. There’d been a flash on one in his mouth too, through his tongue. Geez. A slight shiver runs down Karube’s spine.
There had been something else about him too. Just for a moment when they’d first locked eyes. It’s a strange feeling that he doesn’t quite have the word for, something like meeting someone again after a long time of not seeing them. However, Karube’s sure he’s never seen the guy before. He’d remember a guy like that, a face like that.
He mixes drinks with learned ease, letting his thoughts run. Those scars … had he maybe been in the meteor incident too and Karube had caught a glimpse of him that day? Or maybe in the hospital?
Shrugging it off, he sets the drinks onto a tray and picks it up, taking it back to the table to serve them out. Customer-service smile in place, he passes the drinks out. His eyes flick briefly towards the guy with the piercings again, his smile slipping slightly more genuine as he passes him the beer. The guy meets his eye, but there’s a sharpness in his gaze.
Tucking the tray under his arm, Karube heads back to the bar.
It’s not too busy of a night at the bar, which means in-between serving other customers, Karube keeps looking back to that table. They seem a decently cheery bunch, all except that guy. Niragi, he’d heard that boss-guy call him while insisting on buying him another drink. So now he sits with another beer next to his barely-half-drunk one.
That name, it doesn’t mean anything to Karube. In the same way as looking at him, it’s seems familiar but also not. He’s sure he’s never heard it before, or at least not on someone he knows. His gaze flicks back to Niragi, curious. Well, it’s not like he’s just going to go over and ask if he knows him. That might’ve worked for Arisu with Usagi, but there’s no way Karube’s going to throw out such a lame line.
In a spare moment, Karube leans his hands onto the bar.
Niragi, he seems pretty distant from his co-workers. The rest of them are chatting and clinking glasses and eating, but Niragi sits quietly. They don’t seem to pay him any mind, none of them speak to him or even look at him. He’s been drinking slowly, not that Karube can parse out why he would want to. It’s not good beer, it’s better to just drink it quickly and cover the taste by eating something. Maybe he just feels required to have something because he’s out with his boss.
Karube’s head tilts as he follows where Niragi’s dipped gaze goes. An amused smirk pulls to his face. Niragi’s got his phone out under the table, thumbing across the screen. Karube’s seen that same game on Arisu’s phone, from this same angle even.
Niragi’s thumb pauses on the screen, then he looks up. His gaze locks with Karube’s. There’s a twitch in the line of his tight-held jaw, and his eyes narrow sharply. Karube’s head tilts slightly, holding his gaze for a moment before he glances away to help another customer that steps up.
He’d noticed it earlier when he’d stepped up to the table, that Niragi’s right eye is a cloudy blue-grey, the pupil barely definable. It’s in harsh contrast to his other dark ink-coloured eye. It doesn’t seem natural and considering the burns, Karube supposes it must have happened at the same time. It gives him an intense look, especially paired with all those piercings.
Well, 'intense' is one way to describe him, 'fucking hot' is another.
A scowl downturns Niragi’s mouth. He thumbs at the 'off' button of his phone, tucking it into his pants pocket. Medication be damned. He picks up his glass and down the last couple mouthfuls. Already he knows that he’s going to be regretting that later. It’s a coin toss if he’s going to end up dizzy or drowsy by the end of the night. Hopefully nothing worse. The medication’s still new, he’s not sure of all the side-effects, let alone when mixed with alcohol.
It’s a bad decision, but that guy is getting on his nerves now.
That guy. The fucking bartender. Karube.
He’s keeps staring, like Niragi’s some goddamn exhibit in a zoo.
He wants to say something. He should say something. He can’t lash out his co-workers who stare since he has to see them every day, but how often is he going to be coming to this shitty bar? Why not give the guy a piece of his mind? If he can just manage to slip away from Okajima’s sights, then he can do it. Shame the bar’s so close, shame they’re not in a private room Niragi can easily just slip out of.
His eyes flick back towards the bar where Karube’s working. He’s pouring and passing drinks to one of the waitresses, an easy casualness to his posture and the set of his broad shoulders, a flash of a smile as he says something to her. As the waitress walks off, he sways back on his feet, breathing out as a sigh as he rolls his neck and tousles a hand through his bleached hair.
It’s fucking annoying, but there is something that’s actually rather attractive about him. Niragi dashes the thought as soon as it enters his head. No. No, there’s absolutely nothing attractive about this bastard that’s been staring at him since he walked in. He swipes his tongue across the point of his teeth, then grits them together in frustration.
Watching for a few minutes longer, he finally spies a chance.
The other bartender leans towards Karube, hooking a thumb over his shoulder towards the small hallway off the side of the bar and the sitting area. Niragi can make out the signs for the bathrooms, so at least he’s got an excuse to go that way. Karube steps out from behind the bar, turning down into the short hall and Niragi stands.
None of his co-workers even notice as he slips away.
As he follows after Karube, he notices the slight unsteadiness in himself. So it’s the dizziness then. He’s sure the drowsiness will come later, especially if he has to finish his next drink and whatever else Okajima insists upon before he gets to leave and go home. Huffing, he tries to shake it off.
He catches Karube as he’s just about to enter a room down the hall. A kitchen or maybe a storage room.
“Hasn’t anyone told you it’s rude to stare at people’s scars?” he snaps hotly.
Karube’s hand pauses on the doorknob, he glances towards Niragi.
“Excuse me?”
Niragi scoffs.
“Don’t act fucking stupid now when you get called out on it. Did you just think I didn’t notice?”
Karube’s hand drops off the doorknob. He turns to face Niragi fully, crossing his arms loosely. There’s a twitch across his expression, a glint in his eyes that is part amused, part annoyed at being snapped at.
“I wasn’t staring at your scars, I was checking out your piercings.”
“Bullshit.”
“Do you always pick fights with strangers like this or am I getting some kind of special treatment?”
Niragi jerks back slightly, indignant.
“What the fuck is your deal?”
“What’s your’s? Following me over here and accusing me of shit?”
“Don’t know how much of an 'accusation' it is if I’m right.”
“But you’re not right.”
“So you’re going to stick with saying you weren’t staring?”
Karube rolls his eyes.
“Fine, whatever, pretty boy, have it your way. I was staring -” He leans slightly towards Niragi, bending at the waist, “- at your piercings.”
Niragi chokes slightly, simmering under the skin, repeating, “'Pretty boy'? Is that supposed to be some kind of joke?”
“Karube!” A voice snaps from up the hallway behind Niragi.
“Shit,” Karube curses under his breath.
Niragi glances over his shoulder and see Okajima’s friend approaching. Yasui walks towards them, a sharp glare directed at Karube that he quickly turns into something more apologetic when he looks at Niragi. He lands a hand on Niragi’s shoulder.
“I’m sorry for my bartender. Come, allow me to get you another drink to make up for the disrespect,” Yasui offers him calmly, then shoots Karube another scathing warning look, “Karube. Get back to work.”
Karube’s mouth thins in a compressed line and he turns, shoving into the room and leaving Niragi to be lead away by Yasui back to his table of co-workers. It doesn’t take long for Niragi to finish his second drink then his third and then he excuses himself to leave early, feeling the alcohol and the medication and the annoyance boiling under his skin all starting to grow into a perfect storm that could only mean trouble if he stayed.
Yasui doesn’t want to hear anything Karube has to say when he comes back from returning Niragi to his table and pouring him another beer in 'apologies for Karube’s behaviour'. As 'punishment', Karube ends up having to take over closing for the night, the other bartenders and waitresses getting to leave earlier while he has to clean up the bar and tables, and count the registers, and lock up, all by himself. For the next few hours until he’s finally finished with everything, he’s bitter and frustrated.
Even more annoying, he can’t get Niragi out of his head even as he’s locking up the front doors and starting to make his way home. He shoves his hands into his pockets as he starts walking down the street, feeling the brisk night air brush against his face.
'Pretty boy'. He doesn’t know why he’d said it. He doesn’t know why it had felt so natural in his mouth. He’s never called anyone that before, not that he can remember.
It’s fitting though, he supposes, Niragi’s a pretty guy.
He quickly shakes the thought off. What was he thinking? The guy’s clearly an asshole, completely infuriating. Where did he get off getting Karube in trouble like that? Over some imagined slight, no less?
Karube huffs out a frustrated breath. Whatever. He’d probably never see him again.
If Niragi believed in a god, he’d be starting to think this is some kind of divine punishment - as if the meteor wasn’t enough.
Okajima won’t just let Niragi slip back into the unnoticeable background like he wants. Maybe he’s is trying to do some kind of risk management, some holier-than-thou showing that the company 'really cares' about its workers, especially the ones who end up almost dying in some big life-changing, international-news-making event.
Whatever it is, he ends up getting dragged out for drinks again.
At least he doesn’t feel nearly as bad as last time. Tired from his work shift, sure, but not as aching, not as sore and stiff in his hands and wrists. Even so, when he sees where they’re walking into, he’s got more than half-a-mind to start complaining of pain as an excuse to be able to go home early and ditch this mindless team-building.
Resisting, he huffs quietly and sets his jaw, following at the end of the group as they walk inside. Apparently this bar has become Okajima’s new favourite place since the last time they were here two weeks ago. Niragi hopes, at least, that Karube isn’t working tonight and the most annoyance he’s going to have is dealing with his co-workers.
Apparently, Niragi is the unluckiest man alive.
His gaze flicks towards the bar and he’s immediately met by the sight of Karube standing behind it. He’s wearing just as ridiculous a hawaiian shirt as last time. It’s got fucking bubble-eyed goldfish on it, and white lotus flowers, there’s ripples of bright blue like waves across the darker background colour. It’s unbuttoned and he wears a plain t-shirt underneath it that fits to his form. He’s wearing those same accessories, silver chains looped around his neck and his wrist, a flat stud in his ear.
Karube looks up and his eyes track over the group until they fall onto Niragi. A smile quirks at the corner of his mouth, clearly amused. He throws up a stupid two-finger salute in greeting. Niragi scoffs quietly and rolls his eyes as he looks away from him, picking up his pace to catch up where he’s fallen behind in following his co-workers.
Niragi takes a seat at the corner of the table again. It’s one of the waitresses that take their order and serve them this time. She stares at Niragi for a moment but at least has the curtesy to quickly pretend like she hadn’t been, turning her gaze down to her notepad as she takes his drink order. Beer again, he decides, not wanting complicate things or be forced to talk to Karube if he asked for something more specific.
At least it seems like Karube is being kept busy with other customers, so this time Niragi gets to escape his annoying staring.
To say Karube’s surprised to see that group - or rather, Niragi - again is a bit of an understatement.
Surprised, yes, but also amused. Karube had been sure Niragi would’ve been talking shit on the bar after that 'disrespect' from the last time they’d been here a few weeks ago. Apparently he’d kept his mouth shut or his boss didn’t care to listen to his opinion. Either way, the group’s back again and Karube watches them in his periphery as he works.
That weird feeling arises in him again, like he somehow knows Niragi.
He shakes it off, refocusing. He can’t go getting into trouble again, and not with the same guy either. There’s enough customers to keep him busy for a while anyway. It might just be bartending, but he does have some pride in his work. He’s got his charms, he can pour and mix drinks with ease, he’s got a flourish to his service; for the most part, Niragi excluded, he’s actually good with customers.
Behind the counter, he’s in his comfort zone. He flashes smiles as he serves up drinks, chatting here and there to customers as he goes. If he flirts a little, well who’s to say it’s not allowed?
Eventually, as the night drags on, the number of customers at the bar dwindles to practically nothing and Karube’s left to his own devices, cleaning up glasses and wiping down the bar with his free time. There’s not much else for him to do, he can’t leave the bar unattended since he’s the only one working behind it tonight and he can’t be caught messing around on his phone, he can’t even go take a break by hiding away in the storage room.
He’s lining up clean glasses on the back counter opposite the bar when he hears the unmistakable sound of a bar stool being dragged across the floor. Expecting just another customer, he puts the charming service smile into place as he glances over his shoulder. Instead, his brows lift as he’s surprised to find Niragi sat at the bar, his gaze directed down at his phone.
Leaning up against the back counter, Karube loosely crosses his arms.
Niragi’s eyes lift, flicking towards him.
Karube quirks a brow.
Niragi gestures with his phone.
“Can I get a drink or not?” he drawls, sounding bored.
Karube huffs a short laugh.
“What? No attitude, no accusations?” he shoots back, a tease. He tilts his head towards the hallway beside the bar, a flash of a smile, “No cornering me in a hallway?”
Niragi rolls his eyes, “Don’t make it sound like some tryst.”
Another short laugh and Karube moves to lean on his hands across the bar counter from Niragi.
“What do you want?” he asks.
“Whiskey,” Niragi replies, nodding towards a bottle on the wall shelf.
“Neat or on the rocks?”
“Neat.”
“Got it.”
Well, well, so it seems that Niragi’s not as feisty tonight, which means Karube might stay lucky and get to leave on time instead of being stuck with closing again. He turns back around to the back counter, plucking up a glass and the requested bottle from the shelf. Pouring the whiskey, he sets the glass down in front of Niragi.
Looking away from his phone, Niragi picks up the glass, taking a sip.
Karube’s gaze flicks over to the table where Niragi’s co-workers sit. From the looks of it, they’re clearly on the tipsy side and playing some friendly game, going around the table. Not unfamiliar, nothing Karube hasn’t seen before from the working groups that come in. He nods towards them.
“You not going back to your table?” he asks.
Niragi scoffs quietly.
“I’d rather get hit by another meteor than play even one round of those stupid games with them.”
He says it with such deadpan monotone that Karube can’t help the twist of a smile that grows. Few people spoke about the incident with such casualness, let alone the victims of it. Most others treat the topic with more sensitivity. Karube, looking like he does with his injuries so minimal, usually gets certain disapproving looks when he makes jokes about it.
“Suit yourself. I won’t decline the company if you’re gonna be nice this time.”
Niragi pulls his wallet from his pocket, setting it on the bar after he pulls his card out to pay for his drink. The card reader dings.
“Keep pouring me drinks and keep the staring to a minimum, then maybe you can stay on my 'nice' side.”
Niragi’s attention turns back to his phone, flicking his thumb across the screen, racking up points in his game, bounding up the ranking board. The fingers of his other hand trace around the rim of his glass mindlessly. In his periphery, he can see Karube moving around as he neatens up and cleans glasses, serving drinks onto the waitresses’ trays as they come by.
Taking a sip from his whiskey, he glances sidelong to where Karube’s wiping the bar a few steps down from him. The lights catch on his necklace, glinting off the silver chain. His eyes narrow slightly when he notices something: scars on Karube’s neck. They look like thin slices and are pale pink against his tan skin. Niragi looks closer, the scars are scattered across the front of his throat, over the bulb of his adam’s apple and his jugular veins. Looking at them, he’s unsure how Karube even survived an injury like that - or how he managed to get into such bad shape in the first place.
“Now who’s staring?” Karube teases.
Niragi’s eyes snap up. Mouth twisting slightly, he swallows down the growing heat of hypocritical embarrassment at being caught for something he’d been so quick to lash out over. He swirls the amber liquid around in his glass.
“I was looking at your necklace,” he retorts, mimicking Karube’s tone from that initial argument.
“Right,” Karube replies, disbelieving as he drags the word out. “Pretty sure I remember someone telling me it’s 'rude to stare at people’s scars', hmm, now who was that?”
Niragi’s mouth thins.
“You’re pretty fucking annoying, you know that?”
“Whatever, hypocrite.”
Niragi can feel a simmering under his skin. He picks up his glass, downing the last of the whiskey before sliding the cup towards Karube, tapping on the brim in a silent request for a refill. Karube smirks at him, relenting as he picks up the whiskey bottle again, tilting it in a generous pour.
As he puts the bottle back up, he leans against the back counter and roughs the cleaning cloth between his finger and thumb.
“It was the meteor,” Karube says. Niragi looks at him and he motions to his throat, the scars. “Me and a couple of my friends, we got buried under some rubble when the meteor came down. That’s what the emergency guys said at least, I was out-cold for practically the entire rescue. Woke up in hospital a day later. Doctors said I was lucky to be alive.”
Karube shrugs, so nonchalant as he talks about it. Niragi wonders what that’s like. He doesn’t talk about it at all, not to anyone else but his doctors and even then, it’s more about his lingering aches and pains than the actual incident. That day, he’d been alone, out on a break. Nobody had even known he was there in Shibuya when the meteor came down.
Some days he finds it hard to even remember the details, it feels like a blur. A brief moment when he’d been staring at something in the sky, a resounding blast and a sear of pain, then - blackness.
He woke in the hospital in pain, barely able to see out of his one undamaged eye, wheezing as he tried to breathe through his singed airways, the beeping of a machine in his ears as his heart rate skyrocketed. They’d had to sedate him and it was hours before he woke up again, so heavily drugged up that he could barely tell where he was or what had happened. For days, they refused to let him see himself in a mirror.
“Just saying, if you’re gonna hope for another meteor to get out of playing drinking games with your co-workers, at least let me get out of the crash zone before it hits. Don’t think I can pull off that kinda lucky streak twice,” Karube continues, jokey.
Before Niragi can reply, he hears the voice of one of his co-workers.
“Hey, Niragi, we’re on our way out. You leaving too? Three of us can share a cab,” he offers, straightening his glasses. He’s slightly red in the face, a little wobbly on his feet, clearly passed simply tipsy and deeply into the zone of drunk.
“Yeah, I’m done for the night,” he replies, his tone flat.
Finishing off his drink too quickly to even savour the taste, he gets up and nudges the bar stool back into place. His gaze flicks briefly towards Karube, who lifts a hand briefly in good-bye before going back to his work without a word. Niragi simply nods in reply, then tucks his phone into his pocket as he turns to leave.
Karube might not have been working the closing shift tonight, but his own shift still runs pretty late. It’s as he’s finishing up that he notices the wallet left on the bar. Niragi’s, Karube realises. He must’ve forgotten it as he was making his quick getaway. Karube can’t fault him much for that, he’d certainly been drinking enough and the strong stuff too, no way he wasn’t at least a little buzzed by the time he’d left.
Picking it up, he can’t resist flipping it open.
Niragi’s license is tucked in a clear card slot at the front. The picture is pre-meteor, obvious due to the lack of scars. Even without the scars, he still looks intense with his sharp dark eyes, long hair pulled back from his face. 'Pretty boy', he amusedly thinks, had been the right descriptor.
He glances aside to his name. Suguru, huh? And written with that kanji no less. It’s kind of pretentious, but rather fitting too.
Smirking, he shakes his head and flips it closed, tucking it away behind the bar for safe-keeping until Niragi comes in next - no doubt be tomorrow when he realises he’s misplaced it. As he leaves for the night, there’s a non-small part of him that’s eager to see Niragi again, partly hoping that he doesn’t come in before Karube starts his shift tomorrow.
Niragi wakes up and knows it’s going to be a bad day.
He hasn’t even opened his eyes but he can feel a tingle of burning across his skin, like there’s a candleflame being dragged over his scars. It’s worst across the side of his face and his chest. Behind his damaged eye, there’s a white-hot pain, like a needle being driven through his eyeball. He grinds his teeth, his expression scrunching, dragging in a slow deep breath.
Stretching his arm out, his hand blindly fumbles across his bedside table until he finds the shape of the pill bottle. The scar on his palm throbs as he twists the cap off, tilting a couple pills into his hand, tossing them into his mouth and swallowing them dry. Pressing his knuckles to the centre of his forehead, he tries to will the medicine into working faster.
When it’s finally manageable and he can get up, he realises he’s going to have to rush to get ready for work and make it to the office on time. This already-shortened amount of time is shortened even further when he ends up wasting precious minutes looking for his wallet. It’s nowhere to be found. Not in the pocket of his ditched pants from the night before, not on the dining table or the entryway table or anywhere in his bedroom.
With his frustration building, it takes him far too long to realise he must’ve left it at the bar and now he’s got to make an extra stop after work before he can come home again. He grumbles out a string of quiet curses to himself the entire way to work.
The work day is long and exhausting and he has to keep clenching his jaw to stop from lashing out and saying something he shouldn’t to one of his co-workers. His hands are stiff and aching, a burning-stabbing tingle running down his fingers and coiling in between each of his knuckles for far too long until the meds finally kick in and give him some mild modicum of relief. Like most days, he keeps his head down and focuses, and for the most part his co-workers leave him alone.
By the time his shift is coming to a close, he’s long passed simply irritable and drums his fingers impatiently on his desk, keeping an eye out as he waits for his boss to leave. As soon as Okajima’s gone, Niragi is the first to hurry and leave. He’s still got his phone for any quick payments fortunately, but there’s plenty in his wallet that he doesn’t want to lose or have to replace or have to deal with being stolen, like his credit card and license, not to mention the cash he’d had inside.
The bar is starting to become a familiar sight.
As he walks in, there’s another familiar sight: Karube behind the bar.
How many of these dumb shirts does this guy own? Frankly, it’s becoming ridiculous, he must have other clothes that are less eye-burningly saturated. The one he wears this time is bright sunshine yellow and covered with palm trees growing out of small sandy islands.
It’s still early in the night, so the place isn’t too busy yet.
Karube looks relaxed, at ease. He looks at home behind the bar, a white cloth hanging over his shoulder. As Niragi starts to cross towards the bar counter, Karube glances his way and flashes a smile that makes his eyes crinkle. He leans his arms onto the bar as Niragi reaches it.
“Back again, huh, pretty boy?” he greets, that teasing in his voice, “Just can’t stay away, can you?”
Niragi’s still aching. His medication has long since started to wear off, leaving behind only the dullest of reliefs where it clings in his system, and he can feel the flare up of pain starting to inch its way into the forefront. There’s a slight prickle of annoyance in his chest at Karube’s tone and that dumb endearment, so he fixes the blond with a withering look.
“I just forgot something,” he replies.
“Your wallet, right?”
“You have it?”
“Put it in safe keeping.”
Karube pushes away from the bar, stepping aside to fiddle with something before stepping back over towards Niragi and setting his wallet down in front of him. Niragi picks it up, flipping it open, checking for if anything is missing. Cards still there, cash still there, so it looks all good on those fronts. He taps his fingers on it, thoughtful. Since he’s already here, why not try and dull his aching a little with a drink? Karube certainly doesn’t seem busy.
Pulling the bar stool out, he takes a seat, setting the wallet down again.
“Can you get me a drink? Preferably without the witty commentary.”
Karube smirks a little.
“Beer or whiskey?”
Why bother with the beer when he’s trying to dull and distract himself? It’s a bad idea, he knows. He shouldn’t be drinking on this medication, not with the possible side-effects, but right now, he couldn’t care less. Make him dizzy, make him drowsy, just so long as it all stops aching.
“Whiskey. Neat.”
“Rough day?” Karube asks as he sets a glass down in front of Niragi, turning and plucking up the bottle from the back shelf.
“Long day,” Niragi grumbles back, pulling the glass towards him after Karube pours the serving.
He takes a long sip, met with a different kind of burning down his throat than what he’d been dealing with all day. Closing his eyes, he breathes out a short sigh and takes a smaller sip, letting it rest in his mouth under his tongue and fill his senses as he massages his thumb into his aching palm.
Something’s up with Niragi tonight but Karube’s not sure what. Unsurprising, since he really doesn’t know the guy all that well anyway, but something just seems off with him. His attitude seems closer to that first night they’d met, sharp-edged albeit slightly less combative. Sitting at the bar, Karube watches him as he drinks and massages his hands and wrists. He’s plucked the buttons at his cuffs open and he’s circling his thumb pad along the inner side of his right wrist. Karube can just spy the pink of scars there too.
Just how covered in burn scars is he?
Over the next handful of hours, Niragi sits and he drinks. In Karube’s opinion, he’s maybe drinking a bit too much. He downs each drinks that Karube pours him far too quickly, like he’s trying to hurry towards drunkenness instead of taking him time to enjoy the alcohol.
If drunk is what he’s looking for, then it’s drunk that he finds himself.
As Karube looks his way again, he finds that one of Niragi’s hands is hovering over his - once again - empty glass, fingertips just touching the brim. His other hand is propped against his tipsy-pink-flushed cheek, his dark eyes heavy-lidded and slow blinking. Slumping, he looks about seconds away from tilting too far and falling right off the bar stool.
Karube reaches out a hand to his shoulder, steadying him. Niragi’s gaze flicks around before focusing in on Karube, then he taps his fingers on the brim of his glass. Another refill request.
“I think you’ve had enough,” Karube says lightly, “Maybe you should think about heading home. You got someone I can call for you?”
Niragi’s eyes narrow at him, shrugging Karube’s hand of his arm.
“How about you just get me another drink?”
He shoves the glass towards Karube, who just takes it and puts it out of the way and far from where Niragi can easily reach it.
“How about you show me you can walk in straight line without falling on your ass? Hell, how about that you can stand without toppling over?”
There’s a twitch in Niragi’s mouth. His one good eye looks unfocused.
“Remember how I called you 'pretty fucking annoying'? That still stands.”
Karube’s head tilts, his mouth thinning slightly as he swallows back a retort.
“Congrats! Insulting your bartender is precisely the way to get cut off.” He holds his tone between sarcastically joking and serious, not wanting to be caught in another argument in Yasui passes by. “Go home, Niragi.”
Karube doesn’t quite catch it, but he hears Niragi grumble a curse under his breath as he pushes the bar stool away from the bar. Getting to his feet, it’s immediately obvious how unsteady he is, one hand gripping the bar to keep himself upright as he sways off-kilter.
A muscle in Karube’s jaw ticks and he sighs through his nose.
There’s no way this guy’s going to get home fine on his own. Even if Karube gets him into a cab, there’s no telling if he’ll actually get home safe or if he’ll end up passed out in the backseat then kicked out onto the street, probably robbed. Normally Karube would just shrug it off, his job ends at the bar door and any other drunk person he’d just let leave, but he finds he’s uncomfortable with the thought of letting Niragi just walk out.
“Is there seriously no one I can call for you?”
Niragi shoots him a look and Karube grimaces. Okay, that might’ve come out a bit more accusatory than he intended. Niragi’s expression scrunches, annoyed, and he turns away. Shaking it off, Karube hops the bar, snatching up the wallet and taking Niragi by the elbow before he can stumble or fall over.
“Oi, Hirota, cover for me,” Karube calls.
Hirota looks at him, “What? Man, no way.”
“You owe me! And my shift basically over anyway.”
He doesn’t give Hirota a chance to argue as he turns and hauls Niragi towards the exit door. As they step out onto the street, the night is cool with a gentle breeze. Niragi tries to pull out of his grip, but Karube holds firm to both keep him upright and to stop him from stumbling away. Stopping near the curb, Karube casts a look around for the closest taxi he can hail over.
“You gonna tell me where you live?” he asks.
“Can you fucking let me go?” Niragi asks through gritted teeth.
Karube looks at him, then finally relents to letting go of his arm. It’s not like he expects Niragi to be able to run off at any considerable speed, not with the way he’s wobbling. Niragi rubs a hand over his right arm, squeezing where Karube had been holding him, a slight tension in his jaw.
“Your address?” Karube asks again.
Niragi grumbles again, “Why don’t you just piss off?”
“You got two options here, Niragi: you can let me drop you off at your place or you can come sleep it off on the couch at mine. I don’t want it on my conscience if I leave you alone and something bad ends up happening,” he replies as a cab finally pulls over by them. He pulls the backseat door open, “So what are you picking?”
Niragi huffs and steps past him to sit in the backseat, shuffling across to the other side when Karube elbows his way in beside him. The driver glances at them in the rearview mirror.
“Where are you guys heading?” he asks.
Karube looks at Niragi, lifting a brow. Niragi sighs, then leans forward to tell the driver his address. With a nod, the driver starts the counter and pulls away from the curb.
They don’t talk during the ride. Slumping against the door, Niragi is fighting against drowsiness. His gaze is dragged towards the bright flashes of passing coloured lights out the window. He slides his fingers into the cuff of his sleeve, circling the pad of his thumb up the inside of his wrist and further up his inner forearm. There’s still aching and tingling and burning under his skin, prickling along his scars. It keeps him tense, along his shoulders and down his spine, just uncomfortable enough that he can’t fall asleep.
Karube, thankfully, is quiet. He keeps to his side of the backseat, albeit his denim-clad legs are wide spread as he leans back against the seat, his knee dangerously close to Niragi’s own. Niragi shifts, slightly further away.
His thoughts are muddled, his head dizzy. Leaning his temple against the cold glass of the window offers a small comfort, but it’s not much at all. After a few minutes, a single thought cuts its way through the hazy blur, straightening into focus: why is Karube doing this?
They’re not friends, barely even acquaintances, but here he is trying to make sure … what? That Niragi gets home safe? Why?
He’d mentioned 'conscience', but he could’ve just left it off at getting Niragi a cab. Niragi doesn’t get it, doesn’t understand him at all. Hell, he hasn’t really understood him since the first time they’d met. That argument. Staring 'at his piercings', 'special treatment', calling him 'pretty boy' like it’s his name. What the hell is his deal? Is this some kind of move? A flirting tactic?
No. Couldn’t be. No way a guy like Karube is swinging that way, Niragi’s seen him smooth smiling, all charming as he chats up chicks while he bartends - and even if he did, as if he’d be into a guy that looks like Niragi does, all covered in mottled burn scars and his fucked-up eye.
Not that Niragi is even interested in Karube like that anyway. So what if he’s handsome, that sharp jaw and the points of his smile and his freckles and the broad line of his shoulders. Niragi’s not completely blind, he can see how Karube could be called 'attractive'.
So if it’s not flirting, what’s the other option then? Good Samaritanism? Feels annoyingly close to pity, which Niragi can’t stand on a good day and today is not a good day. He’s not helpless and he has half-a-mind to tell Karube as such, along with telling him to fuck off - but he’s had a tad too much to drink in the last few hours and he doubts it’ll sound anything less than utterly and stupidly pathetic if he’s slurring it. So he says nothing, and just keeps staring out the window.
It’s not that long until the driver is pulling up to another curb. Before Karube can even get his own card out, Niragi is fumbling with his wallet and paying. Well, at least that’s no money out of his pay check, especially since it’s going to be a hell of a bill to get back over to his side of town. The building they’ve pulled up outside of is nice looking, much nicer than where Karube lives. Not difficult since Karube’s own place is on the cheap side and not in the greatest part of the city.
Hopping out of the car, Karube heads around to the other side to help Niragi out. Niragi sways slightly on his feet, sighing out an exhale, a wrinkle pinches between his brows as he appears to try and force dizziness away. Karube reaches a hand out to his arm, not grabbing him again but just guiding him away from the curb as the taxi drives off. Maybe he should’ve asked the driver to wait, but it’s too late now.
He lets Niragi lead the way to his apartment. It’s probably for the best that Karube’s following, since he’d be able to catch Niragi if he falls backwards on the way up the stairs. Fortunately, Niragi’s tilted forward as he makes his way up the few stairways, one hand gripping the railing, the other pawing at his pockets as he looks for his keys. Karube’s eyes are focused on him as he steps swayingly, up and up and up the staircases until he steps off onto a floor and begins walking down past the rows of doors.
Stopping at one, Niragi finally frees his keys from his pocket and thumbs through them before stuff one into the lock. He pushes the door open and stumbles inside. Karube stays on the outside of the threshold, only catching a glimpse of the tidy interior as Niragi flips the lights on.
Niragi glances back at him, Karube’s eyes flick to meet his. With a small tilt of his head, Karube nods towards Niragi’s pocket.
“Gimme your phone,” he says.
Confusion crosses Niragi’s expression, but apparently the drunkenness has left him compliant enough to just hand the phone over without a fight, his thumb flicking across the screen to open it.
Karube takes it, opening the 'contacts' app and tapping in his number. He fires off a quick meaningless emoji text to himself, pulling his own phone from his jeans pocket to make sure it’s gone through and he’s got Niragi’s number for himself. Satisfied, he shoves his own phone away and holds Niragi’s own back out to him.
“There, now you’ve got my number. If you go off and get this drunk again, text me and I’ll make sure you get home,” he says.
Niragi frowns slightly, fixing Karube with a look, an annoyed glint in his eyes.
“I don’t need a babysitter,” he shoots back, a teeth-bared snap.
“How about a friend?”
Niragi jolts a little, taken aback. His dark brows scrunch.
Karube smiles a little, amused, then takes a step back from the threshold.
“Drink some water before you go to bed, Niragi. Might give you a chance not to wake up completely hungover,” he says, then turns and walks away without another word, offer a short wave of goodbye.
Niragi wakes the next morning on the couch. Half of the buttons of his shirt are undone. Watery sunlight shines through the gap in the curtains over the window. There’s a glass on the coffee table with only a mouthful of water left in it. His phone and wallet have been tossed beside it.
Sitting up, his feet slip to the ground and his expression scrunches against the brightness of the sunlight. He scrubs a hand over his still-tired face. It’s quickly obvious he hasn’t completely escaped being hungover and he quietly groans. At least his flare-up has died down a bit, his burns not nearly as aching as they had been the day before.
He reaches out to pick up his phone.
Unlocking it, he blinks his vision clear, then squints at the screen. His phone is open to his contacts. When had he gotten Karube’s number?
His thoughts trip over each other until that final conversation gets drudged up from the muddled memories of last night. Karube offering to come pick him up if he gets too drunk again. 'How about a friend?'. Niragi scoffs a little to himself. Just how pathetic did Karube think he was? That he had no friends and needed Karube to be such a bleeding heart?
Okay, well, maybe he was right about that, Niragi thinks with a twinge of bitterness in his chest. He didn’t really have any friends so much as he had acquaintances. Barely even that. If he went missing, the only people that would notice would be his boss and co-workers when he didn’t show up for his shifts. No one that would actually care or worry for his wellbeing. Even his parents, with how infrequently he contacted them, probably wouldn’t notice him missing for a while.
He thinks about news stories, the ones about people who’d gone completely forgotten for months and sometimes years, people who had died and just been left alone to rot into shrivelled corpses in their apartments because no one cared about them enough to check in.
Mouth twisting, he looks down to the screen again, where Karube’s name and number are right there in his hand. What would he even say?
He shakes the thoughts away, clicking his phone off and dropping it back to the coffee table. Stupid. He needs to be getting ready for work.
For a week, Niragi finds himself frequently opening his messages to Karube’s contact, hovering his thumb over the message bar, then closing the app again without sending anything. He also finds himself quickly frustrated, bristling, half-wishing that Karube would just text him first. Out of his depth, there’s a sinking feeling he’s struggling against.
Did Karube even want Niragi to text him, or did he only give him his number for when he was drunk? He’d made that comment about 'friends', but what if he was just messing with him? Making friends isn’t something Niragi has ever been good at; not when he was a dorky, bullied kid and not now when he’s an abrasive, defensively-combative adult.
As he looks at his phone again, he huffs. He doesn’t know what he wants to do, he doesn’t know what he wants to say.
Thank him for getting him home and not making a complete drunken idiot of himself? As if it wasn’t pathetic enough that Karube had seen him that way, it’s even more pathetic to text something that. Pushing the thoughts away, he sets his phone aside, looking back to his computer screen and the work he’s been neglecting.
Barely an hour later and he’s got more busywork on his plate and his bristling annoyance has turned away from Karube and onto his co-workers. With no one around paying attention to him, he plucks up his phone again, unlocking the screen and tapping through to single emoji text Karube had sent himself. He must’ve just been swiping and picked something at random, but there’s been a tiny red tengu face staring at Niragi for the week every time he opened up the messages.
Without giving it another critical thought, he fires off a few quick senseless texts. Casual, albeit a bit on the complaining side, but maybe Karube would have come to expect that as Niragi’s default by now.
» better keep out of the shinjuku ward
» because if these idiots keep dumping their work off on me
» im going to summon another meteor and take the whole lot of them out with me this time
Everyone else seemed to talk about the meteor incident with such walking-on-eggshell sensitivity, but Karube hadn’t reacted that way at his deadpanning the other night and he’d spoken about it so nonchalantly himself that Niragi feels comfortable shooting the text off to him.
Not expecting to get a reply from Karube quickly, he puts his phone down again, getting back to work before anyone can notice that he’s been slacking off. Karube’s probably busy anyway, but at least now Niragi can stop thinking about what to text. It’s out of his hands and left up to Karube now to reply or to ignore him.
It’s almost half-an-hour later when his phone quietly buzzes, vibrating against the desk as texts come in quick succession. Niragi finishes up the corrections in the final lines of code he’s working on, then picks up his phone, keeping it low and close to him to avoid any stickybeak co-workers.
« damn. my favourite yakitori place is in shinjuku
« probably gonna end up blown to bits
« but it sounds like u need a break
« call down a meteor
« then escape it and come meet me for ramen? my treat?
The last text is followed by an address pin dropped. It’s a convenience store, not too far away, close enough that Niragi could probably make it there and back during his break. Half the time he usually works through his breaks, hours on hours across days spent at his desk, sore hands, aching back. If they’re not going to give him back his usual work, if they’re going to dump him down to entry-level schlock as if he isn’t the best of them, why bother working so hard instead of taking the chance to breathe? Even if only this once?
He looks at the text. A small smirk pulls at the corner of his mouth. His thumb taps across the screen.
» sure. give me 15 minutes.
He’d been right. It doesn’t take him long at all together, a short taxi ride and Niragi’s there. Walking into the convenience store, it doesn’t take him long to spot Karube. Another open-buttoned hawaiian shirt, but at least this one isn’t eye-wateringly brightly coloured. A dark backing colour, overlaid with parallel lines of interchanging orange and green flowers, interspersed with white ones here and there to break up the colours.
There’s an electronic bell at the door that chimes when he walks in and Karube glances up from the rows of packaged noodles. When he meets Niragi’s gaze over the top of the short aisle, he flashes him a smile, one that makes the skin around his eyes crinkle.
Niragi returns it with a small half-smile of his own, ignoring the confusing stutter in his chest.
Tucking a hand in his pocket, he crosses the shop to join Karube in the aisle. His eyes flick to the rows of ramen, colourful and shiny and all neatly lined up. Karube’s own gaze lingers on Niragi for a while longer, he doesn’t need to look up and check, he can feel it on the side of his face.
Niragi clears his throat.
“So your treat, huh?” he says.
Karube glances away then, looking to the bowls, seemingly picking one at random and turning it in his hand.
“To a new friendship, let’s say,” he jokes in reply.
Karube bumps an elbow into the side of his bicep with another bright grin. He rolls his eyes, but it can’t be denied that a smile twitches to Niragi’s mouth. His tongue flicks across his bottom lip.
“Oh, so you’re not only annoying, you’re corny too?”
Karube snorts a quiet laugh. He puts the ramen back on the shelf and presses a hand to his chest over his heart, pretend wounded.
“I invite you out for a free meal and you’re gonna treat me like this?”
There’s a slight twitch across Niragi’s expression.
“Guess that makes it’s obvious I don’t really do this whole 'friend' thing.”
Karube exhales shortly. Niragi can feel his eyes on him again.
“Well, you’re lucky I like you.” Another elbow bump into his bicep. “Pick me something, I’m going to grab some drinks.”
It’s not long before they’re sitting in the small dining area by the front of the shop. Between bites of his ramen, Karube regales some story that Niragi’s half-sure is total bullshit - yet he can’t find it in himself to call him out on it, just letting him go on. He finds himself smiling, something genuine that feels almost foreign on his face.
For the first time all day, he feels relaxed, the stress of his job ebbing away until it’s forgotten as they eat and drink and chat. It’s as if they’re in a bubble, the straining heavy weight of everything that had been going on in his life has been briefly lifted off Niragi’s shoulders. If this is what friendship is supposed to be, he’s still not quite sure what to think about it.
It’s different, it’s new, but he can’t say that it’s bad.