Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Chifuyu’s hands had always been fast, even when he started losing sensation in them. His phalanges efficiently snuck between the metal bars, the clash between the bones composing an exhausted melody filled up with semiquavers and elongated silences.

He fucking hated cleaning hamster cages.

Sure, the little beings were cute when they weren’t chewing on Chifuyu’s hands or when they went all out in their stupid plastic wheels. One could spend plenty of time watching them repeat the motion, but it still wouldn’t compensate for the tedious work that was cleaning after them.

And don’t let him get started on the damn birds.

But he couldn’t really complain, he knew what he was getting into when he decided to work in a pet shop, and Chifuyu did like animals, after all. Probably even more than the average person.

Once everything was decent enough to pass his quality test (did he like doing it? Hell no. Would he settle for a mediocre result? Also no), he returned behind the counter, shaking off all the fur accumulated in his apron.

It was a slow day. The shop wasn’t located on the main street or near a point of interest, so Chifuyu was already used to spending hours with the chirp of birds and their occasional ruckus as company.

He rested his arms on the desk, using them as a pillow to lay his head on. Kazutora would probably kill him and threaten with firing him if he ever saw him in that position, and Chifuyu would call out his bullshit. But, God, it really was being a boring day.

Through the window next to him, partially covered by a shelf full of dog toys, Chifuyu could see the pile of brown and red leaves that the street sweeper had meticulously gathered minutes ago starting to break down, fall wind making its way through the cracks of the dry foliage.

He was so immersed in his personal and highly intricate analysis of nature and its decadence (what if he just kicked it?) that he didn’t take notice of the man entering the shop until the bell glued to the door loudly chimed, almost making him jump out of surprise.

“Welcome! Is there anything I can help you with?” Chifuyu asked, using his practiced businessman voice. It still wasn’t his forte, and if he ever became a door-to-door salesperson, he probably would have had his face slammed by the door on more than one occasion.

The man was tall with long hair that barely grazed his shoulders. He would’ve looked pretty intimidating if he hadn’t been shaking, his chest arrhythmically inflating and deflating as if he had just run all the way there. Between his arms was an orange and white kitten.

“I… Fuck, I was walking around and saw him in a cardboard box by the road,” he said, his words fast and disorganized. The man kept nervously biting his lower lip, and Chifuyu thought that he’d start bleeding at any given moment. “He hurt his paw. Can you help me? I... I don’t know what to do or what to feed him or—”

“Calm down, let me see it,” Chifuyu kindly ordered. He complied, letting the small cat on the counter. It was truly cute and probably just as scared as his new owner. It didn’t even dare to move, staying still under Chifuyu’s touch. While he was utterly enamored by the animal, there was something not sitting right with him. “Why didn’t you take it to a vet?”

“I was close to having a panic attack,” he shrugged, plastering a smile on his face once he relaxed. His fangs are weird¸ the employee thought.

That was the first time Chifuyu sighed at Keisuke Baji.

The man didn’t seem bright, especially now that the fright he had entered the store with had dissipated and a boastful demeanor had taken over. But a sale was a sale, and Chifuyu instantly knew that he was the dumb type, to whom he could easily sell the most expensive feed under the pretense of it being the best for that kind of cat.

The little being was still immobile between the two of them, curiously looking at Chifuyu. He petted its head and cautiously inspected it, trying to find out how dangerous the wound could be.

“It’s a she,” Chifuyu announced.

“What?”

“The cat, it’s a female. Not older than two months,” he said, bopping her nose. The kitten automatically moved away, stumbling to her feet. “Hm, adorable.” Chifuyu had loved cats ever since he was a kid and decided to make them his childhood obsession. It was probably thanks to them that his line of work had taken that direction. “It’s nothing serious, but I’m going to look for something to treat her injury. I’ll be right back.”

It didn’t take him more than two minutes to explore the backroom, searching for whatever was there that could be useful to clean and disinfect the wound.

The cat didn’t even make a sound when Chifuyu carefully applied saline solution to the scratch with the help of a sterile gauze.

He had always been a pretty intuitive person, so it didn’t take him long to find out the origin behind the rise of the hairs on the back of his neck.

“What’s the matter?” he asked, not even needing to look up to know that the weird man’s gaze was fixed on him.

“You’re cute.”

“Oh, God,” Chifuyu whined. Not fucking again.

Chifuyu abhorred quite a lot of things: when the weather was too hot and his black hair stuck to his forehead, loud kids who kick his seat, onions.

But if there was something that irritated Chifuyu even more was when people got out of line with him.

Sure, it wasn’t usual that customers tried to hit on him. Typically, they’d come in, make some small talk, buy whatever they needed, and just leave. That was the kind of routine that Chifuyu had grown used to and had learned to enjoy.

Yet to his misfortune, there was always someone who stood out and successfully got on his nerves. That day, it had been the man with fucking disheveled hair and an aluminum-like smile, standing tall and proud as if he had said something no one had ever dared to.

“You’re not,” Chifuyu grunted, shooting him a crude and quick glance before spreading some diluted iodine on the cat’s scratch. “But the kitten is, so you better be thankful to her that I’m not charging you for the extra service.”

“I’ll make sure to. Thank you for everything,” he cheerfully replied, as if Chifuyu’s poisonous words hadn’t reached him. He picked up the cat from the counter and smiled at him.

Chifuyu sighed once again and handed him the green plastic bag of cat food after he paid for it and rested his elbows on the desk, silently urging the customer to leave.

“I’ll be back again” —he squinted his eyes in the direction of the plastic badge hanging on Chifuyu’s shirt. Please, don’t, plea— “Chifuyu.”

“You know that wasn’t smooth at all, right?”

Chifuyu hadn’t been born with steady bones and firm hands but with an umbilical cord squeezed a tad too tightly around his neck —he had forgotten how to breathe before he could even do it for the first time.

He wasn’t a lucky person, and he knew it. He had been aware of that for years and had learned how to come to terms with it. Nothing could be done about it anyway, no God to fight against in the name of his own honor and fate while screaming at the sky.

There was no use in crying over spilled milk or blood.

Or that was what he thought until he heard the familiar sound that announced the arrival of someone.

Chifuyu didn’t like to pray, but he wished he had clasped his hands together that morning.

He had forgotten entirely about that idiot. The incident had taken place almost a week ago, and it disappeared from Chifuyu’s mind as soon as he closed the shop's metal gate and called it a day. A quick shower, canned food for dinner, and the monotonous never-ending cycle would start once again, trapping him in the dreaded routine.

Honestly, he would’ve loved asking the man to go to another shop, at first with a kind and unbothered voice and then (because he was sure as hell that he’d only flash him a know-it-all smile and dismiss the suggestion) directly tell him to get the fuck away from his sight. Chifuyu wasn’t an aggressive person (or at least, that’s what he’d have loved to believe. The scars on his hands seemed to tell a different story), but there was something on that person that made his gastric juice even more acid. And not in a poetic, romantic way. He wanted to beat the shit out of him.

Chifuyu was already stringing together the most hurtful words he could on his tongue, tasting them before letting them spill, confirming if they’d need more sulfur or cadmium —that man seemed to have a strong stomach, after all. But something was making him back down.

Some locks of his dark hair were sticking to his mouth, but he seemed too preoccupied about something else to care about it. Once again, the little being rested between his arms, which held her tightly, scared that any slight movement might hurt her.

His eyes were shining out of concern.

“What now?” Chifuyu sighed, leaning over the counter.

“She hasn’t been eating since yesterday,” the still nameless man replied, letting the kitten next to Chifuyu’s hands. “And this morning, she threw up.” His voice only seemed to tremble when talking about the cat.

“Did you check out the vomit?” he asked, pressing with his fingers on both sides of its’ jaw, forcing her to open her mouth. It had been ages since the last time he had tried to examine an animal.

“I didn’t.”

“Well, it probably was just some hairballs.”

“Oh,” he exclaimed. “I had forgotten that cats actually did that.”

“God, you really are an airhead,” Chifuyu said, moving his hand across the fluffy stomach. There seemed not to be any kind of bump. “She probably is okay, but I’d still recommend you take her to a vet instead of bringing her constantly to the pet shop around the corner. I can only give you some malt paste to help with the digestion.”

“How do you know so much about animals?” he asked as Chifuyu got out from behind the counter and walked towards one of the shelves on the store. He picked a box before blankly staring at him.

“Well, genius, I work in a pet shop, as you can see,” he replied, shaking his head and returning to his previous post. “I was also a vet major for a year.”

“A year? Did you drop out?” The man was starting to get a bit too comfortable, resting his elbows over the desk as Chifuyu began typing in the cash register. The cat feebly meowed.

“You ask a lot of questions, don’t you?”

“Only to people I’m interested in.”

The ghost of a smirk was drawn on Chifuyu’s face as he looked up, “Do you talk about your cat’s barf to people you’re interested in?”

“Only on special occasions.”

A high-pitched ka-ching interrupted their conversation.

“Oh, I have another problem,” the man said. Chifuyu didn’t like the way his eyebrows arched and his commissures perked up.

“For fuck’s sake, what is it now?” He was done with trying his best at customer service. He just wanted to have a relaxing day, organize some shelves, feed the fish. Even clean the hamster cages. Anything would work for him as long as it didn’t include that irritating asshole.

“I don’t know what to name her.”

He wasn’t going to stop, was he?

“See? This is what we’re not going to do,” Chifuyu replied, extending his arm. “It’s 3.50.”

“Do I get a discount if I tell you my name?”

“It’s 3.75.”

“Jeez, okay, okay,” he said, clicking his tongue in a poor attempt of fake disappointment while looking in his pocket for his wallet. “I’ll give it to you for free.”

“Woah, the demand must be pretty low if you’re willing to go to these lengths. It may be better for you to save it for someone who actually cares about it.”

“It’s Keisuke Baji,” Baji said before smiling at him for the last time that day.

Chifuyu didn’t know if Baji was seriously interested in him or just saw him as a challenge. Or, well, maybe he really was just dumb.

Either way, the only thing he knew for sure as he stared at Baji’s back before the entrance door completely shut was that it probably wouldn’t be the last time he’d see him.

“You know you don’t have to bring her every time you come, right?”

It had been a week since Baji’s last visit. Chifuyu was organizing the merchandise, placing the items that had just arrived. It only took him a quick glance to identify who had just entered.

“She likes it here,” he simply stated, a lazy smile starting to spread across his face. “And I do, too.”

Something Chifuyu had noticed through the three times Baji had crossed the store threshold was that he had no sense of style. He dressed as if he had just jumped out of bed and chose the first clean thing he found laying on the floor of his room. That day, a little paw could be seen peeking out of his hoodie’s pocket.

Chifuyu couldn’t believe his eyes.

“At least buy a pet bag if you’re so set on walking her through the whole city,” Chifuyu said, standing on his tiptoes to let the last dog bed on the highest shelf. He huffed as his fingers barely reached it.

“Do you need any help?” Baji sounded genuine and even walked towards the raven-haired man with an extended hand and softened features. Chifuyu just scoffed.

“Actually, would you do me a favor?”

“Sure.”

“Get out of my face,” he said, finally turning around, giving Baji a quick look before opening another cardboard box with a cutter.

“Are you like this to all customers?” Baji asked, shaking his head.

“Only on special occasions,” Chifuyu replied, mimicking the words he had told him days ago.

“Already copying my speech patterns? That’s cute,” he joked. “Oh, you have a cat too? Hello, what’s your name?” Baji asked once he saw the black cat lying on the counter, stretching itself out full-length over the wooden desk.

“It’s Peke J. He’s usually around, but I haven’t brought him lately because he was sick.”

“Does the J stand for something?”

“No. It’s just to make him look tougher,” Chifuyu explained, slightly embarrassed. Naming the pet like that hadn’t been a sound idea, but at the moment, it had sounded good enough to him. Once Chifuyu cut down the adhesive tape, he looked up and pointed at Baji with the blade. “You shouldn’t touch him. He’ll bite and scratch you as soon as you give him a chance,” he said, rolling down one of his sleeves. His arm had some superficial wounds as a result of last night’s playtime.

Chifuyu regretted warning him as soon as the words jumped out his lips. Now, he would be deprived of the probably amazing sight that’d be Peke biting his fingers off. What a shame.

Or that was what he was mourning about until he heard an indiscernible groan that almost got mixed with the noise of a motorbike passing by. Baji’s wrist was caged between the cat’s paws, who was also nibbling on his index finger.

“He really does bite,” was all Baji murmured, still trying to pet Peke’s head with his free hand. The cat hissed at him while aiming to bite any flesh he could get a hold of.

Chifuyu chuckled as he disassembled the box once everything was in the right place, “I told you. Well done, Peke!” he exclaimed, getting up and approaching them. “He’s like a police dog, you know? He can smell suspicious people from afar.”

“Do you think I’m suspicious?” Baji asked, raising an eyebrow and tilting his head while one of his digits was still being used as food by Peke.

“No. I plainly think you’re a weirdo,” Chifuyu sighed. “And now that I can attend you, let’s get this over with. What do you want?”

“The usual.”

“This isn’t a café; there’s no such thing as ‘the usual’.” Chifuyu massaged his temples, wondering what wrong he had done in his past life to be forced to tolerate this.

Baji quickly picked up some cat stuff from the shelves, leaving them on the counter for Chifuyu to scan. But, hey, at least he was fast this time!

“Chifuyu.”

Goddamn.

“Gross. Don’t call me by my name.”

“Did you know that dogs can be left or right-pawed?” the man with long hair asked out of nowhere, causing Chifuyu to look up from the cat litter bag he was checking with an obvious what the fuck is going on look written on his face.

“Uhm, yeah? I did know it.”

“Oh. That sucks.”

“What I’m about to say will sound wrong, and I hope you’ll deny it if you ever want to buy here again.” Chifuyu took a deep breath, adding unnecessary dramatism to the situation but he really was feeling tormented by the loathsome and surpassingly atrocious idea. “Are you trying to flirt with me by blurting dog facts and hoping they will work?”

One. Two. Three. Four. Five.

Five seconds of complete silence where if someone were to enter the shop, they probably would be able to hear the incredulous blinks during the staring contest that seemed to take place between the two men.

“Maybe?”

“Don’t fucking ‘maybe?’ me!”

“You were a vet major! And you work here! The obvious way to your heart must be through animals.” Baji had the guts to even looked affected like he hadn’t thought of any possible cons for his plan. Chifuyu was close to starting to believe that it had to be all a prank.

“Has somebody ever told you that you’re dumber than you look?”

“I’ve been called intimidating, spine-chilling, and had people cross the street because of me,” he said, moving his hand in front of his face to add emphasis to his words. “But dumb? Not once.”

“So, basically, people don’t call you dumb because they’re scared of you,” Chifuyu replied, holding back his laugh.

Six. Seven. Eight. Nine. Ten.

“Let’s make a deal,” Baji said, waving his hands as if that would completely erase their previous conversation. “If I tell you a fact that actually impresses you, you’ll go on a date with me.”

“Is that how much you think I’m worth it? An animal fact that you’ve probably googled before leaving your house?”

“You’re such a bitter person.”

“Hey! I was joking this time.”

“You can do that?”

“Is that how you talk to someone you just asked out after being rejected two times already?”

“Oh, yeah, I had forgotten about that. Sorry.”

This time, Chifuyu couldn’t help but blatantly laugh.

Baji thought it was a nice sound. It reminded him of a sparrow.

“Why are you so obsessed with me?” Chifuyu asked, crossing his arms over his chest.

“You seem interesting.”

“What if I’m not?”

“I guess you’ll have to give me the opportunity to find out by myself.”

Chifuyu sighed. It was not like him to play along with stupid games or to raise false expectations. A big ‘NO’ was set deep within him, a red and blue alarm flashing inside his brain, asking him to reconsider his next move. He wasn’t interested in Baji, and he still thought about him as some asshole with too much confidence and too few synaptic connections.

But his eyes looked almost transparent whenever he spoke to him, and the way he never seemed to care about his own words was intriguing. Chifuyu wanted to know what hid behind the gray surface and if everything was as simple as he made it look.

“What do I get out of this if you never get to surprise me?”

“You can keep selling me the most expensive stuff while I pretend I don’t notice until I finally give up.”

Well, so be it.

Chifuyu would have plenty of time to regret it later.

“Deal.”

“Do you know that if you count the number of times a crick chirps in 25 seconds, divide it by...”

“3 and add 4, you get the temperature in Celsius? Yes, I do,” Chifuyu said.

Baji sighed and put his elbows on the counter, resting his head on his hands while unblinkingly looking at Chifuyu, who was trying to pretend to organize some papers to escape from his gaze. He didn’t feel intimidated by it (or so he’d say), but his pupils felt like black holes that were ready to absorb him without any further consideration.

And Chifuyu was slightly scared of the dark. What hides behind one’s lids when their eyes start to flutter? What do you hold onto when everything fuses with the shadows? He definitely wasn’t trying to find out the answers.

“It’s something basic,” Chifuyu said, signing one of the sheets in front of him with an unsteady stroke. He clicked his tongue —that was one of the things that annoyed him the most of his hands. “One of those things you learn in middle school field trips and think that it’s so cool that you end up not forgetting it.”

“I never went to that kind of stuff,” Baji replied, trying to peek at what Chifuyu was writing.

“Sure, you probably were too busy fighting people or something along the lines,” Chifuyu laughed, sliding the sheet out of Baji’s visual field. Baji did look kind of dangerous and aggressive, but there was no way that the dude who chose a pet shop to hang around whenever he had free time was a thug.

“Yeah!” he exclaimed, and Chifuyu just looked up and raised a brow, questioning it. “What are you looking at me like that for? I didn’t go that much to school, and field trips were just a waste of time. Back then, I’d prefer skipping school with my friends and go beat some older kids who talked shit about us than go to a mountain and catch insects.” Baji’s eyes lighted up reminiscing about old times, and Chifuyu’s ones narrowed as he found out how easy it was for Baji to talk about punching the hell out of someone. “Man, I miss the gang.”

“Gang? How old were you?”

“I don’t know, around 11? Maybe 12?”

Chifuyu chuckled.

“Are you trying to tell me that the guy who came in almost crying because he found an injured cat” —Chifuyu pointed to the two cats playing between the shelves. Peke was considerably bigger than Baji’s kitten (Baji said that he wasn’t going to give her a proper name until Chifuyu collaborated. Chifuyu’s only reply was a loud sigh and a sour please, leave my store already), but he was strangely nice around her. Chifuyu was almost jealous— “was in a gang at 12? What, you watched Pet Rescue in the morning and then committed vandalism in the afternoon?”

“We weren’t keen on vandalism, actually. We just got in a lot of fights with bastards and tried to make a name of our own, you know? It was what we believed we were best at, a way of imposing what we thought that was justice.”

“Are you sure you weren’t the bastards?” Chifuyu said, taking off his apron. It was almost closing time, and he still had some chores left. “I don’t know how reliable a prepubescent’s moral compass can be.”

“I will tell you that we were practically right most of the time.”

“You think I’m going to trust your word?”

Baji shook his head and put his hand on his chest, giving Chifuyu a solemn look. The short-haired man just rolled his eyes and opened the counter door. He walked by Baji and entered the backroom, starting to gather his things.

“Well, I’m telling the truth,” Baji said, raising his voice enough for Chifuyu to hear it from the other room. “I can always fight you to demonstrate it.”

“No mercy?” Chifuyu asked once he was done, a backpack hanging from one of his shoulders. He turned off the staff room light switch, giving Baji an incredulous look.

“No mercy,” he asserted. “I’ll try not to hit you in the face, though.”

“Why the exception?”

“Do you want me to say it out loud, or will you kick me out again?”

“I’m going to kick you anyway,” Chifuyu said, quickly giving a glance to the old clock hanging on one of the walls. Only 5 minutes left. “How many people you say you’ve beaten up through your rebellious youth?” Chifuyu’s words were clearly tinted with sarcasm, trying to hit a nerve.

“I lost track after my P.E teacher.”

Baji was smiling, on the verge of proudly smirking, while Chifuyu was just at a loss of words. Arrived at that point, he didn’t know if Baji was telling the truth, being a showoff, or making up a lie to look tougher. However, he did have the hands of someone who had broken a few ribs and dislocated some ankles.

Not to mention that Baji’s eyes were those of someone who’d easily set fire to the world whenever he was bored. A P.E teacher was nothing next to them.

“Sure, Rocky,” Chifuyu said, hands on hips. “But now I’m going to ask you to leave and go out to commit your daily misdeeds. It’s closing time, and I’m too hungry to tolerate any more of your nonsense.”

“We can always go and grab a bit together. My treat,” Baji said, leaning against the door.

“You’re not as witty as you think you are. And now, get the fuck out of here,” Chifuyu replied. His words still sounded harsh and urgent, but they had lost that raw edge from Baji’s first time there. He was still trying to convince himself that it was the kitten’s fault for softening his heart.

“I still haven’t won you over? Goddamn,” Baji sighed, putting his hands behind his head. “I’ll come back.” Baji gave Chifuyu one last smile before picking up his cat and opening the door.

“Please, don’t.”

Once he was completely alone, Chifuyu just huffed and squatted in front of Peke, who quickly took the chance to feebly chomp his thumb.

Where had he gotten himself into? He had constantly reminded himself to stay away from the wolf’s mouth throughout his whole life, running away from his fangs and avoiding any possible risk.

Yet Baji was starting to seem decent. Definitely different, loud and annoyingly irritating but… decent. Tolerable, Chifuyu might even say.

Maybe, and only maybe, Baji wasn’t that bad.

Baji was starting to spend so much time in that pet shop that there would come the point where he’d almost be forced to buy stocks to keep using it as his holiday cottage and pay the corresponding taxes. He was even beginning to learn how Chifuyu tended to organize the shelves and if he went there just a few more times, he’d also probably end up memorizing the barcode of that fish food made of beef next to the hamster cages.

He liked it, though. Baji had never been fond of any kind of routine, always preferring the thrill of not knowing what the fuck he’s going to do next, but going there was becoming his favorite time of the week. Annoying Chifuyu practically had therapeutic effects for him now. It was just so easy to push his buttons, and watching him try to keep the composure while his neck vein was awfully close to bursting was the eighth wonder for Baji.

Chifuyu was always behind the counter or rushing between the narrow aisles whenever he entered the shop, so Baji felt extremely uneasy when he didn’t see him around as soon as he set foot inside. He stretched his neck as if the new perspective would give him any kind of clue about the man’s whereabouts. Maybe he had gone out to pick up some sort of goods? But it’d be weird for him to be that careless and leave the shop open with no one around to guard it, and Baji had found out that Chifuyu was the kind to walk back five miles just to assure he hadn’t left the gas on.

Maybe a smoke break? But he had never seen him even near a cigarette pack.

“Ugh, you’re here again?” The sudden sound caught him off guard, making Baji clench his fists out of reflex. He turned his head towards the familiar voice and saw Chifuyu closing the backroom door with the tip of his foot as he was carrying a box that seemed pretty heavy. Baji had never been gladder of seeing the disgusted face Chifuyu always wore as soon as he saw the long-haired man around.

“And here I was, worried that someone might have kidnapped you,” Baji replied, unconsciously putting a smile and quickly erasing any kind of preoccupation from his demeanor.

“Who would even kidnap me? You’re the only weirdo who’d take such an obsessive interest in me,” Chifuyu said, arching an eyebrow.

“Well, interestingly enough, did you know that kidnapping a dog is…?”

Baji could never finish his weekly fact, and the words never arrived at Chifuyu’s ears. Just as Baji was leaning against the counter in his poor attempt of exuding knowledge and wisdom, the box Chifuyu was carrying fell to the floor, the sound of glass breaking resonating through the whole place.

Chifuyu was sitting on the floor next to some spilled liquid coming out of one of the jars. His arms were slightly trembling, and it was evident how hard he was trying to hide the tremors. While his face showed an almost imperceptible trace of pain, annoyance seemed to take over it, a long-suffering and exasperated sigh coming out from his (also shaky) lips.

“What’s happening? Do you need anything?” It only took Baji four hasty strides to get to where Chifuyu had fallen, and he squatted in front of him, panickily moving his hands around, not knowing if he should do anything with them. Should he step back? Ask someone for help? Tell him to lay down with his foot elevated like people did in P.E when getting a heatstroke after the Cooper test? “God, do I call an ambulance?”

“Don’t worry about it. It just happens sometimes,” Chifuyu calmly explained as if he wasn’t the one sitting there with aching limbs.

“It just happens? That’s it, I’m calling someone.” Baji took his phone out of his back pocket. It was kind of ironic how his hands were also matching Chifuyu’s, shaking due to the anxiety traveling through his whole body.

“Don’t. I told you, it’s nothing important. Just bone cancer and chemo side effects.”

As if he was telling him about his day and the irritating customer he had attended that morning. As if he was telling him his mother’s cake recipe. As if he was telling him what colors formed his favorite kind of sunsets.

Chifuyu told him about his cancer as if he was just talking nonsense.

“Do you…?”

“Nah, it’s not there anymore. I overcame it ages ago,” Chifuyu said, and it seemed like his body was finally starting to answer to him again. “This is like residue, proof of how fucked up my peripheral system is now. I don’t feel my hands. Sometimes I’m like a walking corpse and fall, stuff like that.”

“Oh,” was all Baji could articulate as a reply. He was still trying to process what Chifuyu had just dropped on him. “That must really suck.”

Chifuyu laughed, bringing his knees to his chest and resting his chin on them. He looked so small that Baji would’ve automatically made some kind of remark if he hadn’t been still in shock.

“That may have been the best reaction I’ve ever gotten,” Chifuyu said, slightly shaking his head.

“Well, I’m sorry, I was expecting you to talk about low blood pressure or hyperglycemia, not cancer.”

“I like how you say it.”

“I’ve always been told I have a nice, deep, sultry voice, thank you very much.”

“Oh my fucking God, not that,” Chifuyu replied, weakly kicking the box towards Baji’s direction. Had it been any other moment, he could’ve probably made him fall from his squatting position. Just in case, Baji decided to sit down. “You’re not pitying me; that’s what I meant, dumbass. You just say it as an everyday word. It’s refreshing.”

Baji wondered if he had really done that.

“How old were you?” he asked.

“I was diagnosed at 12, had chemo for a few months, and then got some bone removed,” Chifuyu explained, raising his right arm. “Eight years go by, some deity pulls a prank on me, and boom, I start showing side effects. I’ve been like this since then.”

“Didn’t take you for one who’d blame fate,” Baji said, his head on his palm, curiously looking at Chifuyu.

“I’m not. Shit happens, and life has a twisted sense of humor.” Chifuyu sighed and rested his back against the shelf, carefully distributing his weight so he wouldn’t knock off anything —the floor was already a mess, and he didn’t want to add any unnecessary chore to it. “But that was the worst part, when something unexpected appeared and entirely blocked out the possibility of pretending that nothing had ever happened.”

Chifuyu’s eyes were closed, and Baji didn’t know if it was not to show how foggy they became as the words almost slurred from his vocal cords. He sounded unaffected, but it wasn’t hard to figure out that something was going on behind the man’s diaphragm, something that had been there for too long.

“Does it hurt?”

“No.”

It probably was a coincidence, a fluke, or maybe just Baji’s hyperdeveloped guts when it came to others, but he could feel Chifuyu was lying. Chifuyu opened one of his eyes and huffed as he instantly knew that Baji had found him out.

“It does.” His voice wasn’t as calm anymore. Like a composed lake suddenly disturbed by a skipping stone and the distant voice of a kid yelling ‘those were 12!’. “Sometimes, it’s like feeling my bones shatter under my skin once again. As if that pain had never really gone away, the shards scratching my veins until everything goes back to numb. There are moments when I can’t even walk. It does. It really does hurt.”

“You’re amazing,” Baji declared, leaning forward. His heart ached with every beat as if it were trying to copy Chifuyu’s talking rhythm. “I don’t think anyone would’ve been able to guess it. You really look like a stone-cold statue behind that counter.”

“I don’t like people knowing,” he said, shrugging. “Everything starts with simply being aware of someone’s most superficial weakness and end up having control over them. I’d rather not have anyone with that kind of power around.”

“But the thing is trusting people with that power, knowing that they won’t use it against you,” Baji said with furrowed eyebrows. “That’s the way to form the strongest bonds.”

“I don’t like it,” Chifuyu disagreed, clicking his tongue. “If someone’s able to hurt you, you’d probably be able to hurt that person back. I don’t believe that human nature is benign, and I don’t want that type of responsibility falling on me. I don’t want to be harmed, and I despise the idea of harming others. I’m okay with feeble relationships if I get to keep my hands clean.”

“What’s the point of keeping your hands clean?”

“Excuse me?” Chifuyu asked, narrowing his eyes.

“Life’s all about you and what people around mean to you. Getting hurt, hurting others, that’s the real essence, isn’t it? No one really wants to voluntarily live as stagnant water. Dirtying your hands, making them bleed one, two, and even a hundred times. It’s the scars on your fingers that show you put them to good use.” Baji’s words were firm, confident, but not reproaching. His eyes shone, expressing everything that couldn’t be conveyed by the passion in his tone.

Baji had always been the kind of person to be his best when getting the best out of other people, and Chifuyu’s point of view was everything he had always fought so hard against. Something inside of him was burning to find what had led the dark-haired man to that point, to fix whatever was poisoning the air inside his lungs, to show him what fresh air tasted like.

He had unknowingly promised himself to do so.

“That works until you run out of hydrogen peroxide and your wounds start getting infected. But you seem to be the kind of person who picks at scabs, so I don’t really expect you to understand,” Chifuyu said, a faint trace of a smile ghosting over his face. “And that’s okay. I’m not about to argue about my moral values while the shop is such a fucking mess.”

Chifuyu slowly got up, using the shelf as support, and Baji followed him with his eyes, trying to pick every little movement, drawing a mental picture of the man in front of him. Every habit —like the way he shook his head to get his messy bangs out of his eyes or shaking his apron by grabbing its left extreme— suddenly gained importance for Baji, and he was impatient to find the next one.

“I’m probably going to regret this later, but can you stay and help me clean everything up? I still feel kind of wobbly.”

“Wait, did I hear you right?” Baji said, putting his hand behind his ear. “Are you asking me for a favor?”

“You know what? Forget it.”

Baji loudly laughed as he grabbed the jars and put them back in the box, picking it up, “Where does this go, captain?”

The rest of the afternoon went by uneventfully between Baji’s jokes about Chifuyu exploiting him and only wanting him for his brute force and Chifuyu’s loud sighs as he complained about how damn annoying Baji was. No deep conversations, not even a trace of the vulnerability Chifuyu had been close to exposing hours before. Only the sound of cardboard boxes being dragged, wet mops and sarcastic remarks flying from both ends.

By the time Baji went out —or more like got his ass kicked out—, night had already fallen down, autumn wind making its way between Baji’s bones. While his nose and hands were getting colder and redder, something inside him was warmer than it had been for a long time.

It was when he had almost arrived home that it hit him.

Fuck. He had forgotten about telling Chifuyu his weekly fact.

Hands in pockets, head high, whistling some late 90s song. Baji liked to walk the streets as if he owned them, and no one would ever dare to disagree with him. Keisuke Baji was one hell of a confident asshole, and not even a rude 5 foot 6 inches pet shop employee could take that away from him —or so he liked to think.

The sun shyly peeked through the clouds, contrasting against the freezing breeze that kept finding Baji’s skin no matter how tightly he pressed the black coat he was wearing against him. The wind tussled his hair around, making a mess on top of his head. He’d have to fix it somehow if he wanted to look presentable for Chifuyu.

He did fix his hair, he did adjust his clothing before opening the door, and he did even check that the cologne he had sprayed just before leaving his house was still perceptible. And despite all his efforts, the world seemed to be against him on that fall day.

Behind the counter wasn’t Chifuyu, but some dude with dark hair and blonde streaks that Baji had never seen before. He didn’t even know that someone other than Chifuyu really worked there —Chifuyu had talked once or twice about someone he shared the shop with, but Baji had decided to assume that was just a poor attempt of trying to make him not come again.

The unknown man politely greeted him and asked Baji if he needed any kind of assistance.

Damn, it was weird as fuck being so nicely received there.

“I guess Chifuyu isn’t here today?” Baji asked, feeling kind of bad for the clerk, as he probably just wanted him to buy something and leave.

“No.” The man’s voice was soft, friendly. Nothing to do with Chifuyu’s loud shrieks whenever Baji messed around. Maybe he should take a few lessons about customer service from his co-worker. “He took a week off. He wasn’t feeling too well.”

Baji’s shoulders dropped after hearing those words. He hadn’t stopped thinking about his conversation with Chifuyu the day he told him about his past illness and how he had downplayed its aftereffects.

“Oh. Could you wish him all the best for me? I’d send him some get-well card, but it probably would have the opposite effect,” Baji joked, already turning on his heels, ready to leave. If Chifuyu wasn’t around, he didn’t really have anything to do there. The wisest decision would be to leave the poor man alone to end his working day uneventfully and without having to deal with the handful that was Baji.

“Wait!” the man blurted, extending his arm as if to hold Baji’s coat. He didn’t finish the motion. “I’m Kazutora. I kind of co-own the shop with Chifuyu.”

“Eh, nice to meet you?” Baji said, turning his head in Kazutora’s direction, arching an eyebrow with a confused countenance.

“You’re the weird dude that keeps coming around, right?”

Oh, yeah. So much for the niceness.

Was that how everyone operated in that store? If Baji hadn’t known any better, he’d have probably felt offended.

“Ouch,” Baji laughed. Chifuyu might not talk behind his back in the lovey-dovey way that Baji would have wished (maybe he just was one of those people who were rude to the person they were so passionately enamored of not to show it but told wonders about their lover to others), but at least he talked about him behind his back, and Baji was surely considering that as something positive. “I am.”

“He’s cute, isn’t he?”

“Are you talking about Chifuyu?” Baji asked. Kazutora just nodded his head with an expression that Baji couldn’t fully decipher.

“Yeah.”

Baji just sighed and walked back the steps he had taken towards the door, resting his elbows on the counter. Kazutora didn’t move an inch, and Baji’s eyes just wandered throughout the whole room, like he would find the answer to that question hidden behind some cage or shelf.

“I don’t know if cute is the word I’d use to describe him,” Baji started, still unsure of what he’d say next. Objectively speaking, he did think Chifuyu was cute; that was why he had started talking to him in the first place after he had helped him with the cat. But leaving it like that, as if Chifuyu was just some pretty face, felt awfully wrong for Baji. “Like, what actually stands out of him is his efficiency. The efficiency when he organizes the shelves and how quick he is to pick stuff that is expired, or how good he is at cleaning cages no matter how much he complains. He always gets even the tiniest spot. And I don’t know either if cute is an appropriate word for someone who keeps screaming at the birds when they start being noisy, as if they’d understand him. But especially when he thinks no one is around and I see him through the window display brushing Peke’s hair. He has this weird glove and just brushes him with it, and goddamn, does he become fucking annoyed when Peke starts biting his hand, and he just argues with him. Like, really goes all out arguing with a cat. That’s…”

“You’re rambling,” Kazutora said, interrupting him in a soft, delicate way, full of a feeling of understanding, like a kid who reads poetry for the first time and tastes it in his veins even before he can process the rhymes. It almost made Baji wonder how long he had kept going on about Chifuyu and his bitten hand.

“I am,” he said. Not to Kazutora, but to himself. “Damn, I am.”

His heart wasn’t beating particularly fast, nor were his hands sweating uncannily. There was no sudden bright bulb on top of his head or an alarm breaking through his auditory ossicles. His malleus, incus, and stapes remained completely still through Baji’s speech. Not only them but also his ribs, lungs, amygdala. No part of his body was surprised. There hadn’t been any unpredictable realization.

It was just something that had set on Baji long before he could even think about it.

“You see,” Kazutora started again, not even giving Baji a few seconds to accommodate the newly found emotion. “I confessed to him in high school.”

Baji’s gaze automatically rushed to collide with Kazutora’s in a vain attempt to find out what he was trying to tell him. The man with streaks just faintly smiled. At that moment, he reminded Baji of a grandpa telling a war story to his grandchildren.

“He rejected me, beat the shit out of me, and then went home. He didn’t even wave goodbye,” Kazutora continued, his voice slightly tinted of amusement, as if he was secretly fond of those times.

“He can actually pack some punches?” Baji said. “And to think he acted like a goody-two-shoes when I told him about my high school days.”

“Yeah, he was wild back then,” Kazutora chuckled, shaking his head. “I stuck around, though.”

Kazutora’s strummed his slim fingers on the plastic surface separating him from Baji, almost setting a background melody for the rest of their conversation.

It reminded Baji of some Mozart symphony.

“No one really stays by his side for long.”

“Why?” Baji asked, despite already knowing the answer.

“He doesn’t allow them to.”

“Well,” Baji started. He used the counter to push himself up, his arms starting to get sore from his previous position. “He better brace himself because I’m stubborn as fuck.”

Keisuke Baji was one hell of a confident asshole, and not even a rude 5 foot 6 inches pet shop employee could take that away from him, no matter how much his short arms tried to push him away —and he was now entirely sure of it.

Kazutora just smiled at the long-haired man’s display as he opened the door while still spluttering something to himself.

Like a bull in a china shop.

Chifuyu flipped the magazine's page in front of him with boredom, skimming through the text and only paying attention to the occasional images that accompanied it. His cheek was resting on his hand, and if he wasn’t careful enough, it’d slip and end up with a bump on his forehead.

“So… talking to your friends about me, huh? I didn’t know we were already on that stage,” a voice said above him. Chifuyu didn’t care to look up, already aware of who it was. His tone was higher than usual, happiness soaking it.

Chifuyu loudly yawned, not even bothering to cover his mouth, and just turned another page, “Hello to you too. I assume you’ve met Kazutora?”

“Exactly. He’s a nice guy. And it seems like I’m important enough for you to tell him about me,” Baji boasted. If his chest had gotten any more swollen with pride, it would have blown up. “I wonder what your words were. Did you talk about my undeniable loquacity and how I’ve been able to charm the driest men on Earth?” Baji put his elbows on the counter, hands hanging by his side. He threw his head back, his hair falling down the surface, and looked at Chifuyu from the corner of his eye. “Or maybe you decided to take the path of threading verses about my marvelous looks. Honestly, I wouldn’t blame you for that one.”

“Not at all,” Chifuyu said, closing the magazine and slamming it in the space between the two of them, holding back a laugh. No matter how pretentious and awfully narcissistic Baji seemed, it was true he had a way with words and had already found out how to make Chifuyu shut up, bite his tongue and shake his head while fighting against a smirk. As difficult as it was to swallow (and he’d rather slit his own throat than saying it out loud), it was getting harder and harder for him to pretend to be annoyed by Baji. “We share the shop, so I had to discuss it with him if it would be possible to ban a customer from coming in.”

“God, you really know how to hit a weak spot,” Baji replied, letting out a sigh. He was getting ready to spit some more bullshit but stopped dead in his tracks as he noticed something out of the ordinary. “Is that a band-aid on your nose?”

“Yeah.”

“What happened?”

“I don’t know, some dumb cut.”

“Chifuyu? What did you do this time?”

“Nothing, I’m telling you it wasn’t anything serious.”

“Pretty please? If you’re not telling me, it’s because it was something dumb and probably pathetic.”

“No.”

“Tell me. I won’t laugh at you if that’s what you’re worried about.”

“No.”

“Tell me.”

“Oh my God, won’t you shut the fuck up?”

“Tell me.”

“Fine! Peke… scratched me. On the nose,” Chifuyu admitted, slightly embarrassed.

“And that’s it?” Baji said, completely serious. A few seconds after, as he glanced at Chifuyu, something erupted from the bottom of his heart, a clear and loud laugh. He turned around, directly facing the man behind the counter. “You let your cat scratch your face? That’s sad.” Chifuyu tried to push Baji while hiding the slight red that had taken over his face, but unfortunately for him, it was all in vain. “Your arms are too short to even move me.”

“You know what? Fuck Kazutora and his opinion. I’m kicking you out all by myself. If you ever set foot in here again, I’m calling the police,” Chifuyu stated, taking off his apron and throwing it on the chair behind him, ready to literally kick Baji.

“Are you that eager to touch me?” he sarcastically asked, moving away from Chifuyu’s reach.

The ruckus lasted a few seconds as Baji backed up through the whole shop with Chifuyu closely following him, waiting for an opening to beat the hell out of that annoying idiot. In a lapse of concentration of the blue-eyed man, Baji took his phone out of his pocket and held it in front of Chifuyu’s face.

“If this is how you treat your customers, I’m leaving a one-star on your Google Review page.”

“Don’t you fucking dare.”

“Watch me.”

It didn’t take much from Chifuyu to snatch Baji’s phone from his hand as he was waving it around his head. If Chifuyu had been any calmer, he would have easily guessed that it had to be some weird strategy for him to take it.

After a quick glance at the screen, Chifuyu huffed and looked up. “You’ve already left 5 stars. Do I want to read what kind of messed up foolishness you’ve written in the comments?”

“Probably not. You don’t have a sense of humor.”

“Did… you know… Why are the characters so small? It’s fucking impossible to read this,” Chifuyu complained, zooming up.

“Are you kidding me? It’s the default size. You’re worse than my grandmother.”

“Shut up, or I’ll smash it against the floor,” Chifuyu warned. “Did you know that some felines bite for you to hold their canine tooth to show affection and trust? Oh, this is mouth affection, isn’t it? Is today’s fact some kind of indirect?” he asked, raising a brow along with his gaze.

“I don’t bite” —please, don’t say what I think you’re about to say, Chifuyu innocently thought (but he had learned to know better)— “unless you want me to.”

“Annoying,” Chifuyu simply said. With his free hand, and before he even gave it a rational, critical, and wise thought, he picked a strand from Baji’s hair and lifted it up, giving it the loose shape of a cat ear. “But you do kind of remind me of a panther with your weird fangs.”

Baji froze at the sudden movement, too fast for his brain to correctly process it. Chifuyu didn’t notice it because his neurons were also too busy trying to get a hold of what the fuck was Chifuyu doing.

“But, uh, yeah. Woefully for you, I was aware of it,” Chifuyu quickly said, letting go and giving himself some pats on the back for being the first to react. Something inside him believed that it was a way to assert dominance and get back his control over the situation. He extended his hand to give Baji back his phone when a loud ring came from it. “Oh, you got a message from someone named… Draken? ‘Baji, stop fucking around, you idiot. Bring your ass here right now if you don’t want…’ Damn, I would definitely get along with him.”

“He’s from that gang back in middle school that I told you about. He looks truly scary. Wait, look at this,” Baji said, finally able to keep up with the conversation again, retrieving his massive ego again without any major loss. He grabbed his phone (being pretty cautious of not accidentally touching Chifuyu’s fingers. He wouldn’t probably notice due to obvious reasons, but Baji would sure as hell do) and quickly scrolled through it before stopping and showing Chifuyu its screen. There was a picture of an almost bald man with a dragon tattoo on his temple. “Terrifying, right? People think I help old ladies cross the street whenever I stand right next to him.”

“I don’t know,” Chifuyu said, faking doubt with a hand on his chin and narrowed eyes. “I still think I’d rather walk next to him at midnight in a dark alley than you at 11 a.m. in the middle of the main street.”

“Why do you hate me this much?”

“Do you really need to ask?”

“Well, as much as I’d like to say yes and hear your take on this unjustified hatred…” Baji said, putting his phone back in his pocket. “I have to go and beat some manners into some barbaric man.”

“Finally.”

“I’ll be coming back, though.”

“There’s no need, I promise.”

Baji smiled, his eyes shining a bit more than when he had entered. Chifuyu blamed it on the fluorescent lights.

“See you next week!” Baji exclaimed, moving the door continuously so the bell wouldn’t stop chiming. Chifuyu wondered if the shop’s insurance would cover an arm amputation.

“See you, Keisuke,” Chifuyu muttered, turning around and facing the hamster cages. They were dirty. Again.

“Wait,” Baji said, aggressively fully opening the door again. This time, he didn’t close it. “Did you just say see you? And called me by my name?”

Chifuyu picked a cloth lying on top of the metal bars and shook it.

“For fuck’s sake. Don’t let it go to your head, asshole.”

“Do you know what's the only animal that can't jump?”

The elephant. Chifuyu knew it was the elephant, and it was such a popular fact that Baji really must have been an idiot if he even thought that Chifuyu wouldn't guess the correct answer.

He fucking knew it.

“No.”

He fucking knew it, and yet he lied.

“God, it's impossible to— Wait.” Baji’s whole face lighted up, a  sly smile spreading over it. “You know what that means, right?”

Chifuyu wished he didn’t. To fake ignorance, to play it off as a joke. To shake his head while sighing and just saying ‘you dumbass, of course I knew it’.

But he couldn’t. Through the course of days and weeks and every damning second, a lump had formed on his throat, restricting his larynx. Chifuyu wasn’t able to breathe normally anymore, nor eat or talk. There were times when he couldn’t even think due to the annoying pressure. It was always there, using his vocal cords as a violin. Every time he moved, a high-pitched muted sound came out of it, strangling him. And Chifuyu just wanted to get rid of it. To stop hearing it, even if it meant going entirely deaf.

The knot came undone as he let five words slip out of his mouth, hitting his teeth and tongue on the way. They tasted way sweeter than Chifuyu had first thought.

“I guess you beat me.”