Archive of Our Own ^beta

By the time the company is coming close to becoming a legal reality, Ren feels strung out beyond measure. It’s not like he’s any sort of law expert—he barely finished high school, commuting to Osaka from Tokyo when absolutely necessary, not to mention the six and a half years it had taken to barely graduate college—but all of the lawyers that he and Kaito had carefully selected for the job after sleepless months of pouring themselves into work as a way to avoid the pain of abandonment keep assuring them that things are going smoothly. In a couple of weeks at the most, they claim, King & Prince Kabushikigaisha will enshrine in law the shattered pieces of what’s left of their hopes and dreams. For his part, Kaito seems thrilled, eyes sparkling as the lawyers lay out what each step of the process means, and Ren can’t help but stare in a jumbled mix of envy and total bafflement at his ability to still feel hope, to still trust the system and the people around them, after everything that’s happened. 

Of course, Ren knows he’s not normal, knows that he’s struggled for most of his life to feel anything at all beyond the mild hum of anxiety, not to mention the right thing at the right moment. But he also doesn’t think it’s totally normal to be such a ray of sunshine when right now, everything they’re doing is to protect themselves from ever facing such a devastating betrayal ever again. To be sure, he’s never really understood where Kaito’s eternal positivity comes from, not when Ren himself is prone to negativity and fatalism at even the best of times, but while he’s sometimes found it grating, or else terrifyingly threatening to his worldview, right now, he’s happy to let Kaito’s endless energy take the lead while he struggles to stay conscious and upright in his current cycle of drinking himself to sleep each night and spending his days trembling from the caffeine he has to keep running through his veins or else he’s sure he’ll collapse. 

But somehow they’ve made it to this point, to the point where their lawyer is laying out for them what’s going to happen after he submits the final documents to bring their company to life. The explanation is expectedly long, and in his current state, Ren has a lot of trouble staying focused; he finds himself reflecting on how somehow suddenly everything is “the two of theirs”—their lawyer, their company, their group, their future. Not in any way the future Ren saw for himself five, six, seven years earlier when he would have given everything to Sho (and did), but whether Ren likes it or not, it’s the only future he has left. Which is a framing neither true nor totally fair, but despite the tangled jumble of feelings that Ren has towards Kaito as a shield for much rawer, much scarier emotions, there was never a single doubt in his mind that there might be any route but this shared one. 

But suddenly, “And do you have any questions, Nagase-san?” breaks him out of his thoughts as he’s startled to find the lawyer addressing him directly, and he stutters for a moment, feeling like a kid being called out for sleeping in class. “N-not really—” he stutters, floundering uncharacteristically for a moment and trying to find words, not to mention appropriately polite ones. But somehow, what he intended to come out as no questions; thank you for your time somehow instead tumbles out of his mouth as, “But— what if one of us somehow manages to buy out more shares and takes control of the company? What recourse would the other one have?”

Kaito turns to look at him sharply, his eyes large in clear shock, and Ren himself can’t quite believe what he just said. But now that it’s out there, he can’t bring himself to take it back because in the end, it’s true—he doesn’t know how he can possibly be expected to trust Kaito at his word alone after everything that’s happened, and he doesn’t care if that’s cruel, doesn’t care that it’s making Kaito make eyes at him like a kicked puppy… even if he can’t bear to turn his head to fully look at him when he’s looking at Ren that way. The lawyer looks surprised in turn, but quickly gathers himself, and replies, “well if each of you hold exactly 50% of the shares, there’s no reason to think that anything could possibly change without both of you coming to an agreement.” 

“But what if,” Ren insists, not sure what’s gotten into himself. But once the sentiment is out in the open, it feels urgent, and after everything, he needs to know; one more betrayal and he isn’t sure he can physiologically survive it. 

The lawyer clears his throat, seeming taken aback but like he’s trying to hide it, to maintain professionalism in the face of Ren’s brazen display of emotional damage. Kaito is still giving him that look, but Ren continues to ignore him, can’t do anything but ignore him now or else he’ll be in danger of losing it even further. He listens intently as the lawyer lays out a few examples and explanations, most of which rely on the total implausibility of Ren’s hypothetical scenario, but whether based in logic and lived experience or the anxiety that plagues every decision-making process Ren has ever endeavored, he absolutely cannot bring himself to accept it. 

“I don’t want to be blindsided,” he argues after a good twenty minutes of back-and-forth, and then, “Not again,” slips out, triggering a tight throat and an even tighter sensation in his chest that makes him hate himself for only having emotions at the worst possible time. 

Despite clearly doing his utmost to maintain all the professionalism possible in this situation, the lawyer falters a little, seeming equal parts annoyed by Ren’s refusal to believe him and troubled by his clearly emotional state. He seems to think for a moment, before finally sighing and replying, “Well unless you want to get married, which would give both of you a certain degree of legal right to each other’s assets, I can’t see how you could possibly protect yourselves more than you already are.” 

Out of the corner of his eye, Ren can see Kaito’s eyes shoot open at the word “married,” but for his part, Ren feels frozen and suddenly kind of like he’s in danger of throwing up. “...Married?” he wheezes out, trying and failing to sound normal. 

The lawyer looks like he’s just about had it with the both of them and their emotionally damaged legal inexperience, and he rolls his lips together in a forced smile, giving a half laugh and replying, “While it’s legally accurate, I was being hyperbolic to prove the point. You can’t get more secure than this setup,” he assures. 

Right. Hyperbolic, Ren thinks. He gives the lawyer a plastered on, certainly unhinged-looking smile before quietly excusing himself to the restroom to be sick. 

… 

In a way, Ren has always been jealous of the omegas in Johnny’s who seem to have a clear sense of identity. People like Ryusei and Nakajima Kento-kun, who lean hard into stereotypes in a way that somehow feels both authentic and empowering to them in some way that Ren can’t really grasp but sometimes feels fiercely jealous of when he lays awake at night letting his fears consume him. People like Tamamori-kun, who is somehow both beautiful and delicate but also so strong and cool and determined, and who Ren desperately aspires to become even though he knows more and more with each passing day just how impossible that is. He’d behaved so viciously to Jinguji’s ex back in the day in some part for that reason, because Ren had felt so threatened by him, not just as a popular, talented, experienced Tokyo junior, but because he was somehow both cute and unabashedly effeminate while being equal parts athletic and impressively masculine. Standing on stage and hearing his masses of fans scream “Reia-tan!” despite that he was a junior not even in a unit made Ren feel overcome with his clear sense of self, something that felt beyond belief for someone like Ren, who barely had a personality, not to mention an identity. 

Not particularly cute, not particularly feminine, tall and gangly and never sure of himself, Ren had never known what to do besides lean into being mistaken for a beta. Somehow, everyone in Kansai Juniors had found out that he’d lost his virginity to Masakado back when they were both awkward teenagers, but the same thing had happened to Daigo, so it wasn’t as if that particularly made anyone suspicious. And once he’d been paired with Sho, he’d know that he could never make it if people thought he was sleeping his way to the top, so he’d tried harder to hide it, though to be fair, he’d never outright lied, either. 

Given that he has the intellect of an unusually confident potato, it had taken Sho more than six months to finally realize that Ren snuck away at the same time every evening with the same container from his bag. When he got back to their corner of the dressing room, trying to play it off as usual, Sho had grabbed his wrist suddenly, smirking at Ren in that way that had made Ren feel like he was going crazy for all of those years and muttering, Are you for serious? You’ve been an omega this whole time? The look in his eyes made Ren suddenly feel weak in the knees—he had always been weak to Sho, ever since the very beginning—and when he’d abruptly shoved Ren against the wall in a way that could only be described as reminiscent of a romance manga and leaned close to murmur, Well in that case you’ve gotta show me what you’ve got, there had only been one answer in Ren’s mind. 

In a way, Ren supposed, Sho was the person who made him feel the most like an omega, which felt ironic in some ways and yet perfectly natural in others. Sho was an alpha through and through, muscular and aggressive and always self-assured in a way that drew people to him naturally (drew Ren to him naturally), and from the moment they met, Ren had known that he could never live up to that level of star power… meaning that it was in his best interest to become someone that Sho needed for his career. There was no way that could ever happen if Sho had known from the start that he was an omega (in other words, someone not worth his respect), so at the time, he’d doubled down on hiding his type the way that senpai did (but kouhai jarringly didn’t anymore) until Sho had figured him out. But somehow, his ploy had worked well enough, because despite that from that point on Sho considered him a good casual lay when there was no one better available, the way he treated Ren didn’t change, and Ren felt more sense of purpose in being Sho’s “right hand man,” in taking care of him and making sure everything went smoothly for him, than he ever had in any particular relationship with a peer before. Looking back now, it’s so clear that it had been (still was) love, but he’d denied it harder than anything at the time, as if his life depended on it.

But in the long run it hadn’t mattered—Sho had turned his back on him anyway, and Ren had been left reeling, wondering if this was his destiny as an omega, to be used and tossed aside by some jerk (the “some jerk” Ren had thought he would spend the rest of his life with). Still, the way his type had played into all of it was just one element in the betrayal and depression and anxiety and fear that there was no way to go forward, and as he and Kaito moved forward with their plans to try to pick up the pieces, it was an element that fell to the back of his mind… 

…until now he was being told that the only real way to legally ensure his future career was safe was to marry his groupmate, and to make matters worse, he might be actually fucking considering it. The whole situation made him agitated as he went about his busy days, refusing to leave his mind like so many of the anxieties that kept him up at night. And if that weren’t enough, he ends up causing his manager significant concern when suddenly, apropos of nothing, Ren screams in the back of the car, “Doesn’t that have to be sexual harassment, or something?!”

… 

So are we gonna get married? Kaito asks by LINE for the sixth time since the meeting with the lawyers the week previous. 

No fucking way, are you fucking kidding me? Ren replies, feeling annoyed that Kaito must be making fun of him after the lawyer went and said something so outrageous. He’s nearing the end of filming his winter drama with filming for the next one already on his schedule, and while on the bright side, it sometimes tires him out so much that he can sleep without truly overdoing it on the booze, on the downside, it’s making him feel even less patient with Kaito’s incessant childish playfulness than usual. So after shooting off his response, he shoves his phone into his bag with a long-suffering sigh and heads back to linger next to the director near the set, waiting for his next shot. 

Why? is what’s waiting for him when he gets back to his phone about a half hour later, and Ren can’t hold back an audible groan of annoyance when he sees it, the message practically audible in his mind in Kaito’s stupid childish voice. 

What do you mean, why?! Are you fucking stupid?! he quickly sends back, glancing around furtively to his castmates, as if they could somehow telepathically figure out that he was arguing with his groupmate about marriage, of all things. Frowning, he adds a, Quit fucking around for good measure, and then shoves his phone away into his bag again. It doesn’t help that he’s finally coming out of heat after suffering for the past several days, making him more irritable and emotional than usual, not to mention the splitting headaches that come along with his body’s apparent inability to handle the large shift in hormones in tandem with a poor sleep schedule and long work days. 

He’s surprised and a little perturbed to find a voicemail from Kaito when he gets back to his phone, glancing around nervously again, as if his phone might suddenly betray him and play the message on speaker at full volume, informing all of his castmates of the utterly idiotic problems he’s dealing with and making them lose all respect for him, just like Sho and Kishi and Jinguji and everyone at the agency who knew he was Sho’s cast-off. He grumbles to himself somewhat performatively as he steps into the hallway, off set, to listen to the voicemail. 

Hey, I hope the filming is going well. I know you’re in Shiodome until late, so let me take you to dinner after that. I’ll come to you, reverberates in Ren’s ear in Kaito’s stupid baby voice, and he hates it and hates Kaito and hates the way it makes his chest feel tight and his breath catch in his throat for reasons he very much does not want to understand, even if it’s not particularly complicated. “Dumbass,” he mutters under his breath, as Kaito’s message continues, since… we should talk about this face to face, right? Not over LINE… at least, that’s what it seems like… so let me know when you’re done, ok?  

Scowling, Ren swipes over to their LINE chat, quickly typing in, no fucking way am I talking about it , but before he can hit send, his finger freezes over the screen. While obviously, this period of transition has been difficult for both of them, Ren knows deep down that he’s been supported by Kaito far more than the other way around, a fact that cycles through phases of guilt, shame, and fear of abandonment in his brain when he lies awake at night. He tells himself, in those sleepless, anxiety-ridden moments, that he has to change, he has to be kinder and more grateful, but yet somehow, when it’s Kaito’s face, Kaito’s voice, all he can feel is fear of closeness, fear of attachment, fear of abandonment; his brain screaming at him that he has to push Kaito away before Kaito can do it to him. 

He knows it’s got to stop (and doesn’t know why it’s so fucking hard to follow through in the moment), so now, without Kaito right in front of him, he feels like he has to try. It’s most definitely not that he would ever talk to Kaito about considering actually going through with the marriage, but… he can at the very least agree to drinks after work. 

And so he quickly deletes the message he’d entered and types, whatever, fine , and sends it before he can stop himself, hoping that it’s not a mistake. 

…

They end up meeting at a little place that Kaito knows in Azabu-Juban; Ren’s manager drops him off and offers to pick him up again afterwards a little too emphatically for comfort. I know you’re going to drink too much is written all over her face, but Ren chooses to ignore it and give a noncommittal answer. Kaito texts him that he’s already in a private room in the back, so Ren suits up in a hat and a mask and pulls his hood up for good measure—it’s already March, but he’s still cold; he’s basically always cold. He mumbles a goodbye to his manager before going inside and being directed right away to the room where Kaito’s waiting, feeling at once extremely avoidant and eager to get whatever was going to happen over with. If nothing else, it will be an excuse to get shit-faced, he tells himself as the restaurant staff opens the door for him and he sees Kaito grinning and waving all too excitedly from inside. 

“Ren–!” Kaito bursts just as soon as the door closes, waving with both hands, as if he hadn’t just seen Ren yesterday. “Otsukare! How was filming? I already ordered some gyoza and this salad thing that they recommended to me…” 

And despite that he had been feeling so incredibly averse to seeing Kaito and hearing whatever he was planning on saying, as is often the case, somehow, Kaito’s pure sunshiney aura breaks through Ren’s doom and gloom, and he finds a smile naturally pulling at the corners of his mouth despite himself. “... Otsukare. Though I bet you didn’t do anything today,” he replies, trying as best he can to keep up his usual astringent tone but a bit of a smile sneaking through despite himself. 

But as usual, Kaito isn’t offended in the slightest; somehow he never is, no matter how mean Ren tries to be. He brushes off Ren’s comment and beckons him over to look at the menu as Ren hangs up his coat on the coat rack and sets his bag off to the side. “Were the bentos good on set or do you need a real dinner?” he asks earnestly, flipping through the various pages of food options. “I thought you’d like this one, but I didn’t order it yet in case you weren’t hungry…” 

“What I want is a drink,” Ren replies irreverently, grabbing the drink menu and starting to flip through it. “I ate on set.” It’s not truly a lie; he’d picked at his bento and the sashiire from castmates here or there, but he hadn’t really had a meal, can never really keep food down these days (weeks, months, years…) But he’s certainly not going to let Kaito question that, and so he buries his face in the drink menu to avoid accidentally making eye contact. 

He takes a few minutes to consider whether he wants a mixed drink or to start off right away with hard liquor, but when he glances up, Kaito is looking at him with an expression that makes him uncomfortable. Why are you so soft?! he wants to complain, but then, that opens up a whole different emotional can of worms, so he keeps his mouth shut for another moment, forcing his eyes back down onto the menu. “What do you want from me, stop staring like that,” he tries to snap casually after a few moments, but somehow, it comes out over-aware and he knows it.

There’s a heavy silence for a few moments before Kaito quietly asks, “...did you really eat? Like, properly…?” 

The implications make Ren suddenly feel like his throat is tight, and he coughs uncomfortably, forcing a frown, because of course Kaito knew, of course Kaito could see right through him. “What the heck is up with you?” he manages to squeeze out, despite his voice sounding slightly off, and he clears his throat again before tossing the menu at Kaito and adding, “Hurry up and pick what you want, I’m calling the waiter.” 

Ren manages to compose himself in the few minutes that follow as Kaito chooses his drink and they order, a lemon sour for Kaito and the usual highball for Ren. The drinks come quickly, and Ren has managed to compose his face into his usual apathetic expression for Kaito’s benefit by the time they toast. 

After taking a significant gulp of his drink, Ren feels more ready to face Kaito, and he’s about to open his mouth to say something to make the atmosphere a little less stiff when he notices upon putting his drink back down on the table that Kaito is looking at him with an alarmingly serious expression. “W-what the hell—” he manages to blurt out before Kaito cuts him off, certainly not reducing the rising sense of panic that Ren is feeling. 

“Ren,” Kaito says seriously, looking into Ren’s eyes, and Ren feels frozen on the spot despite the desire to look away, to escape the emotions that he has a strong sense of foreboding are about to be triggered. “What—??” he tries to cut Kaito off, but to no avail, as Kaito just leans forward to grab Ren’s hand on the top of the table, raising his level of panic another notch. 

“I’ve been thinking about it since last week and I really mean it,” Kaito says earnestly, giving him that soft, warm look that always sends Ren over the edge when he’s had one too many drinks. “Let’s get married—that way you’ll feel better about the company, right?”

Ren knew this was coming, really, regardless of how hard he had been trying to deny it. Once or twice over LINE was believably a joke, but when Kaito kept asking, when he suggested meeting up and talking about it in person, Ren had known it was going to go this way, one way or another. But rather than face that fact, he’d stuck his head in the sand, which he was very much starting to regret now, sitting here gaping at Kaito with no real answer. At length, he manages to croak out, “what the hell, you pervert—” but it sounds totally off, and both he and Kaito know that Ren’s emotions are getting the best of him.  

“I know you’re going to say it’s sexual harassment, but hear me out,” Kaito says earnestly enough to make Ren feel bad for always falling back on insulting quips like that to avoid the emotions he doesn’t want to have to face. “We both know we’re committed to the group, right? We’ve already talked about all of that. We’re never gonna abandon each other like… well, you know, like…” 

“Don’t say his name,” Ren snaps, unable to hold back his raw response in the moment. Of course the only time he can be fully honest is at times like this, he thinks ruefully, at times that make him a total asshole to the only person in the entire world who cares about his existence. Though he supposes that it’s a self-fulfilling prophecy, since he’s never been anything but an asshole for his entire life, leaving behind Masakado and Daigo and Ryusei for his own gain and becoming Sho’s lackey, regardless of how much of a bully he was, and doing everything Sho wanted of him—and then now, now no matter how hard he tried he couldn’t force himself to be even marginally pleasant to the person who was basically holding Ren’s life together, albeit by a thread.  

“Sorry!” Kaito apologizes hurriedly, putting up his hands as if he’s been physically burned by Ren’s words. “Sorry, I didn’t mean— I didn’t think—” 

The reaction, in turn, makes Ren feel worse, of course. It’s an endless vicious cycle, one that starts with his own stupid issues and could very easily end if he would let it, but somehow, he has to go and fuck it up every time. He knows that Kaito loves him, has loved him for years, since the first day that they met, probably, and if he were a sane, properly-adjusted person, he ought to be happy about that fact. After all, it’s what he craves, desperately—to be loved unconditionally after a lifetime of conditional affection lined with fine print. But instead, it terrifies him, because the second he starts to consider letting go, to consider trusting Kaito and allowing himself to be enveloped in the warmth of his kindness and affection, suddenly, the suffocating fear of losing it all shoots through every artery and vein in his body and shuts down his nervous system like some sort of emotionally induced seizure.

He’s tried so many times to find a way around it, to face his fears, to do anything, really, except for what he always does, which is to capitulate in the face of his overwhelming terror and hide behind unfunny jokes and lackluster sophomoric insults and basically anything to avoid showing vulnerability. He desperately prays silently every time that his frankly off-putting behavior won’t scare Kaito away, but at the same time, he expects it, every single time, setting off the horrible cycle yet again. 

But at the moment, before he can speak, Kaito reaches out again to take Ren’s hand and squeeze it gently, and Ren suddenly feels wonderfully, terrifyingly trapped. “...I’m sorry,” Kaito repeats softly, genuinely, leaning forward a little to look Ren in the eyes with that infuriatingly honest, caring expression that he has at moments like this (that Ren has never seen him use on anyone else), and Ren wants to answer, but suddenly his throat feels dry and tight and his brain seems to have forgotten the entirety of the Japanese language. 

But Kaito seems undeterred, looking into Ren’s eyes with that same loving look, licking his lips once before continuing, “But… what I wanted to say is… I don’t mind. Getting married, that is.” Ren must have an incredulous look on his face, because Kaito suddenly becomes flustered and waves his hands again, saying, “I mean…! You already know how I feel… but that’s not what I’m talking about. I mean, no matter how you feel about me, even if you never feel that way about me, I wanna do it if it will make you feel better about the company, and the group. Because… that’s what matters most to me. To both of us. Right?” 

The way that Kaito is looking at him, and the feeling of his large, warm hand around Ren’s thin, frail one, and his gentle and earnest tone of voice hit Ren like a cannonball, at once knocking the air out of him and sending a prickling feeling down his throat and behind his eyes that he knows can only mean one thing. And so despite that fact that he’s only had half a drink and can’t blame the alcohol for his emotions, he only manages to croak out, “You idiot…” before he dissolves into tears, hating himself but at the same time hoping a tiny hope that maybe this could be the beginning of the end of the cycle. 

…

Ren has PTSD from the very specific situation of standing stiffly in front of the management, having expressed something outrageous and unacceptable, being stared down like a criminal on trial. It’s not exactly something that happens frequently, but it is unsettling that this is the second time it’s happened in his life. For his part, Kaito is grinning like an idiot, no matter how intently their management team glares at him, which makes Ren want to melt into the floor, whether from shame given their current position or from embarrassment at the pure love radiating from him, it’s impossible to say. 

“We strongly, strongly advise you against this,” the chief manager says at length, clearly trying very hard to keep his tone calm. “You both are aware that we can’t contractually tell you that you can’t, given the new setup… but we strongly advise you to rethink this choice.” 

Ren swallows and coughs a little, struggling against the fact that suddenly, his throat feels impossibly dry, but before he can even find the right words, Kaito is replying, “We understand. But we’ve thoroughly thought it through and discussed it, and we’ve made up our minds.” 

In a sudden fit of honesty, Ren can’t help but snort a little at that; he’s not sure that spending five hours humiliatingly sobbing his eyes out while Kaito rubbed his back, patiently listening and answering earnestly as Ren talked in nonsensical circles really counted as “thoroughly thinking it through and discussing it,” but he’s certainly not going to argue at this point. In the end, he’d agreed because his brain and his body were too tired to worry, too tired to come up with every possible worst-case scenario to be terrified of. Somehow right there, eyes swollen and puffy, clinging embarrassingly to Kaito as he tried to pull himself together… in that eye of the storm of his lifelong crippling anxiety, it had somehow felt clear that this was what he wanted. (He sometimes wished he were able to reach that level of clarity more often, the kind that he’s only ever experienced maybe two or three times in his life, but considering that it requires a quarter of a day worth of tears to make it happen, it doesn’t seem particularly practical.)

But one way or the other, he’d agreed, and they’d gotten the paperwork through their lawyer. Kaito had written his half of the form in what felt like the blink of an eye, grinning the whole time in a way that made Ren feel both warm and queasy, and then it had been Ren’s turn. He’d asked to take the form home with him to complete with the excuse that they needed to submit it through their lawyers and confirm with the management first, anyway, so it would have to wait at least a week or so, but really, it was because the thought of writing something so weighty and life-changing in front of Kaito made him dizzy. When he’d gotten home, he’d dumped it on the kitchen table in a procrastinatory way, and then felt stressed out by its presence every time he passed through the kitchen, knowing the days were counting down until he had to have it ready. But yet something about the words “Marriage Registration” at the top of the form made him feel shaky, the empty section entitled “For the person who will become the wife” seeming insurmountably more empty every day. It had only been once this meeting with the management was on the calendar that he’d finally forced himself to do it with the help of a glass or two or ten of wine, miraculously managing not to make any glaring mistakes and only smudging a few characters with his left hand. 

And so now here they were, standing in front of their management, trying to convince them that really, it wouldn’t be more difficult to manage a married couple than the group of five that they had been managing only a year prior. “We see each other almost every day anyway, so it’s not like trying to secretly marry someone outside the agency!” Kaito is valiantly arguing, to many raised eyebrows and rolled lips and barely-concealed sighs. “And as of right now, we’re not planning on changing our living situations, so really, nothing is changing!” 

The chief manager sighs heavily and shakes his head, crossing his arms in a way that Ren can tell is unhappy but resigned. “Like I said, we can’t stop you,” he reiterates, looking tired. “Please ensure that your lawyers are handling this as discreetly as possible, and that you tell absolutely no one. If anyone finds out, you need to inform us immediately. Here is a card to give anyone who has any questions,” he directs, handing each of them the business card of someone on the legal team. Ren feels more dazed than anything as he stares at the card, slowly processing that somehow, the agency has essentially okayed this marriage between talents, the first, as far as he knows, without any unplanned pregnancies involved. 

He thanks the chief manager in a dreamlike state, bowing repeatedly next to Kaito before they leave the room. It’s only once they’re in the elevator to leave, Kaito chattering away excitedly about plans for the next meeting with their lawyers, that Ren realizes the implications of “as of right now , we’re not planning on changing our living situation,” and suddenly shoves Kaito, turning bright red and refusing to admit why. 

…

To say that Ren’s relationship with Kaito is complicated is a brazen understatement at the very least. It’s been complicated since before King & Prince even existed, from the early days before Mr. King was formed, when they were all being loosely pushed in the same direction. Everyone had known that Ren was attached to Sho, ever since the beginning, so it’s not like Kaito had ever thought he had a chance back then, but Ren had known basically since the start that Kaito had had a crush on him. It’s hard to really remember the sort of mental state he was in back then, when everything he did was so colored by his relationship with Sho, but he supposed he used Kaito’s attraction to him to his own advantage in a not-totally-ethical way, sending him on unpleasant errands and making him do the undesirable tasks that Ren wanted to do for Sho but didn’t want to deal with himself. As uncomfortable as those memories are, there are also the memories of times that they went out together, Ren, as the senpai, treating Kaito to food and drinks, listening to his worries and anxieties and questions about the agency and about show business. Part of him had most certainly thought of Kaito as endearing back then, and Kaito had truly been the same person that he is now—ever earnest, ever unabashed about his feelings. He frequently had praised Ren, called him pretty and cool and acknowledged the effort he put in for the group, something Ren didn’t get anywhere else, and the way he remembers it making him feel overwhelmed with emotions so positive that he didn’t know how to parse them is perhaps even more uncomfortable to remember than the bad side of their relationship. 

In a sense, Ren’s relationship with Kaito had been a pivotal moment in his life, though whether or not for the better, he isn’t sure. Growing up with hypercritical parents who never seemed to care about Ren’s feelings and moving once every three years, Ren had spent his entire childhood feeling scared, vulnerable, and ambiguously not good enough. Being forced to join Johnny’s when he absolutely hated being the center of attention certainly hadn’t helped, nor had feeling like dead weight in Ae Shonen and then being the obvious third wheel in Naniwa Oji. And then just as Kansai Juniors had started to feel like home, he was torn away again—which is why he had clung to Sho just as hard as he had. Sho had been the first constant in Ren’s life in so many ways, at 15 years old, it had basically been impossible not to fall in love with him. But then, shortly after Sho, there was Kaito. 

Looking back, he can’t fully wrap his mind around the logic, but Kaito had been the first person that Ren can remember distinctly feeling like was beneath him. There was Sho and Ren, and then there was Kaito, the baby, the kohai, the kid totally new to show business and who didn’t know up from down. Ren can remember it feeling intoxicating to hear Sho’s laugh, to feel Sho’s breath hot against his face as he learned in and murmured a little too loudly, well that kid’s a mess for Ren’s benefit. To be seen as an insider and mutually reject an outsider was an experience with which Ren was totally unfamiliar, and he wanted more, desperately. 

Which was fine, except for the minor problem that Kaito was actually so much more than he was, objectively. Kaito, who had taken dance classes for years before joining Johnny’s, as opposed to Ren, who’d been forced to the audition in tears. Kaito, whose smile was bright enough to light up a room, as opposed to Ren, who was reserved and afraid of making mistakes. Kaito, who could make everyone smile, everyone laugh just by talking with them for a few minutes, as opposed to Ren, who was introverted and awkward. He didn’t know why everyone seemed to think that he was better than Kaito, but he was desperate to hold onto it, desperate to stay the one who Sho wanted to put down others with, and so he started to put Kaito down first, to make Sho laugh, to establish his dominance before someone, anyone, everyone found out that actually, Ren was the one who belonged on the bottom. 

And as if all of that didn’t make Ren awful enough, after he’d spent years being so terrible to Kaito, it was Kaito who cared when Sho suddenly turned on him in 2021, Kaito who stayed by his side when suddenly Sho decided anyone who wanted to stay with the agency was a traitor and took Jinguji and Kishi with him. He hadn’t realized at that time just how much worse it was going to get, but even then, when Kaito could have taken the side of the “winners” the way that Ren, in his cowardice, had when it had been Kaito on the bottom, he stuck by Ren’s side. And on top of it all, he made sure to never make Ren feel called out or humiliated, never asking outright what was wrong or directly mentioning the problem, just casually sitting next to him in the dressing room, bringing him bottled drinks during rehearsal, inviting him out after work. I don’t deserve this , Ren can remember thinking, but any time he tried to push Kaito away and drown in his own guilt and anxiety and depression, Kaito just quietly came right back, not insisting, not pushing, but just saying close so that he was there when Ren needed him. 

It’s hard to remember any of it now; it feels like lifetimes ago but also yesterday, but it can’t have been long after that that everything came crashing down around Ren. He can still remember the look of scorn and disgust on Sho’s face when he laughed as Ren begged him to stay for just one, two more years, anything, really. You chose this , he’d said to Ren, You turned your back on me , and as he walked away, laughing and jeering with Kishi and Jinguji, Ren can remember distinctly the dizzy, sick feeling that came over him as his entire body seemed to be seized by anxiety crippling enough to knock him unconscious. 

One moment, he remembers standing there, staring at their backs and thinking distinctly that his life was over, and the next, suddenly, he was on his back on the floor, his head spinning as Kaito looked down at him with an expression Ren slowly came to realize was worry and fear. Aren’t you going with them? he can remember himself asking, even as Kaito had knelt beside him and pulled him into his arms, even knowing that in all of the discussion that had led up to this, Kaito had never once considered leaving. And he had been shocked when, in response, Kaito had just shaken his head, pulling Ren into a tight hug and replying, I just want to protect the group with you, that’s all I ever wanted.  

It had been somewhere in that conversation that Kaito had first used the word “love” about Ren, at least out loud. The memory is burned into Ren’s mind, sitting there, being held upright by Kaito on the floor of the agency green room, sobbing insistently over and over again, but you’re going to leave, I know you’re going to leave, they liked you, they would take you, you’re going to choose them, and Kaito finally breaking down and saying, more firmly than Ren knew he was capable of, I’m not going to leave, because I love KinPuri, and even more than that, I love you. It had been shocking enough that Ren found the strength to sit up enough on his own to pull back and to see Kaito’s expression for himself, and he’d been startled to see tears in his eyes. 

From there, it’s a blur, but Ren remembers a lot of tears, from both of them. It hadn’t all been resolved in that one day, but they’d spent a lot of time over the next few weeks, months—looking back, Ren knows he wouldn’t have survived the days of having to work with Sho while seeing the contempt in his eyes staring back at him without Kaito’s warm, constant presence. And while he felt so much shame at the time—still does—he truly believes that Kaito quietly appearing by his side near the end of their filmings and saying, if you want to grab drinks, I know a place… had, at least in a way, saved his life. He had felt insanely guilty, if for no other reason than that Kaito had confessed love to him and Ren had been too strung out to even answer, much less say yes, but eventually, when those feelings had bubbled to the surface, Kaito had just smiled in that same way and told him, Take your time. And I won’t stop supporting you even if the answer is no.

Kaito is too good of a person for him—Ren feels it strongly every day, every time he’s a jerk to hide his insecurities and Kaito only responds with warmth and kindness—and it makes the situation even more complicated than it already is. Even after being left behind, even after being shaken to his core and unable to properly eat or sleep and barely functioning for the past year and a half, the deep, obsessive feelings of love towards Sho that Ren had tried to deny for so many years are buried deep inside of him, roots twisting and firmly embedded in the core of his psyche to the extent that Ren is scared he’ll never fully get them out. He wants to love Kaito back, wants to be happy and feel like things are stable and normal, but even as the weeks turn to months turn to years, the fear that dominates every thought process, every choice that he makes seems to drown out all other emotions to the point that he has no idea what he’s thinking about anyone at any given point in time. 

To make everything more complex, after Ren had managed to hold out and keep himself at least upright and mostly awake every day from November 2022 to May 2023, it was like the moment that Sho was gone forever, the marionette strings that had been holding Ren up were suddenly cut. He had wanted, at least somewhere in his depression-addled haze, to go into their first album as two strong, wanted to show through the promotions and the tour that he didn’t need Sho, that he and Kaito were going to keep King & Prince going as strongly as ever, but somehow, after watching Sho’s back get smaller and smaller until it was gone forever, he didn’t even think he had the strength to keep himself alive . Once again, Kaito had stepped in, taking him home with him, making sure he was fed to the best of his ability, providing an ear to listen and a shoulder to cry on, even going so far as to contact Ren’s manager for him when even the idea of reaching for his phone and typing a message had felt like too much to Ren… and in the midst of all of that, somehow or other, Ren had managed to agree to some sort of relationship. I don’t know if I like you or not… but for the moment… let’s go with it, he can remember saying, collapsed limply in Kaito’s arms while feeling at the same time useless and humiliated but also like it would take one thousand times more energy than he could muster up to do anything else. It was a pretty rude thing to say, he knows, but despite that, as always, Kaito had given him a warm, sunshiney, Thank you… I’m really happy. And of course I’ll respect your feelings no matter what happens. 

And so somehow that had gotten them to where they are now, in this weird Shroedinger’s limbo of maybe relationship, maybe just pretending. There are days when Ren wants to scream, to break things, to grab Kaito by the shoulders and shout at the top of his lungs, I love you, I love you more than anything , but for every such burst of emotion, there are ten more days where he wants to hide in the status quo, terrified of breaking the only thing that was still holding him together. Kaito had even kindly offered to let him see other people in the interim, even while they were in this… whatever it was, but Ren had never taken him up on it, couldn’t even mildly consider the hurdle of trying to find someone else to compare to Kaito and make some sort of decision. He doesn’t know how long they can go on this way—maybe forever—but while part of him is scared to find out, a greater part of him is scared to make the active choice to have it any other way. 

Except now it is another way, sort of. Because despite that their actual interpersonal relationship is in this ongoing state of “it’s complicated,” now, suddenly, they’re getting married. But, Ren thinks, that’s just in the legal sense, just on paper, so it doesn’t really change anything, right? 

But then the day before their meeting with the lawyers, Kaito texts him out of the blue with the infuriatingly cute message, So… should I buy rings before tomorrow, then? and Ren thinks that maybe his heart can’t take it and he’s just going to drop dead after all. 

…

The next meeting with the lawyers is two days after the meeting with the management, and about eight hours after Ren emphatically messaged Kaito to tell him in no uncertain terms that under no circumstances was he to buy rings. I thought this was just for legal reasons, idiot. Are you perving on me or something? he’d replied, and Sorry, I didn’t mean it like that , Kaito had sent back quickly with a bowing stamp, earnestly enough to make Ren feel even worse than usual for always falling back on insulting quips like that to avoid the emotions he doesn’t want to have to face. It’s fine. It’s not like we could wear rings publicly anyway. Don’t waste your money, he responds in short messages sent in quick succession. Somehow it’s easier in text. 

For their part, the lawyers seem genuinely baffled that they’ve made it to this point, but they accept the completed marriage registration form and complete the witness portion as agreed upon. “We’ll submit this right away then,” their chief lawyer says, hesitating for a moment before adding, “...is there a particular day you’d like it to be registered on?” 

It takes a moment for Ren to process, but as Kaito turns to look at him with that same dumb, excited, sunshiney look on his face, he realizes what the lawyers are asking and starts to turn red. “Well I don’t,” he shoots quickly, flustered in his embarrassment, and it doesn't help that when he glances at Kaito, he’s gazing back at Ren with that goobery loving look in his eyes. But before Ren can really even parse that, much less react, Kaito is turning back to the lawyer and replying much more properly and politely, “Then I don’t either. But thank you for checking!”

The lawyer clears his throat, clearly wondering what sort of a dysfunctional relationship they’re about to enshrine in law, but he nods and confirms. “Is that all, then?” Ren asks, and the lawyer looks between them somewhat uncomfortably before pulling himself together to reply. 

“We’ll submit this as soon as possible, and let you know when it has been processed and confirmed,” he replies, gesturing to the completed marriage registration form. “Once that’s done, we’ll need you to come rewrite some of the forms for the company, and then we’ll submit those as well.” 

“What? Why?” Ren bursts before he can stop himself. “I thought you said that everything was good to go.” 

The lawyer raises his eyebrows a little, looking down and seeming like he’s trying to collect himself before replying evenly, “You’ll need to get a new hanko to reflect your married name. We’re not able to submit the paperwork for the company using anything but your legal name.”

“What–?!” Ren finds himself blurting out again. Despite the fact that everything the lawyer is saying is completely obvious and not difficult to follow at all, somehow, this is the first time the idea that he’ll have to change his name is computing in his brain. 

The lawyer, for his part, looks unimpressed. “It’s a normal part of getting married, I’m afraid,” he says, impressively calmly for someone who looks like he’s annoyed to have drawn the short straw and now has to deal with the emotionally traumatized idols. “In fact, you’ll likely need to redo a bit of paperwork at your workplace as well, so it’s worth speaking to your management about.” 

Ren just gapes at him, still trying to process this new reality. While, many, many years ago, he may have secretly considered the way that “Hirano Ren” might roll off the tongue, he never actually pictured himself getting married, and certainly not right now, in this way. 

Kaito, of course, looks like he’s about to burst into sparkles, bouncing a little in his seat and grinning ear to ear. “Sorry, Ren,” he says, though his bubbly tone and stupid brilliant smile make it hard to believe he’s that sorry. “But… ‘Takahashi Ren’ sounds pretty good, right?” 

“Shut up,” Ren snaps back, crossing his arms and wondering what exactly he’s gotten himself into. He knows he’s acting like a petulant child in the lawyer’s office, but as the conversation moves on and Kaito confirms with the lawyer about the next steps, he starts to feel like, if he lets up on pouting even a little bit, he might burst into sparkles himself, too. 

…

Just two weeks later, Ren makes his first appearance in front of practically the entire agency as Takahashi Ren at rehearsals for “We Are” in Tokyo Dome—at least that’s how it feels to Ren’s sleep-deprived, stress-addled brain. In reality, no one except for Kaito and their management team knows, but somehow, as he walks into the dome, it feels like everyone is staring at him. It’s probably because you’re the huge loser who Sho couldn’t stand to stay in a group with , he tells himself, though it doesn’t particularly help his anxiety. At the very least, when he sees his sign-in tag labeled “Nagase Ren” the same as always and the rehearsal director calls him “Nagase-kun” over the microphone, he feels a little more incognito. 

This kind of thing has always been stressful to Ren, who feels strongly that he has the charisma of a poorly-adjusted carrot, but luckily, there’s Kaito. When they were younger, Kaito had bragged that he could definitely make someone he’d never met before laugh within five minutes, which had made Ren roll his eyes at the time, but now, he totally believes it. From the moment they arrive at Tokyo Dome, Kaito is greeting senpai, kohai, even staff who Ren knows but certainly isn’t on a nickname-basis with. While Ren quietly skulks to their shared dressing room to get changed into rehearsal clothes and then read over his most recent drama script, Kaito disappears to circulate amongst the masses, as if he’s on a mission to say hello to literally everyone employed by their agency. He hears Kaito’s distinctive high-pitched voice in the hallway a few times as he passes by, things like isn’t it a shame that NEWS couldn’t be here? and wait, is Matsumoto Jun-kun really here? And in some part, Ren is grateful that Kaito will do the socializing for the both of them, so that no one can say “those assholes in King & Prince never greeted me,” but at the same time, despite himself, it feels a little lonely, too, to know that Kaito is eager to spend time with everyone in the venue except for him. 

It’s a stupid line of thought and he knows it, even stupider when he considers (or tries very hard not to consider) the deeper implications of his mild jealousy, but he can’t help thinking it anyway. At this point in his life, he generally tries to allow himself to feel whatever feelings cross his mind, given how hard it’s been in the past for him to feel anything at certain times. But it doesn’t really matter—in between tech rehearsals, he says hello to Daigo and Masakado and then comes back to the dressing room to hide behind his script, a social crutch that comes in handy whenever he has a drama or movie (and really, in a pinch, even a variety show script will do). It’s not until they’re about to go into dress rehearsal that Kaito appears in the dressing room again, seeming out of breath but grinning his usual grin. 

“About time,” Ren grumbles despite himself—it just sort of slips out as he sets his script aside and stands up, rolling his shoulders a few times before wandering towards the wardrobe rack to find his first costume. 

“Hm? Is something up?” Kaito asks breezily, setting the bottled drink he’d brought back from catering on the counter in front of the mirror and messing with his hair a bit in passing as he glanced at his reflection. 

“No,” Ren replies, sliding each costume down the rack one by one to find his without any particular urgency, checking out the costumes of the other groups sharing the room, glad that no one besides Kaito is back from catering yet. 

He’s engaged enough in the task that he doesn’t notice Kaito coming up behind him until it’s too late, letting out an undignified yelp as Kaito suddenly wraps his arms around Ren’s waist from behind, hugging him tightly. Kaito’s body is large and warm, especially in comparison to Ren’s thin frame and eternal chill, and as much as he wants to be stronger, Ren finds himself melting into him almost immediately. “What do you want?” he grumbles, trying to keep up at least some pretense of not liking it, even though it’s clear to both of them that he doesn’t want Kaito to let go. 

“...Were you lonely~?” Kaito asks at length, pressing his face into the crook of Ren’s neck in a way that makes Ren infuriatingly weak in the knees. 

“No,” he replies again insistently, though his voice wavers a little as he tries to sound annoyed and aloof. “Why are you smelling me, I’m obviously taking drugs.” 

“It’s not that~” Kaito replies with a playful laugh, clearly not put off by Ren’s usual prickliness. “Can I kiss you~?” 

“Well you’re the boss now, right?” Ren grumbles in response, “Legally, anyway.”

Kaito laughs breezily in response, squeezing Ren a little bit tighter at that in a way that makes Ren’s heart flip over in his chest. “Come on, Ren~” he whines playfully, “You know it’s not like that~” 

What if it is like that, Ren thinks, before he can stop his brain, and the implications of that make it harder to think straight in this moment, with Kaito’s arms around him, Kaito’s warmth radiating through him. He awkwardly clears his throat, trying hard to find his normal voice, before managing, “Were you gonna kiss me or not?” 

“Oh, is it really okay?” Kaito asks, seeming somehow delighted to get permission to do this little thing that he does almost every day, at this point. “Well then~” 

Kaito’s lips against the side of his neck are warm and somehow impossibly soft—Ren’s lips seem always chapped these days, one way or another—and despite the fact that Ren knows that someone else sharing the dressing room with them might walk in at any moment, he doesn’t want this to end. He’s beginning to think that somehow, as stupid as it sounds, getting married flipped some sort of switch in his brain and suddenly, he can’t bring himself to respond quite so caustically in response to Kaito’s gooberyness. Which, he supposes, in this odd moment of clarity, makes sense—after all, Kaito had signed a legal document saying that he wouldn’t leave Ren, so it follows that there’s less urgency to protect himself from the perceived threat of abandonment.  

But that’s too big of a thought to tackle at this moment, and so Ren lets himself savor the feeling for another thirty seconds before trying to shrug Kaito off, reaching to grab his costume off the rack. But while Kaito is usually a creampuff who generally rolls with what Ren wants, Ren is surprised when Kaito refuses to let go, wrapping his arms around Ren’s waist even more tightly. 

“What the fuck,” Ren mumbles, not as harshly as he really intended. “Someone’s gonna walk in on us, you idiot.” 

“I don’t care,” Kaito replies, putting his chin on Ren’s shoulder and pressing close to him. 

“I care,” Ren shoots back irritatedly, though he’s dismayed at how little bite he’s able to muster. “What the hell’s gotten into you?” 

“Well you said I’m the boss~” Kaito replies playfully, and while Ren knows that he’s clearly joking, and Kaito is the last person on the face of the earth to ever be anything but soft and kind and respectful, and this is definitely not HanaDan or whatever bullshit sequel Sho starred in back in 2018… for some incredibly humiliating reason, his heart skips a beat anyway. 

“That’s sexual harassment,” he manages to quip back, at least preserving some of his dignity, but his voice comes out sounding a lot less annoyed than he really intended, and he’s sure that Kaito can feel is heart beating fast from how close their bodies are. 

Kaito laughs a little, and Ren can feel him shaking his head, his chin still on Ren’s shoulder. “Isn’t it a marital spat now?” he teases back, sneaking in another quick kiss to Ren’s ear. 

The conversation is suddenly cut off when Masakado and Daigo barge in, stopping by to find Ren on their way back from catering, and Ren, upon hearing their voices in the doorway, shoves Kaito off and leaps at least 3 feet away from him, practically tripping on the costume rack in the process. “Wow, your face is super red,” Masakado helpfully comments, but while Ren snaps back, “What are you talking about, idiot,” he feels a deep sense of dread that a red face is the least of his worries now.  

…

The paperwork for the company goes through just a week after the Tokyo “We Are” shows, and there’s more than a month before the Osaka shows, which means Ren has more individual work than work together with Kaito for most of April and May. Through April, they’re in a weird place where they’ve recorded halfmoon and moooove!! but promotions are a while off because the release date isn’t until late May. And with both Kaito and Ren starring in dramas, there’s not a whole lot of time to be together. Some married life , Ren catches himself thinking before quashing the thought and denying to himself vehemently that he ever had it. Still, it feels bizarre every time he logs into his banking app or opens his bills and sees Takahashi-sama at the top of the page… but, as time goes on, maybe a little good, too. 

And drama filming is… distracting, to say the very least. The subject matter is a little challenging, for a variety of reasons, but the most mentally exhausting part of the job is co-starring with Genta, of all people. (It feels a little comical to have two omegas starring in this somewhat risqué drama about sleeping with older women, but Ren supposes stranger casting choices have been made in the history of Johnny’s.) Genta wants to talk all the time, wants to be best friends in a way that Ren hasn’t experienced before, and is frankly exhausting. Most people see Ren’s withdrawn nature and take it for aloofness or standoffishness, giving him a wide berth or approaching with caution, but whether because he’s as much of an idiot as he projects on TV or because he’s just that friendly, it doesn’t seem to bother Genta one bit. He rambles nonstop about Travis Japan and their time in LA and their misadventures with love and gay dating apps across continents, but in-between stories, he asks Ren, continuously, about his relationship status and, more specifically, about Kaito. After weeks of badgering, a sleep-deprived Ren had somehow let it slip that they were in some sort of amorphous, non-exclusive relationship, to which Genta had seemed delighted, immediately offering to hook Ren up with Miyachika, who, according to Genta, “needed to get over his toxic ex who he kept going to see in LA,” seemingly without any awareness of the fact that that description of Genki might make Ren uncomfortable at best and nauseated at worst. 

And so, needless to say, Ren was glad when, near the end of April, he and Kaito finally went into the bulk of their promotions for the new single, desperate for a reprieve from the constant state of being on edge, waiting for Genta to say the next off-the-wall thing that might send Ren onto another rollercoaster of anxiety. As much as he’d deny it out loud, walking into meetings and TV station dressing rooms knowing that the person waiting for him would greet him with a warm smile and already know what he might want or need gave him another level of appreciation for Kaito. “You seem tired,” Kaito says almost every time they meet, “Are you sure you’re eating properly? Are you sleeping?” and while Ren groans that he can take care of himself, the earnest, caring tone in Kaito’s voice most certainly doesn’t go unnoticed. 

Annoyingly, it begins to feel increasingly like the only alternative to excessive alcohol to help Ren fall asleep without hours of worrying about every potential shortcoming he has, every potential way that his life and career could fall apart is falling asleep with Kaito. Prior to November 2022, Ren had occasionally had Kaito over to his house for drinks when Kaito had something he wanted to talk about, but for the most part, if they hung out together, it was out at a restaurant or bar, and then after Ren’s entire world was shattered, Kaito had taken him home with him, or else gone together to Ren’s place when Ren wasn’t capable of taking himself anywhere. That level of dependency had dropped off slowly over the course of early 2023 (though the “Peace” tour had seen them in one another’s hotel rooms more frequently than not), and for the majority of 2024, they’d gone home together when they had work together and it was convenient, but it wasn’t a priority. But now, as embarrassed as he is about it, Ren finds himself dropping hints that he knows that Kaito will pick up about how he didn’t have any food at home, or how his work tomorrow was so much closer to Kaito’s apartment, or… 

And of course, Kaito understands, Kaito is kind and empathetic enough not to call him out on his passive-aggressive tactics or complain that Ren doesn't really reciprocate how much Kaito gives to him. When Ren wants to go to Kaito’s place, Kaito happily brings Ren home with him; when Ren wants Kaito to come home with him, Kaito is not only willing but a shockingly courteous houseguest, given that Ren is extremely particular about where his things go and how his things are used. Though, he thinks to himself after the n-teenth time that Kaito’s manager is ringing Ren’s doorbell to pick Kaito up for work, it seems particularly ridiculous to refer to Kaito as a “houseguest” when he’s also Ren’s husband, a thought that he can’t bring himself to dig too deep into for fear that it will change something permanently between then, something too scary to face head-on. 

But for the moment he's saved from having to think too hard about any of it for at least a weekend; on the evening of May 28, they’re on the shinkansen for Osaka “We Are” rehearsals first thing in the morning. Tokyo Tower has just finished filming, and Ren is finally starting to relax, falling asleep with his head on Kaito’s shoulder on the shinkansen despite his best attempts not to. “Rise and shine~” Kaito says cheerily when they arrive in Osaka, and while Ren grumbles, at the same time, he’s baffled by the fact that, in the comfort of his own bed, he can’t fall asleep even if his life depended on it, but somehow, with Kaito, he can sleep in the most uncomfortable position possible. 

They go directly to the hotel from the train, Ren easily slipping back into full Kansai-ben in the place that feels more like home to him than anywhere else he’s lived. Kaito grins and giggles when he says something particularly accented, and despite that he’s certain their managers are going to start to give them funny looks, he has to admit that it feels kind of good to reply back, “nande ya nen ,” while swatting at Kaito playfully, without much pretense of actually being annoyed. 

Ren gets as good a night of sleep as one can expect with the help of room service whiskey and Kaito taking the place of a human-shaped weighted blanket pressed close to him through the night, which is for the best, since it’s off to another anxiety-inducing full day of rehearsals in front of almost literally the entire agency, with the impending deadline of the show that same evening. He tries not to let his anxiety rise to an unmanageable level as they enter the dome, but this time, it’s as if Kaito can sense his anxiety, chatting with people here and there but casually staying by  Ren’s side until it’s their turn to tech. 

While he is admittedly a little strung out, Ren has spent the majority of his career a little strung out, so that’s nothing outside of the norm. He doesn’t exactly have any particular expectations for the rehearsal, but he goes in assuming it will be the same as always—they’d just performed the same songs a month and a half prior in Tokyo, so while he always feels somewhat anxious about the fact that Kaito is so much of a better dancer than him, even still, on a scale of one to ten, his anxiety is on the lower side of average. 

Perhaps too low, in fact, because, as they stand on stage waiting for the lighting director to finalize their cues while the staff hurriedly build the last parts of the set in the background, he finds his mind wandering, looking at the stage, and the set, and the staff, and then finally at Kaito. For all that he sees of Kaito, he doesn’t really look at him that much—he avoids it, when possible, because of all the difficult to parse thoughts and feelings that he finds popping up in his mind when he does. But now he finds himself looking, actually looking for the first time in a while, before he can stop himself. 

While Ren has won literal awards certifying the beauty of his face, something he isn’t sure what to make of and feels a little awkward about, he can’t help but think that Kaito is really the beautiful one. He’d spent years pining away looking at Sho’s face (also certified by magazine awards), but now, he can’t really remember why. Kaito is a little goofy looking, but in an appealing way—he has bold features, a signature of their agency, in a way that’s striking and masculine while also soft. His thick, fluffy hair somehow suits him, and his tan skin tone, while not particularly in alignment with expected beauty ideals, gives him a healthy glow that, Ren feels, their colleagues who strive for light skin just don’t have. He knows that, if he were to be called out on it, or for the way he’s gazing at Kaito right now, he’d probably die of embarrassment and certainly deny it up and down, but recently, it feels like he’s gotten weak when it comes to denying his feelings in a way that it’s paradoxically difficult to think about or address… 

But then suddenly, Ren is startled out of his thoughts by an exclamation of, “hey, look out!” in one of the staff’s voices, and he jumps and reacts just a little too late. The first thing that he feels is the impact, something cold and hard hitting the side of his face. For his part, it takes a moment to process what’s happened—that, lost in thought, he’d wandered into the path of one of the staff moving equipment—but when he sees Kaito’s eyes widen in panic, it starts to sink in that something is wrong. 

“Ren, are you okay?? Oh my god—” Kaito yells, running over to him, but Ren doesn’t understand his seeming urgency, instead turning to bow to the staff and apologize for getting in the way. The staff member looks extremely shaken, and Ren feels guilty but also confused until Kaito catches up to him, putting his hands on Ren’s shoulders and looking at him worriedly. “Ren—you’re bleeding!” he gasps, panting after running to Ren full-throttle, and Ren is still processing that information dazedly when Kaito turns to yell urgently to the nearby staff to bring the first-aid kit. 

A numb pain spreads through Ren’s ear, the location of the actual injury, as staff hurry to disinfect and bandage the injury, but mostly he hates being the center of attention in this way. “It’s fine,” he assures repeatedly, “I’m fine, I can rehearse,” and after a lot of are you sure s and how many fingers am I holding up s, the staff seems to grudgingly agree. The pain is totally bearable… it’s the way that Kaito keeps squeezing his shoulder and looking at him with those wide, genuine worried eyes that Ren finds hard to deal with. 

Unfortunately for Ren, things turn out to be less okay than he originally thought when, about two minutes back into rehearsing, the room starts to spin. Ren tries to ignore it, tries to push through—there’s no getting around it, after all, the show is in 6 hours. As the rehearsal drags on, the dizziness gets worse, to the point that Ren is starting to be sick, but they’re already behind schedule, and rehearsal is almost done, and—

He’s not totally aware of what’s happening until suddenly, the tunnel vision is so intense that he can barely see what’s in front of him and he feels himself wobbling on his feet. “Ren—?!” he hears distantly in Kaito’s voice, but when he tries to turn to face him, suddenly, everything is closing in—

…

The next thing Ren remembers after apparently losing consciousness is waking up laying crumpled on the stage, his entire field of view taken up by Kaito. For a moment, he had been disoriented, and it felt like the world was standing still around them as Kaito leaned in close, his large, warm hands on Ren’s shoulders, his voice saying Ren’s name over and over again. There was a numb pain spreading through Ren’s head, and the room was still spinning, but he can recall dazedly thinking, it would be nice to say this way…

But of course, it couldn’t. Everything had felt like a whirlwind after that, being brought to the nurse on call, and then taken to the hospital for a professional opinion. “Just in case,” the staff kept saying, but their tone of voice while saying it gave Ren the impression that this was really more than a “just in case” sort of situation. During the car ride and the wait at the hospital, the anxiety swirling inside of him feels like it’s threatening to overtake the dizziness and vertigo, and “What about the show?” he finds himself asking over and over again, like a petulant child, “What about Kaito?” 

The staff don’t have a satisfactory answer, but it’s all moot anyway when he finally gets in to see the doctor and is told that the traumatic damage to his inner ear is worrying enough that immediate surgery is probably the right option. “Immediate—?” Ren croaks out, incredulous. “But it can’t possibly be that bad, right?”

“It’s not immediately threatening your ability to live normally, no, but when you consider how packed your schedule is going forward—” the chief manager explains, rambling on and on about how it’s better to be safe now, rather than sorry later. And Ren is sure, somewhere, in some logical place in the back of his mind, that they’re right, and that he needs to make sure this is taken care of now before it gets worse, but in his ramped up emotional state, after weeks of exhausting filming and the late-night shinkansen to Osaka and all of the anxiety and stress surrounding “We Are,” Ren does not feel equipped to be logical. 

“Let me talk to Kaito,” he tries to demand confidently, but it comes out as more of a wavering gasp, to Ren’s great frustration. 

“Yes, we’ll try to get in touch with him,” the staff member, in charge of taking care of him while the chief manager updates the team at the venue, replies with zero sense of urgency, ushering Ren into the next room where nurses are already preparing a hospital gown. The sight makes Ren’s blood pressure spike, and, “No, I want to talk to him myself—” he argues back, but the staff more or less ignores him, clearly trying to hurry him through the preparations. Ren feels helpless as a nurse appears to help him change and take his stats, wishing desperately that he hadn’t been whisked away from the venue without his phone. It doesn't help that the room won’t stop spinning, and the dull pain from his ear spreading into the rest of his head makes it hard to think straight. 

“Let me talk to Kaito—” he tries again urgently when the staff reappears as he’s being taken towards the operating room. 

“Don’t worry about that right now,” the staff assures, “He’ll be updated. Right now, the most important thing for you is to get better.” 

“But I need to talk to Kaito—!” Ren bursts, feeling pathetic but also unable to battle the rising sense of panic amidst the pain and the vertigo. “He’s my—” 

“It will be okay,” the staff cuts him off, handing him off into the nurse’s care. “Try to calm down. We’ll be waiting here for you when the surgery is done.” 

Out of all of his experiences in life, Ren wouldn’t rank going into surgery having a borderline anxiety attack as one of his top ten favorites, but he supposes that at the very least, the anesthetic knocked him out before he could make too much more of a fool of himself. 

… 

Ren feels incredibly sluggish after the surgery has finished—that’s all he can think at first as the anesthetic starts to wear off, that he wants to keep laying here forever. It takes a few minutes for him to remember the circumstances of what’s going on or why he’s here, but even as they start to come back to him, really, all he wants to do is go back to sleep. 

But instead, a nurse forces him to his feet, albeit apologetically, bringing him to a smaller room and letting him lay back down on a cot. “Someone from your company will be in to see you shortly,” she informs him, “Press the call button if you need anything.” 

Ren can barely manage a groan in response, but sure enough, his manager appears shortly and sits down in the chair next to the cot, greeting him and asking him how he’s feeling. Ren can’t manage much of a coherent response, until his manager holds out Ren’s phone to him, an active call open, and says, “Someone wants to talk to you~” 

“Ren??” Kaito’s voice comes through the phone, “Are you okay??” 

The sound of his voice, even tinny through the phone’s speaker, is enough to make Ren want to cry again, even in his half-anesthetized state. “I’m fine, idiot,” he manages to croak in response, his throat dry after being unconscious for so long, accepting the phone and weakly holding it to his ear. “Though I guess I should say, sorry I’m so fucking weak.” 

“Ren!” Kaito bursts, “You know that’s not true!” It takes Ren a moment, but suddenly, he starts to register from Kaito’s voice that he sounds… wobbly at best. “I was so worried, oh my God, please don’t say that…” 

The tight, wavering sound of his voice makes Ren’s chest feel tight, and suddenly, the memories of the feeling of panic prior to the surgery, the feeling of desperation to at least be able to speak with Kaito before being put under come rushing back to him. While it’s not exactly like this was a life or death situation, there was something about the sudden nature of it all that maybe had made things come to the surface with a little more clarity than Ren was fully comfortable with acknowledging in the moment. 

“...hey,” he says after a moment, very aware that his manager is in the room with them…not that his manager isn’t pretty much fully aware of their relationship situation, but somehow, it feels embarrassing regardless. “...how do you feel about me, again?” 

“Eh?” Kaito replies through the phone, seeming surprised by the question, his voice still weak and suspiciously wet through the phone. “You already know, I love you so, so much…”

While it’s not exactly some big secret, and it feels dumb in many ways considering that they’re married, hearing those words somehow puts Ren at ease. While it was difficult to parse, difficult to admit to himself, in some way or another, Ren had wanted to hear that before the surgery… but now, as his throat tightens up and his eyes feel tingly in return, he supposes, after is a pretty good close second. 

…

Ren is out of work for two weeks after the surgery. “Just in case,” the press release said, and while he knows that it’s probably for the best, it doesn’t help with the sense of guilt that, after going from six to five to two, he’s now left Kaito all on his own. 

“It’s okay!” Kaito assures for the n-teenth time as he pours water into the bowl and stirs the bougie mail-order udon that Ren has been into recently. “I can hold down the fort on my own. Anyway, you’re always working so hard to protect the group, it’s my turn sometimes!” 

“Shut up,” Ren replies from his place languishing on the sofa, craning his neck to see Kaito in the kitchen. “And I’m not a fucking invalid, you don’t have to fawn over me like one.” 

“It’s called taking care of you,” Kaito replies cheerfully, coming into the living room with the bowl and chopsticks on a tray and setting it on the table in front of Ren. “It’s what you’re supposed to do when a loved one needs help. Here you are~” 

“Gross,” Ren replies maturely, but he manages to pull himself into a sitting position, examining the food. It looks good; Ren is picky about this sort of thing, and Kaito always, always does his best to learn from whatever mistakes Ren complains about and improve next time. It makes Ren feel bad, especially when he can’t get past his own issues to say anything nice about it, but for the moment, he gives Kaito an uneasy side-eye and nod-bows a little, picking up the chopsticks and mumbling, “ itadakimasu ,” as the best he can do. 

Ren eats in silence, trying to ignore Kaito watching him fondly, leaning on the doorway between the living room and the kitchen. “Besides,” he says at length, “I’m always happy to take care of you. It’s the least I can do.” 

“What do you mean?” Ren grumbles, “It’s not like you owe me or something.” 

“No,” Kaito replies, looking in Ren’s general direction, but his expression changes a little, and he has a look in his eye that Ren can’t read. That in and of itself is enough to make Ren nervous—after all, he can always read Kaito, always. 

“What,” Ren asks, pushing the finished tray aside, looking up intently at Kaito from where he sits on the couch. “What happened?”

Kaito rolls his lips together, avoiding eye contact still, and takes a slow breath in a way that gives Ren a rush of anxiety. A million worries jump to mind, a million memories of losing friendships in grade school and losing Daigo and Ryusei and losing Sho, and suddenly, his heart is beating in his ears and he feels dizzy. “What??” he insists, looking up at Kaito desperately, feeling like if he has to wait another second for an answer, he’ll be sick. 

“...sorry—it’s not a big deal,” Kaito replies at length with a bit of a forced laugh, rubbing the back of his neck. “I’m overreacting… but I just… feel kinda bad, in the long run.” 

The response doesn’t really do much to help Ren feel better. “About what??” he demands, looking up at Kaito urgently, feeling like, no matter what Kaito said, whatever it was must actually be a big deal. 

Kaito licks his lips and sighs a little, fidgeting nervously. “...it’s just… I feel like I have to tell you about what happened with Genta while you were in the hospital.” 

Whatever Ren had been expecting, it most definitely wasn’t that. It takes a moment for the words to process in his brain, but when they do, he starts to stand up in shock before a head rush sends him back down onto the sofa. His mind is going into overdrive; what does Kaito mean “what happened with Genta”?? He couldn’t possibly mean—right?!

“I’m sorry—!!” Kaito blurts, clearly seeing how upset Ren is. “I… I knew I shouldn’t have done it. But I was so worried about you, and the management said that you’d be in surgery for a while so I couldn’t contact you, and since I had to perform with Genta, he said he’d help me calm down, and then…” 

“And then you did— that ?!?!” Ren tries to shout in response, but it comes out as more of a breathless wheeze. “What— why ?!?!”

“I don’t know!” Kaito replies hurriedly, coming closer to Ren and kneeling down on the floor near the sofa to be at his eye level. He’s clearly extremely guilty, from the horrified, apologetic look on his face to the tight, wavering sound of his voice, but Ren is overwhelmed trying to understand as Kaito continues, “I’m sorry—he said you told him that it was open between us, and that he wanted to help me, and then— it just—” 

“So it’s my fault?!” Ren interjects, his voice raising an octave as his emotions start to slip out of his control while he’s too panicked to care. He doesn’t know what happened to the closed off, aloof version of himself, but right now, it feels like nothing matters besides figuring out what the hell is going on. 

“No—that’s not what I mean—” Kaito flounders, looking like he’s going to cry. “I’m sorry— I wasn’t thinking straight— and—”

“But we’re married—!” Ren suddenly bursts with tears welling up in his eyes and knowing he’s being ridiculous and unfair, and, in this moment, totally unable to do anything about it, “—you promised—!!” 

Kaito’s eyes widen at that, and then all of a sudden, he’s crying, too. Ren isn’t totally sure what’s happening, but then suddenly Kaito is moving to sit next to him on the sofa, pulling Ren into his arms and squeezing him tightly. 

“I know—” he replies tearfully, his voice close to Ren’s ear as Kaito presses close, “I know, you’re right, I’m sorry—”

Kaito’s genuine guilt and repentance when really, he’s not totally in the wrong makes Ren’s stomach twist, even as he’s starting to cry like a total wuss. “...But it’s my fault for fucking telling Genta that about us, and I—” 

But Kaito cuts him off, totally vexing Ren by laughing a little, genuinely, softly. “No, it’s okay,” he says quietly, his voice warm and suddenly steady despite the fact that he still seems to be crying a little. “It’s okay, because I love you, and I want to be with you, only, forever.” And he laughs a little more, squeezing Ren tightly in a way that makes him suddenly feel like he’ll never be able to stop crying but also that he never wants Kaito to let go. 

“Why ??” he demands tearfully before he can stop himself, feeling so wrung out and so terrible and so undeserving. “I’m the asshole who never says what he means, and—” 

But Kaito cuts him off with a light, pure laugh and a shake of his head, his tone and countenance suddenly bright all over again, like usual. It’s enough to make Ren’s chest feel less tight and more at ease, somehow—somehow, Kaito has always been a little magical that way. 

“Because I love you just the way you are,” he replies earnestly, starting to rub Ren’s back gently. “You don’t have to be anything for me. I just want you to be you.” 

Ren is overwhelmed in so many ways, on so many levels that he can’t even begin to sort them out. But somehow, “Fuck you,” is the first thing that makes it’s way out of his mouth, in a much softer, gentler tone than a moment ago, his tears slowing under the comforting pressure of Kaito’s embrace. Kaito just laughs warmly and nods, not letting go even a little bit, just rubbing Ren’s back gently. 

Time passes, though Ren can’t tell if it’s been five minutes or five hours, nor can he bring himself to care. He wants to stay that way forever, if he can. When Kaito lets go, he knows, he’ll have to look him in the eye, and then, to some extent, things will go back to normal—Ren won’t be able to handle his gaze, and he’ll return at least somewhat, to the same version of himself that he’s always been with Kaito, the same way of hiding behind hollow insults because he doesn’t know how to be earnest the way that Kaito is. But right now, in this moment, somehow, it feels like, as long as he doesn’t move, they’re under some sort of magical spell that makes things different. Maybe he was the Cinderella girl all along, Ren thinks wryly, his head against Kaito’s shoulder, breathing in his familiar, calming scent. 

“…Well you’d better buy rings then, you asshole,” Ren says at length, and the way that Kaito draws in a breath suddenly in delight makes his heart flip-flop inside of his chest. 

“Even though we can’t wear them?” Kaito asks teasingly, echoing what Ren had said those weeks ago. But before Ren can even respond, he laughs a little and says, “Got it. Cartier, right?” 

“Whatever is fine,” Ren replies grumpily, internally pleased that Kaito knew what he liked. 

“Should I propose, then?” Kaito asks playfully, and despite that he can’t see his face, Ren can tell that he’s smiling. 

“Did you forget that we’re already married, asshole?” he shoots back, but there’s no bite behind it. 

“Nope~” Kaito replies melodically, “I’ve been grateful every day since March 20th~” 

“Of course you remembered the exact date,” Ren grumbles, turning red. 

“I can’t help it,” Kaito quips, “It was one of the happiest days of my life. To get to be with the person I love the most in the world forever.” 

Ren sighs, feeling like this can’t go on for much longer before they have to return to reality. But before that happens, he knows there’s something he has to say, properly. And so he takes a deep breath, squeezing his eyes shut for a moment but at the same time, for maybe the first time, totally unafraid. 

“…me too,” he mumbles, quietly at first, but his voice gaining strength as he goes. “I mean… I love you too… somehow.” And, while he hadn’t quite been able to bite off the qualifier at the end, it’s much more than he’d ever been able to say before, which feels like maybe the bravest thing he’s ever done, in his cowardly life of running away. 

But Kaito only smiles and squeezes him tighter for a moment before finally letting go, pulling back to look into Ren’s eyes softly, gently, lovingly. “Then it’s a ‘happy ever after,’” he says, his smile quirking up a little at the corners playfully. “Right?” 

And while Ren can already feel the magic dissipating and the desire to hide behind tsundere quips and caustic remarks, he manages to get out a, “right.” And in that moment, he thinks, for the first time since everything went to hell in 2022, that maybe things really are going to be happy ever after, after all.