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The first time they made a bet, they were sitting in the Cat’s Eye and Fai was drinking on the job, while Kurogane just drank.
The mage grinned his smarmy grin and dangled a glass in front of his lips, elbow planted firmly in Kurogane’s personal space. Kurogane grimaced at him.
“Let’s make a bet,” Fai purred over the bar counter.
“No.”
“See that man over there?” Fai gestured limply with one long finger, glancing towards a cluster of seats at the back of the room. Nestled in the pot plants and lurid lighting was a customer. Faded hems trailed on the ground as he stooped further over a blank notebook, tapping his pen on the table and rubbing his temple. Sakura was in the process of clearing away a crumb-littered plate and refilling his cup with steaming dark coffee, which the man thanked her for. Before her eyes, he proceeded to gulp it down in one go. Confused, the girl offered to refill his cup again. She dashed away with a little bow when he wordlessly waved his hand ‘no’. He was just another deadbeat poet, romancing the streets at night like flies romanced rotten fruit. Outo was a funny place.
“What about him?” Kurogane said.
“He’ll come up here in a few minutes,” Fai said. “And then he’ll ask for the most expensive drink available.”
Kurogane gave a huff. “I don’t think so. He looks broke.” Fai smirked, so Kurogane added, “I don’t think getting wasted is an objective that demands top-shelf shit, anyway.”
“Want to bet?” Fai said. His fingers drummed on the countertop and his shoulders assumed a little sway that both compelled and infuriated Kurogane.
He took a sip of his drink – a harsh malt he’d become fond of since Fai had pushed a glass of it on him several nights ago – without breaking eye contact. This was his fourth glass, and it was probably working on him, because he said, “Fine. Three-hundred en.”
Fai scoffed. “A thousand.”
“Fuck off.”
“Nine-hundred.”
“Whatever.”
Fai gave a winning smile and straightened himself, abandoning his own glass on a shelf behind him. It didn’t take long for his prediction to come true, and the poet ambled up to a bar stool several places down from Kurogane only minutes later. The man bounced his knee and swept his hands through his hair. He kept fidgeting and jittering like that until Kurogane thought he might bounce right off his stool. He nearly wanted to ask if the guy was alright. He’d clearly had too much coffee.
Fai feigned noticing the man for the first time and sauntered over to him with a pristine customer-service smile. Kurogane watched out of the corner of his eye as the mage glanced coyly away once or twice. “What can I get for you?” he said.
“Just a whiskey,” said the poet.
Fai smiled and turned to the racks of alcohol stacked behind him. He bent to take a bottle of whiskey from the bottom and paused, looking over his shoulder at the man. Kurogane couldn’t help but take very keen notice of the way the mage tucked a wayward blonde strand behind his ear, his other hand gripping the wooden frame for balance. “Any kind in particular?”
The man shrugged. “Uh,” he began. Fai waited, gaze unmoving. “S-something mid-range?”
Fai clicked his tongue and slipped a stocky bottle from the rack. It was filled with a generic brown liquid that looked a lot like what Kurogane was drinking. “This is a staple,” he said. “Good body, good taste…” he shrugged and placed it on the counter for the man to see. “It’s a bit basic, but it won’t break the bank.”
The man looked between the bottle and Fai and fished in his coat for his money token. “Well,” he said, hesitating, “What else have you got?”
Fai’s lips curled in a way that looked almost genuine. Almost. He pulled a second bottle from the rack, angular and faceted, and put it on the counter beside the first. The liquid inside looked about the same, but the label was more streamlined and gave a metallic glint under the fashionably dim bar light. It looked the same to Kurogane, but Fai caressed it like it was molten gold. “If I’m being honest, I think you’ll be wiser to get this one.” He gave a little shrug and added, confidentially, “It’s a little more underground, but it’s a personal favourite of mine.”
The man blinked up at Fai, who was leaning in close and familiar over the counter to smile at him. “Yeah?” he said. “What’s it like?”
“Mm,” Fai assured him, lowering his voice. “Gorgeous body. Smooth on the tongue.” He dragged his words a little at this, like the conniving bastard he was. “The burn is dangerously addictive.” His fingertips graced the curve of the bottle as the two of them fell into tense silence. Kurogane rolled his eyes and breathed a hefty sigh to break some of the hush. Fai didn’t react, of course, and the poet was too dumb-struck to look away.
“What’ll it be?” Fai crooned. Kurogane could picture the blonde’s endearingly lopsided smile, even if it was as transparent as glass to him. He didn’t have to see his smirk to hear it in his voice. He’d been on the other end of it just minutes before.
“How much is that one?”
“Three-thousand for a glass.” Kurogane suppressed a scoff. How was that even legal? What bullshit. “With my personal recommendations.”
Kurogane almost thought Fai would leave it at that, and took a swig of his drink to cleanse himself of the shameless manipulation he’d been listening to. He realised his relief had come too soon when out of the corner of his eye he saw Fai close the distance between himself and the poet. He placed his lips against the man’s ear, whispering, “And my personal thanks.”
Twenty minutes later, the poet was several thousand en poorer and thoroughly inebriated on Fai’s personally-recommended whiskey. He tried once or twice to draw Fai into his urgent musings on art and Fai humoured him by kissing him on the cheek before ushering him out the door and shutting it. Kurogane watched as the mage closed the curtains and helped an abashed Sakura clean up. Finally, he sat on the counter in front of Kurogane, who leaned back on his stool with arms crossed and glare at full force.
“Nine-hundred en, did we agree on?” Fai said.
“How did you do that?” Kurogane countered.
Fai gave an exasperated sigh and waved vaguely. “You were there. You saw.”
“You dog.”
“Now now, Big Puppy,” Fai said. “I don’t think it’s appropriate to call people names.”
Kurogane stammered and fumed for a second, but gave up when it was clear that Fai was out of catty responses for tonight. “I can’t give you anything,” he pointed out. “We share the money token in this place.”
“I know,” Fai drawled with a roll of his eyes. “Consider it a symbolic debt. I’m still counting on Big Puppy to earn back the 12,000 en he drank away tonight.”
“What?” Kurogane burst. It couldn’t have cost that much. He’d only had… what, four glasses? They had to have cost 3000 per glass…
“That was the top-shelf shit?”
Fai grinned. He pulled his legs up and stretched across the counter, splaying the generous length of his arms above his head. Kurogane stared at his eyes, unfazed. The mage stared back, extending a hand to play with Kurogane’s sleeve. Kurogane batted it away and was rewarded with a low chuckle.
“Only the best for you, Kuro-sama.”