Work Text:
“You said that last time was the last time,” Adachi said, pinning the phone between his shoulder and his ear as he folded his undershirt neatly into a flat square. Tsuge had called him out of the blue late on a Sunday afternoon, right in the middle of laundry day.
“Yeah well after what you said to the poor girl I figured there wasn't any girl in all of Japan who'd sign up for a blind date with me!”
“Clearly there is, or you wouldn't be begging me for my help!”
“Not… exactly.”
“Not exactly?”
“Well… grandpa decided to care less about gender if it meant I had someone to remind me to eat.”
“So?”
“So he figured if I'm going to such lengths to avoid his blind dates I must be gay.”
Adachi nearly dropped the phone. Going on blind dates in Tsuge's place was one thing. Letting the girls down easy while making sure you say things they really don't want to hear so that they'll never contact him again is easy when you can read minds. But going on a blind date with a man? Adachi didn't even know how to act gay!
“I don't even know how to pretend I'm gay!” he repeated his thought.
“So don't!” Tsuge said, “Tell him you're not gay but you were forced to go on the date anyway, he'll definitely not want to follow up then!”
“Thats not…” Tsuge had a point, but that felt cruel.
“What if…?” Adachi sputtered, “what if someone sees me?”
“You weren't worried about that before,” Tsuge pointed out, “Besides, you always wear a disguise, right? You'll be fine.”
Tsuge, once again, had a point and Adachi was running out of excuses.
“I don’t know…” Adachi said doubtfully, “I still don’t like it. Even if it wasn’t a man, I told you I didn’t want to do it anymore.”
“I know,” Tsuge jumped in, “And I wouldn’t ask but I have to get this manuscript finished by tomorrow, and I cannot afford the time. Besides, you’re just so good at getting them to go away, you know you are. Pleaaaaaase?”
Adachi sighed. “You promise this will be the last time?” he asked.
“Promise, promise, promise,” Tsuge said, “Do this for me and I will never ask you to do another one.”
“You said that last time,” Adachi reminded him, but he already knew he was going to give in.
“Yeah, but I mean it this time.”
Adachi paused. Tsuge probably thought he meant it at least. And in the end, he was right.
“Fine,” Adachi finally said, “I’ll do it.”
“Thank you. Thank you! I owe you, big time.”
“Yeah, yeah, so when is it?”
Two Hours Later
And so, Adachi found himself, hair tousled, dark heavy glasses, and a, hopefully not obvious, patch of goatee stuck to his chin with an itchy makeup glue. He steeples his fingers together to keep himself from itching at it again. Too much and it’d fall off mid date… which, come to think of it, might put this date off but it might not.
Adachi sighs and checks his watch. Really it would have been better if Tsuge had remembered the man’s name, or literally anything about him. Usually Adachi does a small amount of research, to try and figure out how best to unsettle the blind date candidate into thinking about things that might put them off. This time he was going in blind. Well, as blind as one can be when they’re able to read minds.
“Masato Tsuge?” a polite male voice said from over his shoulder.
“Yes?” Adachi said, turning to look. His eyes pass over an immaculate navy blue suit before arriving at the face of none other than the star of the sales department, Kurosawa Yuichi. Adachi could feel his face become a little fixed. He was wearing a disguise, it’s true, but that was mostly meant for if anybody saw him from a distance, not up close scrutiny. He searched Kurosawa’s face for any indication that he recognized him, and then suddenly realized that his hand had been out the whole time waiting for Adachi to shake it. Well, technically for Tsuge to shake it.
“Hello, yes,” Adachi says, standing and focusing carefully on not stuttering or tripping over his own feet. If he was going to pass as someone else, he’d have to sound like someone else too. Someone confident. Someone who could reject a person without even having seen them. He gave Kurosawa a firm handshake, and made eye contact. Adachi would never make direct eye contact, which meant that Tsuge needed to. Besides, the hand shake was a good way to get an idea of what Kurosawa was expecting from this.
At least he’s nice enough. Not as nice as Adachi, but nice enough. Adachi jerked his hand back as if stung. Did he really just think about Adachi? Was he already subliminally picking up on Adachi’s lie somehow?
“Please, sit,” Adachi said, gesturing to the seat across the table. While Kurosawa crossed to it, Adachi went to pull his hair across his eyes, thought better of it as something Adachi would do, and tucked it behind his ears instead.
They sat in a tense silence for a few moments, and Adachi didn’t trust himself to look away, not without falling back into Adachi-like behaviors. What was Kurosawa doing here anyway? Any girl would be happy to have him– Ah. But he’d been set up for a blind date with a man. Adachi barely kept himself from wincing. A bit of bad luck, then, that Kurosawa’s good looks made him a girl-magnet but kept all the right kinds of men away.
“I’m sorry,” Adachi said, and then inwardly yelled at himself to stop apologizing, “But I didn’t catch your name, Mr….?”
“Ah. Kurosawa. Kurosawa Yuichi.”
Adachi knew that, of course, but Tsuge didn’t.
“Uh. Nice name,” Adachi said, skipping the pleasantries. Going with rude was usually a good first bet, even if he didn’t know anything. Besides. Adachi was polite to a fault. To keep his cover he had to be everything Adachi was not.
Adachi crossed his ankles and slid his feet across the floor, just far enough to make contact with Kurosawa’s perfect leather boots.
–told myself I’d just take whoever showed up. I should be grateful that he at least looks a little like Adachi. Maybe I could get him to grow his hair out, get contacts, shave that scruffy beard, I bet he’d almost look like Adachi, and I could pretend-
Adachi choked on his own spit and yanked his foot away. Yes, he looks like Adachi - he is Adachi - but why would that be a good thing?
“You okay?” Kurosawa asked, looking mildly concerned. Adachi grabbed one of the water glasses that the waiter had left on the table and takes a large gulp.
“Fine, fine,” he said, waving a hand, “Just swallowed wrong. So, Kurosawa, what is it you do?”
Adachi slid his foot back across the floor, only half listening to Kurosawa’s answer. He knows what it is after all, it’s not like he’s going to screw up by not listening. Although maybe he should…
“And I’m shepherding our youngest hire” –that fucker Rokkaku– “who has a tendency to, ah, say the wrong things a lot.” –and be in the way to keep me from talking to Adachi. Three times this week, he said he’d do it when I had papers to take to him– “Not on purpose, he’s just. Well, he’s young.”
Adachi swallowed a snort and a smile. That was certainly the nice way of putting it. Who knew that Kurosawa’s mental voice had a potty-mouth?!
“You don’t seem the type to tutor the younger generation,” Adachi said, though it was of course not true, “Do you find yourself working with… the young ones often?”
Well that’s a bit rude– “Ah, well this is the first time, but I’m happy to do it.” –though I’d be happier if it wasn’t the fucking Rokk-block extraordinaire– “I quite like making sure the next generation has all the tips I can give them.”
“So is that why you’re looking to settle down? Put together a family?” Adachi asked. If he can get Kurosawa to have a stance on children he could quickly put an end to this whole charade by saying his opinion was the opposite, no matter which side Kurosawa came down on.
Kurosawa didn’t say anything aloud for a long time, but his thoughts were racing. –had a choice I wouldn’t be here at all, but Mom said I had to get married by the end of the year. I can’t exactly say that while I got her to accept I’m gay, since I’m still single she insisted on finding the one agency that does lgbtq+ arranged marriage. If she’d just give me time to tell Adachi my feelings I’d get to it, eventually, but if I just drop “hey I’m gay and I fell in love with you from across the room” in his lap, then–
Adachi involuntarily pulled back. Feelings? For Adachi? That couldn’t be right. Surely he’d misheard.
–since she’s forcing me to get married, this guy will do, I guess.
No. No, no, no, no, no. He very much will not do, Adachi wants to scream, but he doesn’t know how to without admitting that he’d been listening in to Kurosawa’s thoughts.
But if I get married then Adachi really won't look at me twice and I just can't stand not knowing whether I ever had a chance-
This had to stop. He couldn't just let Kurosawa keep thinking about him when he was listening- no Tsuge was listening- he sighed. This was too complicated.
“Look, I'm sorry-” Adachi started but Kurosawa cut him off.
“No, I'm sorry. I know we're supposed to be here to see if we're compatible but it's never going to work out. This whole date is a sham. I'm only here to appease my mother.”
Adachi swallowed a smile. He couldn't seem too glad that he didn't need to do any work.
“Well, I'm sorry to hear that,” Adachi says, “but I appreciate you being honest up front. And, in return, I'll be honest too: I'm in the same boat.” That's it. Sympathize, seem relatable but unavailable, and get out before Kurosawa realizes he's not Tsuge.
“Right?” Kurosawa nods, responding almost as if he hadn't heard what Adachi had said, “What I really need is a date to get my mom off my back. If you're being forced into this arranged marriage thing too, I bet it'd be really useful for you to have the same thing! We can say we're taking it slow, that we think it's going well but we want to be sure.”
“Uhhhhhh…” Adachi starts to interject, but Kurosawa continues before Adachi can derail him.
“And if you're worried about me catching feelings or whatever the tropes are with fake dating, I promise I won't. I've already got feelings for a coworker of mine and they're not going away any time soon.”
Adachi blushed all the way to his hairline, realizing that if the thoughts he'd heard were any indication then the coworker Kurosawa was talking about was him.
“We can set a deadline. Three months. In three months we'll break up and then I'll either ask Ada– my coworker out or I'll deal with my mother's blind dates again. Oh, this is brilliant, please, Masato, say you will.”
Adachi opened his mouth to say no, to say there was no way this would work, that he had to leave and to never call him again. One look at Kurosawa’s pleading face, however, and the next thing he heard coming out of his own mouth was…
“Okay.”