Work Text:
“Goddamn bowl-cut bastard …!”
Narumi sat holed up in the captain’s office, scowling as he wrestled with a mountain of paperwork. Pen in his right hand, documents flipping under his left, he scratched out signatures like they’d personally wronged him, each one punctuated by an irritated sigh.
This had been his life for a solid week.
He hadn’t gone back to his apartment once. Instead, he’d practically taken up residence in the office, living off bad coffee and worse moods. Which, frankly, was insane. Narumi hated desk work with a passion. On a normal day, the moment admin hours rolled around, he’d spout something like, “My job is killing kaiju, not this,” and vanish without a trace. Usually, he bolted the second the clock hit quitting time, already checking his game’s login bonuses on his phone as he walked out.
But lately?
Lately he’d been asking, unprompted, “Anything else you need me to handle?”
It freaked everyone out.
At first, the unit just stared. Whispers rippled through the office: “Captain’s actually working …?” and someone even pressed a hand to his forehead, dead serious, asking if he had a fever. That was how unnatural the whole thing was.
But Narumi had a damn good reason for avoiding home.
Right now, he was in the middle of a full-blown fight with his boyfriend, Hoshina, and things were ugly.
—Captain’s Office, One Week Earlier
“I’m telling you, just transfer to the First Division already!”
“And I’m telling you, for the last damn time, I’m not joining the First Division!”
Their voices cracked through the room, sharp enough to cut. The air between them sparked like exposed wire, tension snapping and popping with every word.
Narumi stood with his arms crossed, glaring down at Hoshina. Most of the time his eyes looked half-asleep, bored with the world, but right now they were honed blades, cold and piercing. Hoshina, for his part, gave a helpless shrug, clearly fed up, yet he didn’t look away. He met that stare head-on.
The reason for the fight was painfully simple.
Hoshina had turned Narumi down.
“Why not?!” Narumi shot back, his voice climbing. “You saying you don’t want to be in the same unit as me?”
“I never said that,” Hoshina replied, rubbing at the back of his neck. “All I’m saying is, my place is with the Third Division. I’ve got rookies under me. I can’t just up and leave—”
“So what, they matter more than me?”
The moment those words left Narumi’s mouth, Hoshina froze.
Ah.
There it was.
The classic ‘So it’s your job or me?’ question, the kind every pain-in-the-ass lover pulled at least once. Hoshina felt the thought flash through his mind and barely stopped himself from saying, Wow, what a nightmare, right to Narumi’s face.
Instead, he swallowed it and let out a long, slow breath.
But that sigh only made things worse.
Narumi’s brow furrowed, a deep crease forming between his eyes.
“So that’s it, huh? You’d pick Ashiro over me?”
And just like that, a completely unrelated name got dragged into the mess.
Hoshina blinked. Twice.
“Hold up, why the hell is Captain Ashiro suddenly part of this?!”
“Because you’re obsessed with her!”
“That has nothing to do with this!”
“It does! You won’t even consider my offer, but you’re perfectly happy sticking around in her division!”
“I’m not ‘perfectly happy’!” Hoshina snapped. “I’m the vice-captain of the Third Division! I can’t just ditch my post on a whim!”
He pressed a hand to his forehead, looking like he was seconds away from a headache … or homicide.
“And anyway,” he added, exasperation dripping from every word, “why are you bringing this up now? That scouting crap ended ages ago. We already settled this, didn’t we?”
Yeah, this wasn’t the first time Narumi had tried to recruit him.
Years ago, during a joint training exercise, Narumi had made the pitch. Hoshina had said no. That story had spread like wildfire through the Defense Force. After all, Japan’s strongest man, Narumi Gen himself, had been flat-out rejected by what was, at the time, a nobody.
Later, Hoshina became vice-captain of the Third Division. Naturally, everyone assumed Narumi had finally let it go.
Turns out, nope. Not even close.
“If we were in the same unit,” Narumi insisted, leaning forward, “we’d naturally spend more time together! I just want to be with you more!”
Hoshina let out a dry laugh. “C’mon, man. Even if we’re in different divisions now, we live together. We’re under the same roof. Soon as I get home, I’m with you.”
Narumi shot back instantly, voice sharp as broken glass.
“You never come home, and you know it!”
That hit.
Hoshina’s eyebrow twitched. He opened his mouth, then closed it again. Dead to rights.
The job was brutal. For captains and vice-captains, getting home at all was a minor miracle. And Hoshina … Hoshina was a full-blown workaholic. Mission first, sleep maybe, someday. Living together or not, lately he’d barely set foot in their place. Same address, separate lives. What was the point of cohabiting if one of them was basically a ghost?
“I mean … it’s not like I have a choice,” Hoshina muttered. “Work’s insane right now.”
“And that’s exactly my point!” Narumi snapped, throwing his hands up. “I know you’re a capital-W Workaholic, so I actually thought this through! If you’re in the First Division, your workload won’t change much and we’d see each other way more! It’s a win-win! So what the hell is your problem?!”
He rattled it off in one breath, irritation bleeding into something rawer, petulant, almost hurt. Like he was furious not just because he was being refused—but because his feelings weren’t landing.
“The Third Division is my family!” Hoshina fired back, raising his voice. His eyes narrowed, locking onto Narumi with unflinching resolve. “I can’t just walk away like it’s nothing!”
And he meant it. He had no intention of leaving. The Third Division was home—the place that had held him up, trusted him, needed him.
But then—
“So what am I, then?! Aren’t I your family too?!”
The moment Narumi’s voice rang out, the air locked solid.
Hoshina sucked in a sharp breath. His eyes widened, words slipping clean out of his grasp. Narumi was staring straight at him: no jokes, no swagger, no cheap grin. For once, the man who usually hid behind sarcasm and bravado was standing there bare, throwing his truth straight across the room.
The heat in that gaze pinned Hoshina in place. He searched for something to say, but the words caught in his throat and died there.
He’d never seen Narumi look like this.
Not once.
“I get that your job matters,” Narumi went on. His voice was quiet now. Too quiet. “I’m not trying to take that away from you. I just … want more time with you. I want you. I want your time.”
Soft words.
Heavy as hell.
Hoshina tried to answer. Tried to argue back. But his throat locked up, useless. His eyes slid away without permission.
And when Narumi saw that, the heat drained from his face. The tension he’d been holding snapped loose, slow and inevitable, like a string finally giving out. As if he’d realized, right then and there, that his feelings weren’t getting through.
“… I see.”
Narumi’s mutter was low, edged with something dangerously close to resignation. It was wrong. This was the guy who never backed down, who always pushed, who fought tooth and nail until he won.
Watching him retreat hurt more than any shout ever could.
Still with his arms crossed, Narumi dropped his gaze just a fraction. The cocky grin was gone. In its place was something worn, something tired. Maybe it was the lighting, but the shadows on his face looked deeper than usual, like they’d settled in for good.
After a long, suffocating silence, he spoke again, barely above a whisper.
“… I don’t want to see your face for a while. Don’t come near me. Get out.”
The words landed cold and sharp, like a blade meant to cut clean and deep.
Hoshina lowered his eyes. He opened his mouth, desperate to say something. Anything. But nothing came. All he managed was a quiet breath caught in his throat as he took one step back.
Narumi didn’t look up.
“… Right. Excuse me,” Hoshina said at last, his voice thin but forced, wrung dry from his chest.
He didn’t try to read Narumi’s expression.
He turned on his heel and left the room in silence.
Bang.
The door slammed shut, the sound echoing far louder than it had any right to—like the final word in a fight neither of them had actually wanted to win.
—And that’s how things ended up like this.
“Okay, yeah, I did say ‘don’t show your face for a while,’ but this is taking it way too damn far!”
Bang. His palm slammed down on the desk, the sharp crack echoing through the office.
It had been a week. A whole freaking week since he’d last seen Hoshina.
Well, technically, he could have seen him anytime. Same Defense Force, same Tokyo base. Work calls, chance run-ins in the halls, bumping into each other by accident, it wouldn’t have been hard. But thanks to his own stubborn streak and a whole lot of pride, he’d kept dodging him on purpose, and now the mess had snowballed into this.
Honestly? He was at his limit.
He wanted to see his face. Hear his voice. Hell, he wanted to just be normal again: hang out, steal a kiss, drag him close, maybe more. Way more.
But he was the idiot who’d snapped, I don’t want to see your face.
And now going to see him first felt awkward as hell. Worse: his pride flat-out refused to let him.
“It’s his fault, so why the hell am I the one suffering like this …?!” he growled.
He ground his teeth and raked a hand through his hair, rough and frustrated.
That jerk, couldn’t he at least come apologize once?!
I mean, seriously. When your boyfriend’s sulking, aren’t you supposed to say something like Hey, I’m sorry, and smooth things over? Was he really planning to just leave it like this? Did he think Narumi would cave first?!
With a sharp exhale, Narumi let himself fall back against the chair, staring up at the ceiling.
Uninvited, the memory crept back in: Hoshina’s face that day. The shock in his eyes. The hurt he hadn’t been able to hide. The crease between his brows, like someone had just stomped all over something he truly believed in.
It’d looked like he’d been told his whole world was wrong.
“… Did I go too far?” Narumi muttered.
Now that he was calmer, replaying his own words made his chest tighten. Back then, he’d been all raw emotion, lashing out without thinking. He couldn’t wrap his head around being turned down, got pissy, dragged the Third Division into it like it had anything to do with their fight.
Yeah.
No matter how he sliced it, he’d definitely crossed a line.
Truth was, he’d never meant to say it like that.
He didn’t think the First Division was the be-all and end-all. That wasn’t the point. All he’d wanted was to say, I want to be with you more. That was it. Simple. Honest.
He knew, of course, how much the Third Division meant to Hoshina. He’d watched him build that place piece by piece, forge bonds, earn trust. He’d seen the pride in his eyes when his subordinates followed him without hesitation. Narumi understood that better than anyone.
And still—
“The Third Division is my family! I can’t just walk away like it’s nothing!”
The moment Hoshina said it, something inside Narumi snapped.
No, snapped wasn’t strong enough. It was like a fuse blew in his head, a sharp crack that left nothing but white noise behind.
Family?
Yeah, no shit.
Narumi knew damn well the Third Division was Hoshina’s family. He’d always known. But then—
What does that make me?
What the hell am I to you?
Once that thought took root, it wouldn’t let go. It clawed at him, raw and ugly, and the frustration burned hot enough to hurt.
That was why he’d said it.
Why he’d crossed that line.
“But … Hoshina didn’t say anything,” Narumi muttered.
When he’d asked if he was family too, Hoshina hadn’t answered. Not a single word. And Narumi had no idea how he was supposed to take that silence.
“… Couldn’t you at least lie and say, ‘Of course you matter more, Darling’ or something?!” he roared, throwing his head back.
And somehow, every road led right back there.
Snarling in frustration, Narumi shoved his fingers through his hair again, messing it up even worse. The more he thought about it, the less it sat right with him.
I mean, come on. Would it have killed him to say “I choose you” just once? Just words, that’s all it had to be. Empty flattery would’ve worked! Toss him a line, stroke his ego, anything. Why was that so damn hard?!
At first, he’d wondered if he’d gone too far.
But the more he replayed it, the more it felt like the opposite was true.
Wasn’t Hoshina the one who hadn’t said enough?
“Yeah. Nope. This is on him,” Narumi declared, nodding to himself. “I’m not apologizing.”
With that, he curled up in his chair, sulking like a grumpy cat that refused to be coaxed out of its box—tail firmly tucked, pride bristling, and absolutely convinced it was in the right.
But then, the very next moment.
Knock, knock.
The sound was soft, almost hesitant.
Narumi flinched, shoulders jumping, and hurriedly straightened up.
Who now? More work? Some annoying report? A pain-in-the-neck errand?
Either way, he needed to play it cool.
He snapped his spine straight, schooling his face into the expression of a man who had absolutely, definitely been working diligently this whole time.
“Come in.”
He kept his voice calm and professional. The door opened slowly.
“Excuse me.”
And there he was.
Not his adjutant. Not a subordinate.
But the last person he expected and, simultaneously, the one he’d been dying to see.
Hoshina.
Narumi’s brain hard-stopped.
A full week. It had been a full damn week. His instincts screamed at him to jump up and pull the man into his arms, but then he remembered: Right. I’m mad. I’m the injured party.
Grinding his desire down with sheer force of will, Narumi dropped his gaze to the paperwork, flipping a page like nothing mattered less. He put on his best bored, disinterested act.
Hoshina, stone-faced, spoke first.
“Captain Narumi. I brought the documents. I need your signature.”
He placed the papers neatly on the desk.
Narumi stole a glance at him.
Same composed face. Same calm expression. Like nothing had happened. Like they hadn’t blown up their relationship and spent a week pretending the other didn’t exist.
Something twisted in Narumi’s chest.
Seriously? You vanish for a week and that’s your opening line?
There were a million other things he could’ve said. It’s been a while. I was worried. I missed you. I wanted to see you. Pick one. Any one.
His emotions churned, messy and loud.
Putting on a front, Narumi leaned back in his chair, casual to the point of obnoxious.
“Hmph. I might sign it if you agree to transfer to the First Division.”
He tilted his chin up, smirked like he had the upper hand, pure arrogance on display.
But—
“Please sign.”
Hoshina repeated it flatly, without so much as a twitch.
Completely ignored.
“Grrrgh …” Narumi growled under his breath.
Clicking his tongue, he grabbed the top document anyway. Whatever. Weapon request? Training adjustment? Same old crap.
He skimmed it.
And then—
His eyes widened.
“W–what the hell is this?!”
Narumi snatched the document up with both hands and shot to his feet.
It wasn’t a new weapons request. It wasn’t a training report.
It was a marriage registration form.
And right there, neatly written in the name field, was Hoshina Soushirou.
Hoshina met his stare, calm as ever. Unshaken. Rock-solid.
“It’s a marriage form.”
Narumi’s brain blue-screened.
Marriage form.
Marriage form??
MARRIAGE FORM????
“Please sign.”
While Narumi short-circuited, Hoshina repeated it in the same cool, businesslike tone, like he was asking for a routine approval stamp.
Narumi stopped thinking altogether.
Wait, was this how people did it now? You just stroll into your boyfriend’s office mid-fight and drop a marriage form like it’s an expense report?
“No, no, no, no—this is insane!” Narumi slapped the paper back down on the desk and jabbed a finger at Hoshina. “How did we even get here?!”
His thoughts spun out of control. Just seconds ago, he’d been sulking over getting ignored by his boyfriend. Now he was staring down a life-altering decision with zero warning. No emotional prep, no mental runway, nothing. The info dump was lethal.
“This is my answer.”
Hoshina said it quietly, but there was weight behind it. No wobble. No hesitation.
“… Huh?” Narumi croaked.
“I’ve been thinking about what you asked me,” Hoshina continued. “‘Am I not your family?’ I couldn’t stop thinking about it all week. The Third Division—yeah, they’re like family to me. That hasn’t changed.”
He paused, then met Narumi’s eyes head-on.
“But you … I want you to be my actual family.”
Narumi forgot how to breathe.
His heart thudded hard against his ribs.
That question, he’d thrown it out in a moment of loneliness, sharp and reckless, not expecting an answer. And yet Hoshina had taken it seriously. Turned it over and over in his head. And landed on this.
Marriage.
While Narumi stood there reeling, Hoshina took a step closer.
“Narumi-san.”
His voice softened, warm in a way that hit straight to the chest.
“You said you wanted my time, didn’t you? I’m sorry I’ve been married to my job for so long. I can’t join the First Division, but from here on out, my time belongs to you.”
Every word was steady. Earnest. No jokes. No escape hatch.
“So … please marry me.”
Hoshina’s gaze didn’t waver.
Honest. Strong. Gentle. Everything he was, packed into that one moment.
Slowly, painfully, the truth seeped into Narumi’s skull:
Hoshina just proposed.
And then—
Narumi’s face went up in flames.
“… Hold on, why the hell am I the one getting proposed to?! I’d already decided I was gonna do the proposing myself!”
The words burst out of him before he could stop them.
Because yeah, in Narumi’s head, the proposal was supposed to be his moment. He’d planned it out: bold, confident, suave as hell. Proper prep, perfect timing, something cinematic enough to make hearts explode.
And yet somehow, here he was: on the receiving end.
“Does it really matter who does it?” Hoshina said, unfazed.
“Yes, it absolutely does!” Narumi snapped. “This is a pride thing!”
“Man, you’re a pain,” Hoshina sighed. “Fine then. If you’re that worked up about it, go on. You do it. Right here.”
“Huh?! W—wait—uh … yeah. Right. Sure ….”
Narumi froze, words jamming in his throat. He swallowed hard.
Breathe in. Breathe out.
Get it together.
Hoshina had already made his choice. Now it was Narumi’s turn.
He reached out, took Hoshina’s hand, and locked eyes with him.
“Hoshina … will you marry me?”
His voice was serious. Rock-solid.
Unfortunately, the rest of him was betraying him completely: ears and neck blazing red, lips trembling just a bit, gaze wobbling like it might bolt at any second. He was trying so hard to keep it together, but anyone could tell: he was flustered beyond belief.
Hoshina watched him, then let out a soft, breathy laugh. His eyes curved gently as he answered, calm and sure.
“… Yes.”
[END]