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“Hey, Shino—”
“This is my fourth double in a row. If you say one more word to me before Sanemi sneaks me a free shot, I’m going to rip an identical scar into the other side of your mouth.”
Fair enough.
Mitsuri snickered behind her hand, but she was pouting when she dropped her arm again. “Poor thing. I think her roommate is under-paying her half of the rent again.”
“Shinobu could just kick her ass,” Sabito suggested.
“They’ve been friends for years, she won’t do that,” Mitsuri said. “I keep telling her not everyone can be a good roommate, but I get it. She wouldn’t put her friend out on the street like that. She’s too nice.”
“She just threatened to rip my mouth open!” Sabito pointed to his scar, where his soulmark once was. It wasn’t much of a touchy subject anymore, else Shinobu wouldn’t have made that comment . . . maybe.
“Yeah, but you’re a guy,” Mitsuri said. “No offense.”
Sabito shrugged.
Shinobu returned with slightly flushed cheeks and a half-sucked lime in her hand. “Sorry. Hi.”
“Don’t tell me Sakura is late on her rent again,” Mitsuri pleaded, with pity in her voice.
“I don’t even want to talk about it.” Shinobu sucked more juice out of her lime slice, then tossed it into the little trash can beneath Mitsuri’s host stand. She tapped Sabito’s shoulder with her open palm a couple times. “You’re training the new guy, right?”
“New guy?” Sabito wasn’t aware they’d hired anyone new. For being a small restaurant, it was surprisingly well-staffed. They had two hostesses, Mitsuri and Nezuko, and three bartenders, Tengen and the Shinazugawas, Sanemi and Genya. Sabito was also good enough at bartending to cover, in a pinch. They had six cooks: Obanai, Zenitsu, Inosuke, Kanao, and the twins, Yuichirou and Muichirou. They had almost as many waiters: Kanae, Sabito, Kyoujurou, Shinobu, and Tanjirou. Why did they need a sixth waiter?
“Yes! His name is Tomioka,” Mitsuri said. “I found his Instagram earlier. He’s gorgeous.”
Shinobu scolded her, “Girl, you’re engaged.” To the head chef, Obanai, to be exact.
“I wasn’t looking for me.” Mitsuri winked at Sabito. “He’s your type.”
“I don’t have a type,” Sabito argued. He also wasn’t exactly looking for anyone. Ideally, he’d like to find his soulmate. It would be a bit difficult, given his soulmark was gone—scarred over after the brutal attack he underwent from his own parents. He’d tried to put it past him, but it was difficult. It was a betrayal, first of all, and it was so long ago, he’d begun to forget what his soulmark truly looked like. It left a painfully bitter taste in his mouth, a grudge he tried so hard not to hold, but he couldn’t help it. He was almost positive he would recognize it if he saw it, but what if he got it wrong? What if he never really knew?
“I’m just saying,” Mitsuri teased, drawn out and suggestive. Sabito rolled his eyes, but he smiled at her antics, “I’m fine, thanks. But, yeah, I’ll train him, I guess. When’s he showing up?”
Mitsuri checked her watch. “10 minutes, give or take.”
“Cool. I’ll check on my tables and be back to grab him.”
It took Sabito 15 minutes to make his rounds, since one of his tables wanted three sake shots, and one needed extra wasabi and a refill on soy sauce. By the time Sabito swung back around to the hostess stand, Mitsuri was chatting with a tall guy with long, black hair. Tomioka, probably.
“New hire?” Sabito asked as he approached the duo.
Unfortunately, Mitsuri was right. Sabito might not have a type, but, if he did, Giyuu checked all his boxes. He had sharp, blue eyes and features that Sabito could only mentally categorize as pretty—though, in harmony, his eyes, nose, lips created a very handsome man with a deadpan expression that Sabito found so attractive, it was like a shock to his system. He was around Sabito’s height, and he spoke with a deep, soothing voice, “I’m Tomioka Giyuu.”
Sabito was silent for a moment too long; he only came back into his body when Mitsuri’s sharp elbow nudged his ribcage.
“Shit. Sorry, yeah, I’m Sabito. Nice to meet you.” Sabito bowed his head to Giyuu, who returned the gesture. Sabito tried not to stare too long. Giyuu was good-looking, sure, but Sabito was a little hung up on something else: his soulmark. It was on his cheek, starting at the right corner of his mouth and trailing up toward his ear — freckles twisting up in a tornado-like motion over his cheek.
Sabito was right; he would recognize his soulmark, if he ever got to see it on someone else. Giyuu’s mark was Sabito’s mark.
Not only that, there was something happening in Sabito — something like a gut feeling, one of those spiritual things that would go unexplained for eons. Sabito just felt like Giyuu was his soulmate. He was immediately drawn to Giyuu, as if his soul was a wild beast and his body was the cage. That little beast was fighting like hell to get out and return to its other half. It was jarring, in that Sabito had never had a feeling so strong in his life — and he’d been physically ripped open before.
He could only hope he was outwardly handling the strange, life-altering revelation well.
“Tomioka has served before!” Mitsuri turned to Giyuu. “Sabito can show you around, and you can spend your shift shadowing him so you get comfortable with the restaurant layout. Sabito’s one of our sweetest staff members, he’ll take good care of you!”
Giyuu nodded, and he looked to Sabito for next steps.
“Yep.” Sabito nodded awkwardly for a moment, still processing how he felt, before he finally came back into himself—a skill of having a customer-facing job on some of his worst days. “Yeah. Yep. Let’s go. I have a couple of tables, so we’ll check on them, then I’ll introduce you to everyone in the back.”
Sabito had four tables. The first one, an older couple, was ready for the check, and the second, a group of five friends, wanted another round of sake shots. (Sabito gave Giyuu a quick talk about knowing when to cut people off from alcohol.) The third table, a trio, had just put their order in 10 minutes prior, and Sabito promised to bring their food soon. The fourth, a young couple, was also ready for their check.
“What kind of restaurant did you work for?” Sabito asked as he and Giyuu walked to the back, ready to kill two birds with one stone — check on the third table’s food and introduce Giyuu to their cooks and Shinobu, if she happened to be back there.
(She was, and she was halfway over the counter calling someone a “bitch” as the cooks on shift — Obanai, Inosuke, and Yuichirou — laughed along.)
“She’s going through a lot,” Sabito said. He pulled Giyuu off to the side, a private moment. “So? Last restaurant?”
“It was a lot like this one, in my old hometown,” Giyuu said. “But we didn’t serve alcohol.”
“Where?”
“Fukuoka.”
“No way.” In the back of Sabito’s mind, he thought about how he shouldn’t be standing around chatting like this — but Shinobu was still ranting to Obanai, and Sabito was still deeply drawn to Giyuu, so he let himself off the hook. “I was born there. What city?”
“Wow. I’m from Nogata.”
“I was born in Kitakyushu.” It was just like soulmates, to have so much in common—neighboring cities, and yet they still ended up in Osaka, right along the border of Kyoto, in the same restaurant.
“I’ve never met anyone from there. Well. Not in a while, anyway.” Giyuu’s mouth grew into a smile, and Sabito tried not to stare for too long. (It was difficult. That wild beast was treating his ribcage like a scratching post, sending subliminal messages straight to his brain. He’s so pretty. Can he be ours? Can we be his? Tell him. Tell him you’re soulmates. Tell him so we can kiss him.)
“How long have you been in the city?” Sabito said it while he walked, conscious of the food on the line and Shinobu peeling herself away from the counter, likely to check on her tables. Sabito called for her before she could disappear, and he turned to Giyuu. “Really quick. This is Kocho, another waitress.”
“Hi. Bad timing, bad day, let’s try this again next week,” Shinobu said. She bowed her head, then disappeared.
“She’s really nice,” Sabito said, then pressed his lips together. “Kind of?”
Giyuu laughed it off. He helped Sabito grab two of the plates for table three, and he followed him while talking about his journey from home. “I moved to the city when I was 17. I graduated early and decided to come here for school. I’ve been a waiter ever since.”
“How old are you?”
“22. I’ll graduate in a few months.”
“What are you going to do?”
“I’ll be an architect.”
Their ages were the same, and though their career paths differed, they were closely related. “I’m studying to be an engineer.”
The strategist and the doer, the designer and the builder — one can’t work without the other.
Sabito was getting far ahead of himself, but he couldn’t help it. He and Giyuu just clicked, as soulmates naturally would. They hardly stopped talking for a moment throughout their shift together, except to speak to customers. Sabito normally spent a lot of time (too much time, if he was being honest with himself) lingering by the hostess stand to chat with Mitsuri—or he snuck off to the bar to decompress away from the hustle and bustle of needy customers and far too many food smells . . . and maybe a free shot here and there. But with Giyuu, he didn’t sneak away once.
This was not lost on Mitsuri.
“I didn’t see you at all after Giyuu showed up.” She had a wild grin on her face, and she leaned against her host stand, chin balanced on her hand.
“He’s training,” Sabito said, in an attempt to play it off.
But nothing got past Mitsuri. “He’s been a server for three years. You like him.”
“Bold statement.”
“And?”
“And?”
“True or untrue?”
Sabito clicked his tongue against his teeth. “He’s nice to work with.”
Mitsuri pressed her hand to her mouth and squealed quietly behind it, an endearing habit that usually presented itself when romance was the topic of conversation.
“I’m so happy for you,” Mitsuri said. She stretched her arms over her host stand like a teenager who couldn’t possibly contain her happiness.
“You’re getting ahead of yourself.” And so am I.
“His soulmark is right where your scar is,” Mitsuri said.
“You noticed that too?”
Mitsuri’s mouth fell open, her eyes rolling up in happiness as she once again bent over her host stand, damn near lifting herself right off of her feet as she expressed her excitement without squealing again.
Sabito rolled his eyes, albeit fondly. Mitsuri was, as he said weeks ago, in a “romance drought.” Nobody else had an interesting love life, and she was dying for some good news from at least one of their staff members. Sabito was happy to deliver, but he was happier to hear that he wasn’t completely delusional about Giyuu’s soulmark being his own.
“Just so you know,” Mitsuri said after a moment, when she contained herself enough to stand up straight again. “Tomioka said he really liked working with you, too. He said you’re a great trainer and the best server he’s ever worked with.”
“Oh.” Sabito pressed his lips into a tight line to stop himself from smiling.
“Oh my God,” Mitsuri said, hiding her mouth behind her hand again. “You two are so cute.”
“We barely know each other.”
“You are definitely soulmates.”
“Right. I’m out of here,” Sabito said. He needed to leave, or else he was going to severely embarrass himself. He shrugged his jacket on and waved to Mitsuri over his shoulder. “Bye, Kanroji!”
“Bye! See you tomorrow!”
☾☆
“Should I kill myself on Instagram Live or TikTok Live?”
If Sabito was a guest, Mitsuri and Shinobu would be in a lot of trouble for their chosen topic of discussion at the host stand—but Sabito was very much not a guest, and he wasn’t about to rat the two out. They were basically a couple of his comrades in war, at this point. Two and a half years at a restaurant together was a bond that was only achievable on a battlefield.
“Neither, babe,” Mitsuri said empathetically. “You should kick Sakura out.”
Sabito interjected as painlessly as he could, primarily to alert the two of his presence, but also to show a little bit of support to Shinobu—hopefully, without getting his head cut off. “Roommate is giving you trouble again?”
Shinobu smiled tightly. “I love her.”
Silence fell over the group as Sabito waited for Shinobu to say something else, and Mitsuri looked between the two of them. But Shinobu just kept smiling, blinking slowly, as if to emphasize her catharsis.
“. . . And?”
“I learned to stay silent if I have nothing nice to say,” Shinobu said. She folded her hands together, took a deep breath, and asked, “Who’s closing tonight?”
“Me and Giyuu.”
Shinobu raised an eyebrow at him. “Giyuu?”
“Oh, Tomioka,” Sabito said.
“Oh, you two must be close, if you’re already calling him by his given name!” Mitsuri said.
Sabito tried his best to play it cool, to shrug her comment off, “Yeah, I guess.”
His head was reeling, thinking of that moment at the end of their shift.
“Is Sabito your family name?”
“No. I don’t have a family name.”
“Oh.” Giyuu only paused for a moment. “Well, you can call me Giyuu, if you want.”
“I don’t have to—”
“I want you to.” Giyuu smiled softly. “We’ll be working together a lot, so we might as well. And you can tell me the story sometime, if you want. Get it off your chest.”
“The story of . . . my family name?”
“Yeah.” Giyuu shrugged. He shifted his gaze away from Sabito, dragging a dry rag over a wet cup. “I don’t know if you have anyone to talk to, but you could talk to me. I like your stories.”
Once again, Sabito could only hope that he was presenting himself in a socially acceptable manner and not like someone who was falling apart at the seams because a man — his soulmate, definitely his soulmate — was endearing.
Shinobu was his saving grace in that moment, suddenly shifting the subject, “Hold on, he’s already closing? It’s his second day, isn’t it?”
“He was hired as a closer,” Mitsuri said. Her voice grew solemn, “The Kamados’ dad died last week. Tanjirou is gonna take care of his younger siblings at night so his mom can rest before she goes back to work.”
Shinobu gasped softly, pressing her hand to her mouth with empathy. Sabito hissed, also empathetic, “That’s terrible.”
“Tanjirou and Nezuko are good kids,” Mitsuri said. “I hope they’ll be okay.”
Sabito might have said something else — even though there was nothing else to say — but a few people walked up to the host stand, and Mitsuri sat them in his section. Time to settle in and greet his guests.
Sabito had a long shift ahead, starting at 2:00 p.m., ending at 11:00, with Giyuu arriving at 5:00.
By 4:53, Sabito had completed a round of checking on his tables, and he was standing by the host standing with Mitsuri.
“Anything in particular you’re hanging around for?” Mitsuri asked knowingly. Sabito knew his presence wouldn’t get by her, even though he always hung around the hostess stand. They both knew it was different, this time. Things were changing faster than Sabito could believe.
Regardless, “No.”
“Liar.”
“Assumption-maker.”
“Lover boy.”
“Fujoshi.”
Though Mitsuri was facing him, her years as a hostess had given her a sixth sense for people approaching, and she stopped hurling playful insults at Sabito just in time for Giyuu to enter the restaurant. She fixed her face into a normal smile, though she kept glancing at Sabito as Giyuu approached.
“Hi, Kanroji,” Giyuu said. “Hi, Sabito.”
“Hey,” Sabito said, as casually as he could. Mitsuri’s smile grew, “Hi, Tomioka!”
“How are you?” Giyuu asked, without directing the question to either one of them. Mitsuri answered shortly, “All good! It’s a beautiful day,” and she looked at Sabito to continue.
“Yeah, definitely. Great day,” Sabito said. He stuffed his hands into his pockets, feeling awkward but still feeling like he wanted to be alone with Giyuu — for the rest of his shift, for the rest of the night, for the rest of their night. Lucky for him, at least for the next six hours, Sabito had ample opportunities to spend some time alone with him.
“I’ll shadow you today,” Sabito said. “You’ll still be working in my section, but you’ll take the lead. Cool?”
“Cool,” Giyuu agreed. He nodded at Mitsuri, then looked at Sabito again. “I’ll just go get ready and clock in.”
“Yep. See you back here,” Sabito said. He watched Giyuu walk away, and he caught himself staring way too late. Mitsuri was already giggling behind him.
“Shut up,” he mumbled.
“I’m having a good time. I’ve never seen you show interest in anyone,” Mitsuri said. “It’s so sweet. I’m rooting for you.”
“Yeah, yeah,” Sabito said, but he begrudgingly offered her his gratitude through his embarrassment. “Thanks.”
Giyuu was a good waiter. He was quiet and efficient, not too friendly in favor of getting straight to the point. The customers liked him, though. Sabito didn’t miss the way a handful of girls (and one guy, actually) looked at him, their gazes lingering as he walked away. Mitsuri said it herself; Tomioka Giyuu was gorgeous.
And Sabito whole-heartedly agreed.
Not only that, Giyuu was great to talk to. He had the quiet, sneaky type of humor that made Sabito bark out a laugh in the middle of the restaurant more than once. He had a lot of fun to poke at his hometown and the pretentious people he used to work with. He had an endless amount of customer stories, and Sabito had just as many to share.
“This scar . . .” Sabito had to bend his shoulder forward a bit to point out exactly where the lingering burn mark was. “. . . is from a kid throwing his mom’s boiling hot coffee on me.”
“Damn,” Giyuu muttered. “When was that?”
“Last year,” Sabito said. “He was only, like, seven, but his mom handed him the coffee to grab her card, and he hurled it right at me. Just glad it didn’t get on my face. I don’t need another face scar.”
Giyuu laughed at that. “Was it second or third degree? Your shoulder, I mean.”
“Second.”
“Ouch. I got a third degree here.” Giyuu rolled up his sleeve slightly and showed Sabito his forearm. There appeared to be many scars, jagged and scattered all over his skin. “Dumped a bunch of hot oil on myself.”
“Brutal.”
“I stabbed myself, too,” Giyuu said. He rolled his sleeve up a little higher, showing a short, straight line across his bicep. “Slipped while I was cutting pineapple.”
“And cut your bicep?”
“I may or may not have had the knife aimed toward me.”
Sabito raised his brow at Giyuu. “Did you go through basic server training?”
“Well. I learned my lesson.”
The hours felt like minutes with Giyuu, and Sabito felt like light years ahead of himself. He’d never had a tangible example of what “chemistry” looked like between two people until he met Giyuu, and he felt crazier as the minutes — or hours — passed. Every second — or minute — or hour — was more confirmation that he and Giyuu were like puzzle pieces that had finally come together to help create the universe’s bigger picture.
Sabito didn’t gain the courage to say anything to Giyuu about their apparent connection until the two were alone in the restaurant that night. Sabito was showing Giyuu the ropes of closing. Even though he knew what it took to close down a restaurant, every restaurant had its own process, and Sabito had some shortcuts that Giyuu had never tried himself.
They were mopping the main floor when Sabito suddenly imagined himself dragging this mop across the kitchen floor while Giyuu sat in the living room — and, instead of getting lost in another far-too-soon fantasy, he forced himself to be brave.
“I like your soulmark, by the way.”
“Oh.” Giyuu touched his cheek, right in the middle of the tornado-like collection of freckles. His pointer finger lingered near the freckle Sabito liked the most, a tiny, unassuming one in the middle of four other, bigger ones. It wasn’t a perfect circle; it had a small indentation along the left side of it, as if making way for Giyuu’s smile — which he presented to Sabito as a side effect of his compliment. “Thank you.”
“Have you met them?”
“My soulmate? No, not yet.”
“Do you want to?”
Giyuu didn’t respond right away. He stopped stacking the chairs for a moment to think. He looked down instead of up when he was thinking of ways to respond to something.
“One day, yeah, I guess,” Giyuu decided. Then, he shrugged. “It’s not really my priority. If I meet them, I meet them. Otherwise, I don’t know. I’ll always wonder, but, what can I do?”
Sabito nodded. He let the comment hang in the air for a moment as he considered how to transition the topic, how to bring up the fact that Giyuu’s soulmark looked just like the one he would have had, if he’d been born to gentler parents.
“I used to have a soulmark,” Sabito said.
Giyuu looked at him. “Used to?”
“Yeah.” Sabito tapped his cheek, touching the soft, fleshy scar that had traumatized him for years. “Right here.”
“Oh.” Giyuu stared at him for a moment, eyes fixated on Sabito’s scar. Sabito could practically see his brain working, piecing it together. But he directed his curiosity elsewhere, “Was it, um. What happened?”
“My parents were really religious. When they saw my mark, they cut it off.” The memory was as distant as it was fresh — because, unfortunately, his parents didn’t knock him out or give him anything to help with the pain. His father held him down while his mother cut into his skin, and they didn’t even flinch as he screamed.
“Oh my God,” Giyuu mumbled. “I’m so sorry.” He frowned, drawing in a quick breath and tilting his head—remembering something. “Didn’t that happen to one of the cooks, too?”
“Yeah. Head chef, Iguro.” Sabito heard the story from Mitsuri, who explained, about a year ago, why her fiancé wore a mask all the time. Their soulmarks consisted of star-shaped freckles forming streaks up their cheeks, in addition to a little star in the middle of their right pupils. Obanai’s mother was a cruel woman, and she cut off Obanai’s marks as soon as they formed. She burnt his eye until the star was no longer visible, leaving him partially blind and with that pupil yellowed from the process of healing.
“Wow,” Giyuu muttered. “I didn’t realize people were so against soulmarks. I’m sorry.”
It was a phenomenon, since not everyone had a soulmark — in fact, few people did — but not one that bothered the average. Sabito’s parents hid behind their religion to strip Sabito of his mark, for a reason he still didn’t know. But he’d long accepted that he would never have closure for what they’d done to him.
“It’s okay. I still remember what it looks like,” Sabito said. His gaze settled on Giyuu’s cheek again, and he pointed lamely. Unfortunately, he had too much momentum going to draw back his confession, but just enough nerves for it to fall a little flat, dramatically anti-climactic, “Actually, it was . . . just like yours.”
The corner of Giyuu’s mouth twitched, where his mark met his mouth. He looked at Sabito’s scar momentarily. Then, his eyes slid up to stare into Sabito’s, wide and bright and blue. “You mean — wait. You had my soulmark? Are we soulmates?”
Sabito wasn’t sure what to expect of Giyuu’s reaction. He didn’t anticipate Giyuu would jump into his arms and kiss him silly; he knew he didn’t live in a romcom, and a dingy, dark restaurant past closing wasn’t exactly a romantic setting. But he didn’t expect Giyuu to be frowning like that, almost taken aback by Sabito’s claim.
Holy shit. What if he doesn’t believe me?
Sabito hadn’t even thought of that. He knew that he was right about this, but what grounds did he have for Giyuu to trust him? Sabito could very well just be making all of this up, preying on Giyuu because he happened to have a scar right where Giyuu’s soulmark was. It definitely didn’t help that almost the exact same thing happened to Obanai because of his soulmark. Suddenly, Sabito’s story sounded like the fakest thing on planet earth.
“I’m 99.9% sure we are,” Sabito said weakly. “I don’t have any pictures. I’m sorry. My parents cut it off, like, the day after it formed.”
Giyuu nodded along. His shock settled into something softer, something Sabito hoped he could get to know, one day.
“No, it’s okay, that makes sense. All of it does.” Giyuu smiled again. “I can see us being soulmates.”
“You can?” Sabito’s heartbeat began to settle, eased by the hope that Giyuu felt it, too.
“Yeah. I mean, we grew up in neighboring cities, and we still both ended up here somehow,” Giyuu said. “I almost didn’t even move here, but there was something in my gut telling me I had to. Maybe it was you. Our soul bond.”
“Yeah,” Sabito said lamely. He tightened his grip on his mop to re-center himself. “I’ve felt really connected to you since we met yesterday. I’ve never had such an easy time conversing with anyone before.”
“Debatable,” Giyuu teased. “You’re really good with customers.”
“Yeah, but it’s different with you,” Sabito admitted. He felt a little bit like he was bearing his heart for the world to see, but it was just Giyuu. But, who knows? If things went well, Giyuu could be his whole world.
That thought didn’t seem as ridiculous as it should have, given the short amount of time they’d known each other. It felt natural, deep down, even as Sabito stood there and tried to convince himself it was crazy, just like all the other fantasies he’d had since Giyuu stepped calmly into his life.
“I feel the same,” Giyuu said. “Everything’s felt really different with you. I never talk this much.”
“I believe that,” Sabito said. “You’re very direct with customers.”
“Most people like it. They’re here because they’re hungry, they don’t want to waste time.”
“Good point. Maybe I should be learning from you.”
“Maybe you can,” Giyuu’s teeth caught his lip for a moment. “I could give you some pointers, if you want. When we’re not so busy with customers.”
Sabito grinned. “Are you asking me out?”
“Depends. Are you gonna say yes?”
Sabito’s smile grew bigger, still, as did his heart and his soul and maybe his ego, a little bit. “Yeah, I am.”
“Then I guess we should plan something for the next time we’re both off.”
The workaholics didn’t have a day off together — without school also being in the way — for the next 18 days, and that fell on a Wednesday. Regardless, the two of them planned to meet at a nearby bar for drinks. It was close enough to Sabito’s apartment that they could ditch the bar and hang out there, if they wanted to.
“No pressure,” Sabito was quick to say, right after impulsively putting his apartment on the table. He didn’t have much experience dating, but even he knew that was a stupid first date move.
But Giyuu offered Sabito his kind smile and accepting attitude again, “I like that it’s an option.”
The two of them were standing right outside of the restaurant, done with their closing duties and ready to part ways for the night. They were both working the next day, closing again, another evening spent largely together. Sabito should be smart about this, should count his blessing for all the awkward and forward moments Giyuu had let him get away with.
But he couldn’t seem to hold his tongue around Giyuu.
“Can I kiss you?”
Before the first date? Great job, genius. You’re an HR nightmare.
Sabito was half a second away from (hopefully, smoothly) playing it off as a joke and wishing Giyuu goodnight, maybe offering to walk Giyuu to his car, if his stupid tongue decided to put him in another situation—but Giyuu stepped forward, slid his palms against Sabito’s face, and drew him into a kiss.
It was quick, a press of their lips and nothing more. But Giyuu gave him such a pretty smile, and held onto his face for just enough lingering seconds that Sabito was as breathless as if they’d made out for 10 minutes.
“See you tomorrow,” Giyuu said sweetly. Sabito just nodded, stuffing his hands in his pockets for something to do with his body, ideally to come back to his body. He watched Giyuu walk to his car, then scrambled to start walking to his before Giyuu could turn around and see that he was just standing there, lingering.
Mitsuri was going to freak out when Sabito told her about his night—though he was pointedly going to leave out the part where he spent 15 minutes sitting in his car outside of the restaurant gathering himself after Giyuu kissed him. That would be a fun anecdote to retell at their wedding one day.