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After the karaoke contest, Kyouji takes him home in a borrowed car. Satomi spends the ride thinking about concussions and haemorrhaging and other wounds that don’t show outside the body. Can't bring himself to speak. Can't bring himself to look at Kyouji, who is humming to a song on the radio and tapping along on the middle console, near Satomi’s elbow.
Down the street from Satomi's house, in a rarely-frequented alley he has no business knowing about, Kyouji parks and turns to him. “Well, Satomi-kun,” he says.
Well, what?
But Satomi’s voice is shot, and what comes out is barely louder than the rustle of Kyouji’s starched shirt as he leans close.
“Hey, take it easy. You’re gonna hurt yourself.”
The bruise on his forehead is vivid in the sliver of streetlamp light coming through the window. Satomi can’t take his eyes off it. He turns away but Kyouji’s hand follows him, snaking around his shoulder to block his escape. It’s almost a shame Satomi's charm has protected him so well.
“You still mad at me, Satomi-kun? You won’t look at me when you’re pissed, did you know that? You get this really scary expression, like you’re gonna explode.”
Satomi mumbles a reply that Kyouji doesn't entirely catch, but laughs at anyway.
“Yeah, you’re still mad. Well, that’s okay. You don’t have to see me anymore now.”
The karaoke contest is over.The choir performance is done. There's no reason to keep meeting up, except for something so impossible neither of them can say it aloud. Satomi’s heart is drumming up a rhythm so frantic and strong he won’t be surprised if Kyouji hears it, too.
Really, Kyouji is too close. “I really like cats,” he says, apropos of nothing. “But they hate me. Even the stray in my neighborhood runs when I try to pet him, and I've been trying for years. Just this morning I saw one of the old ladies down the street scratching its belly... Pretty depressing, y'know? Hey, Satomi-kun, won’t you look at me before I go?”
Satomi’s lip is trembling. He claps a hand over his mouth and turns despite every instinct screaming alarms.
Kyouji is close enough to share breath. He’s wearing the same expression as earlier, when Satomi slapped him. Soft. A little sad.
He kisses the back of Satomi’s hand.
It takes two seconds. The feel of his lips will haunt Satomi for the next four years – every time he presses his mouth to the same place, on the same hand, and every time he reaches between his legs with the other.
Satomi’s seat is in economy: the last section to leave the plane. Business deplanes first, so he doesn’t expect to see Kyouji again. Maybe ever, despite the card burning a hole in his pocket. He has learned not to expect anything.
Yet there he is when Satomi comes down the ramp – a head taller than most of the crowd, the best dressed by far, carrying nothing but a briefcase and a placid smile.
They find a table at a family restaurant down the hall from their gate. It’s small – a two-top – and Satomi finds himself bracketed by Kyouji’s long legs. He wonders if blocking all means of escape comes naturally to Kyouji, or if it's something he learned in his line of work.
They order an American breakfast and two coffees. Kyouji fills the silence with an improbable story from the most recent karaoke contest. Satomi pushes around runny eggs with his fork. It’s hard to focus on anything but Kyouji’s knee, resting companionably against his thigh beneath the table.
Finally Kyouji falls silent. He turns in his seat to watch a plane taxi by outside the window. It’s late afternoon, golden; the sun catching in his hair looks like embers.
When the plane is gone he turns back to Satomi and sets down his empty coffee cup. “Well, I’ve kept you long enough,” he says. “Go start your exciting college student life.”
“I want to talk with you,” Satomi says immediately.
Kyouji smiles. “We have been talking, Satomi-kun.”
Which is generous, considering Satomi hasn't said a word.
His expression doesn’t change when Satomi pushes their knees together, though he shifts in his seat a little, as though he has just remembered something urgent.
Satomi swallows. “Somewhere else.”
A same-day booking in a luxury airport hotel costs more money than Satomi has ever held in his hands – more than even the key money and deposit for the run-down apartment he should be in right now.
But Kyouji pays for the double queen room (“For me and my nephew here…”) with a heavy-looking gunmetal card. He lies so beautifully that Satomi will spend the rest of his life carding through all the stories, fantastic and mundane, Kyouji has ever told him.
The room has a view of the runway. It's full of sunset, furniture throwing long shadows over the walls and the place where Kyouji stands, back to the door, looking at Satomi looking at the beds.
“Well, Satomi-kun,” he says.
Satomi turns on his heel, belatedly realizing what he's done and where they are. “It’s insane to pay that much for a hotel room," he protests. "You didn’t have to – Why did you do that?”
Kyouji sets his briefcase next to Satomi’s luggage and straightens up, yawning, stretching, arms behind his head, loosening his tucked shirt. A sliver of belly. “Why...? I thought we were going to talk. Did you want something else?”
He shoves his hands into his pockets. His face gives away nothing – no trace of mirth, apprehension, derision, desire. He is nothing if not professional, when it counts – this man who bullied a fourteen year old for singing lessons, then kissed his hand in a parked car down a dark alley.
Satomi gathers his courage. “I want…to touch you.”
To prove Kyouji is real. To confirm Kyouji is alive and well with his own hands. To put it away, finally, and get on with his life.
Kyouji says: “All right.”
And doesn’t move. Just stands there, looking at Satomi with the same neutral expression, as though they’re talking about the weather.
But he can't help bending a little to let Satomi take his face in both hands. His tie slips out of his suit to hang between them like a pendulum. He shuts his eyes, too; it is impossible to decide for whose benefit this is.
They must make men like this in some kind of laboratory. Men with long black lashes, wasted on them for the shadows under their eyes, and skin so colorless the veins run through it like blue and green rivers on a map. Men with mouths like wounds, shot by perfect cupid’s bow lips. Men to ruin people's lives.
Satomi chafes his hands against the first hints of stubble on Kyouji’s jaw. His courage is trickling from the corners of his eyes. He can’t remember the plans he made on the plane anymore. The smell of Kyouji’s cologne has gone through him like a knife. He expects to see blood when he looks down.
“...Kyouji-san,” he says carefully, when he finds his voice.
Kyouji hums.
“Y-Your knee – ”
It’s never been this easy. Never in his life. Not even when he was twelve and wary of stiff breezes. Kyoujii's thigh is warm and firm and angled just right. What a coincidence. Satomi braces himself against the door (it wouldn't do to wrinkle Kyouji's suit) and brings himself off in three stuttering strokes.
Kyouji’s hands stay in his pockets, the bastard, for as long as it takes Satomi to stop shivering. Then he straightens up and hooks a finger into the knot of his tie. Loosens it. Just a little. Smiles like there isn't a wet spot on his thigh. They're in shadow now; the light is failing.
He takes a handkerchief out of his pocket. “Oops,” he says. “Your glasses are dirty.”
They don’t talk about it.
Their texts remain disgustingly nondescript. Stuff about school, stupid emoji. Yakuza don’t live long lives by leaving paper trails of their crimes. (Not that what they’re doing is a crime. Anymore.)
They meet for breakfast after Satomi’s overnight shift. Kyouji shows up in his work clothes and an annoyingly good mood. His joke about Satomi's sleepless night is rich coming from someone with permanent undereye shadows.
He doesn’t remember or he doesn’t care. Satomi can’t decide which is worse. Then something prods the toe of his shoe.
“Wanna go for a walk?” Kyouji says.
A bead of sweat trembles near his temple. At seven o’clock the day is already hot. So is Kyouji, but there's nothing he can do about it except cuff his sleeves and fan himself. A little ink shows at the edge of his left arm.
The nearest hotel is a far cry from Haneda’s business glamor. To Satomi’s relief it’s much cheaper, too. He follows Kyouji to another double queen that smells like bleach and cigarette smoke, mentally reviewing the research he did on his phone last night in bed. This time will be different.
Kyouji goes directly to the closet to rummage for a hanger, puts up his suit coat, then goes to the bathroom and splashes water on his face, cursing all the while. “Goddamn, it’s hot today.”
He comes out toweling his face and pauses when he catches sight of Satomi standing near the door, somehow half hard already, sweating beneath his glasses.
"What's up? How about some wat--"
"You didn’t touch me. Last time."
"Uh." Kyouji touches his ear. "Huh."
Satomi advances on him. "Why did you -- I wanted to -- If you didn't want to, then why...”
He trails off. It's unraveling inside him in big, tangled handfuls of fury and want. If he keeps opening his mouth he might throw up.
“Why...?” Kyouji echoes, loosening his tie. "If you want something, just tell me, Satomi-kun."
Like it's easy. Like asking for cream and sugar.
He settles down on the edge of the bed, wincing at a pop, and pats the space between his thighs -- here, sit here. Rests his chin on Satomi's shoulder and says, half to himself: "Easier this way. Like tying a tie."
And reaches for Satomi's zipper.
Satomi has never seen Kyouji’s forearms up close. They're busy with scars, some pinkish and new, others barely visible. The watch on his left wrist looks expensive.
Satomi indexes these impressions for later consideration. Right now, he’s lost in the difference between their hand sizes. Right now, he’s studying what Kyouji is doing to him because it’s probably what Kyouji does to himself.
That’s information worth knowing – not whatever nonsense Kyouji is mumbling in his ear.
“Hey, did I tell you already? That cat back at my place, in Osaka, ran away for a while. It came back. This time I’m gonna make a better first impression. I left some food out on the porch. I’ll try to send you a picture next time. It’s really cute, unbelievably cute – Ah.”
The heat of his breath is enough. Satomi lets his head fall back against Kyouji’s shoulder this time, pushing up and out of his mind with Kyouji’s thumb rubbing his slit. He comes looking at it – at the edge of it – green and blue and yellow like a bruise, peeking out from beneath Kyouji’s sleeves. Snaking up his arms, wrapping around his neck like a noose.
Kyouji chuckles against his back. “Your ears are weak, huh. Take my advice. Don’t get 'em pierced. You’re the type to pass out for sure. Hey, don’t be mad –”
So Satomi stays mad all the way to the restaurant.
It doesn’t make him feel better. It makes him feel like the kid Kyouji so obviously thinks he is, even after all this time. Well, what’s a few years to a man more than twice his age, really?
He imagines telling Kyouji that they’re done. Throwing the money into his tired face and never looking at it again. Never thinking about his name without cringing again. Erasing the part of Kyouji that belongs to Satomi, because Satomi will never be able to erase the part that belongs to Kyouji’s boss, even if he works overnights the rest of his life, skips every meal, every drinking party, every concert.
He can’t erase Kyouji’s past anymore than he can wash away the coffee stain on the painting at work, so he will erase himself.
The butter roll set is the cheapest thing on the menu. Kyouji is too busy doctoring his coffee to notice. He’s impatient; he burns his tongue. Serves him right.
Are you getting enough to eat? reads the note in the package his mom sends – oranges, miso packets, furikake, and rice.
are you skipping lunch again? says the last text from Mana.
“Oka, you’re getting skinny,” Morita whistles when he catches his breath after another Nekopani retrospective.
Kyouji doesn't say anything, for once; his mouth is busy.
Another month; another business hotel before their scheduled meal. It’s a single this time, to the lip-curling disapproval of the receptionist, but Kyouji’s smile is stronger.
His forearms are out today, again. Summer is at its peak. He licks his lips and goes back in to clean the plate, or maybe for seconds.
Satomi could go again, but time is in short supply. There is the concert later, and lunch still to get through.
None of it exists in here. Everything that is real is on top of a mattress that creaks, beneath a ceiling fan that clicks. Satomi's shirt is stuck to his back from the walk over; his underwear and jeans are in another dimension.
Kyouji’s hair tickles the insides of his thighs. Satomi breathes through his nose and digs deeper into the bedsheets, swallowing the urge to ruin the gel. Instead he slowly lifts his leg and sets it on Kyouji’s shoulder. Careful. Casual. How’s the weather down there.
Kyouji looks up. “Sorry,” Satomi breathes, “Sorry, am I heavy–?”
狂児. Kyouji hoists the other leg onto his shoulder, too. His mouth falls open, viper-like, bangs falling over one eye like a curved blade. He unbuttons his shirt collar.
Propped up on his elbows, Satomi glimpses a splash of blue, green, and red down the front of Kyouji’s shirt. Then he’s flat on his back, looking at the ceiling fan, and then the insides of his eyelids.
They’re late to the Chinese restaurant.
Kyouji’s hair is perfect again. He has forgotten to rebutton his shirt collar. He piles grilled pineapple and ong choy onto Satomi’s plate until it threatens to spill. He doesn’t even know what it is. (Water spinach, Satomi recalls from somewhere.)
He doesn’t care. He jokes about life and death in the same breath, with the same tongue that was inside Satomi just an hour ago. He rambles on and on about career choices and changes the subject when Satomi protests.
The look on his face might be guilt. No; he just burnt his mouth again.
After they part, Satomi spends the rest of his evening fiddling with the watch. The leather wristband is too big. It’s just like Kyouji to give him something more trouble than it's worth.
Aren’t there stories about lost expeditions -- starving men who boiled their shoes and ate them?
But it turns up the next day, at work, like a bad penny.
Kyouji turns up four months later.
The shadows under his eyes are darker, but otherwise he seems healthy. Whole. Has all his fingers. No tie. Grins at Satomi when he comes over to take their order, then turns back to Sensei and the assistant, as though Satomi is just another waiter. If looks really could kill, he would've dropped dead during his first Kurenai.
Later, in the break room, Satomi deletes the text he’s been drafting. (If you think you can just drop off the face of the planet for four months without saying a word – I didn’t know whether you were alive or dead – How could you just – and so on.) He closes his eyes to wash away the image of the mangled car.
I’ll be in Tokyo again next month. Let’s get barbecue.
Well, he’s waited this long.
Kyouji takes the news well. He looks different without his suit, like a dog without its collar. He smiles and puts more steak on Satomi’s plate (tries to add the charred business card, too, but gets kicked under the table). Only after, in the elevator, instead of taking them down, he hits the button for the fourth floor – for the hotel above the barbecue restaurant.
It’s their first time doing this at night. The light from the shops and streetlamps outside is enough to see what’s necessary. Satomi doesn't need it to know Kyouji wants this, too. He can tell without looking at where their hips are grinding together, pants bunched around their knees. (Belts dropped through a void; Kyouji tossed them a little harder than strictly necessary.)
“Tell me what you’re thinking about,” Satomi mumbles into the front of Kyouji’s shirt, between thrusts.
Kyouji hums somewhere above. He’s breathing hard but his voice, when it finally comes, is lazy as ever. “Are you gonna get mad if I say it's another guy?"
He has the nerve to laugh when Satomi’s heels dig into his flanks.
“Ow. Ouch. That writer, I mean. Hey, c'mon -- look at me.”
He finds Satomi’s chin and hauls it upward. He’s quiet for a moment – with eyes stubbornly shut, Satomi can only guess at his expression -- then squeezes and slides his hand down the column of Satomi’s throat.
“That’s it," he laughs. "That's the face you made when you were eating. Is it good, Satomi-kun?”
His thumb dips into the hollow where Satomi’s pulse flutters, rubbing, considering. Breathlessly Satomi recognizes this, too: the same sensation as singing his voice raw. He’s fourteen again. He is briefly, agonizingly, exquisitely in fear of his life, pinned in place by dark eyes and a hand that has killed.
It’s good. Satomi wonders whether this confession is audible over the rhythm of the headboard against the wall, for which Kyouji will smile and pay extra at check-out.
Hotel room or busy street, he feels the same in Satomi’s arms.
It’s too big to hold.
Satomi spills his guts out to the internet in his cheap, cursed little room, puts himself back together, then falls apart again. Mana and Maruyama try their best. He’s bringing down the collective IQ of Yahoo Answers users, and that’s saying a lot. He goes to school and goes to work and goes to bed, and sometimes he sleeps. He adds money to the tattoo removal fund. He doesn’t text Kyouji and Kyouji doesn’t text him.
Why? You didn’t tell me to.
In a fit of piquance he composes a message he doesn’t believe for a second Kyouji will answer.
But Kyouji does, and doggedly turns up at the station, as ordered, with enough food to feed Satomi for a week. (Stretching meals is easy, now.)
The jig is up the moment he steps into the apartment. He takes one long look at the place, asks about rent, and eats one single, solitary pork bun, dodging Satomi’s questions like bullets.
Satomi takes the knife and opens himself up, but Kyouji just tells him to eat well. Poor kid.
So it’s too big for 1LDKs, too. Maybe it only fits in hotel rooms because it’s temporary – a stopover on the way to some other destination.
Satomi throws down the gauntlet that same night. Kyouji shows up armed with a tray, not a sword. They battle silently over burgers – Satomi gets in one hit that will keep him up later, when he remembers how Kyouji’s face fell – and part with identical wounds.
What if he ordered Kyouji to quit? What if he said, I need you to quit being a yakuza – would Kyouji listen? His obedience extends beyond hotel rooms; Satomi’s text messages have confirmed as much.
And if so, what then?
He leaves McDonald’s full to bursting. He goes home, throws up, crawls into bed, and checks his phone. Nothing. Sleeps two hours, fitfully. Checks his phone. Nothing. Drinks three glasses of water and throws up again. Sleeps through class. Calls out of work.
Pieces himself back together. Doesn’t text Kyouji. Gives Mana and Maruyama the download over donuts. Doesn’t text Kyouji. Goes to class. Doesn’t text Kyouji. Goes to work. Sleeps.
Class. Work. Sleep.
Osaka. Home.
His parents feed him up and give him crap about losing weight. His mom puts him and Masami to work around the house because there’s a lot that needs doing since Dad had his back surgery. Satomi cleans out the attic and shops for groceries and runs errands. It feels good to be useful.
On Christmas Eve, just before dark, he pulls on his heaviest coat and goes out.
His brother always says winter in Osaka is disappointing. There’s never enough snow to make the cold worth it. But without clouds the sky is beautiful at sunset, and there is just enough light to let Satomi read the map that has been crumpled, folded, and tucked away in his wallet for four years.
He’s not fourteen anymore. Still, it’s hard to kick the feeling that he’s not supposed to be here. Bar Katsuko is right where it’s supposed to be. From the look of it, a holiday party is in full swing: Someone has hung red and green lights in the windows (the curtains, of course, are drawn) and music trickles out through the door, propped open for ventilation. Satomi can smell the cigarette smoke from down the street.
No – someone is smoking in the doorway.
“...Satomi-kun? What are you doing here?”
Kyouji’s in his usual starched shirt and tie – not festive at all. The hand that isn’t holding a cigarette is clutching a whiskey glass.
Satomi stands on the sidewalk with his hands shoved deep into his pockets. “I live here,” he says. “What about you?”
Kyouji shrugs. “Home for the holidays.”
He looks like he hasn’t been sleeping. The ice in his glass clinks when he lifts it.
Satomi says: “I was going to leave your gift here.”
So we wouldn’t have to meet again.
“Aw.” Kyouji looks him up and down. “But I don’t have anything for you.”
“Then give me that." Satomi points at the whiskey.
Kyouji blinks. Satomi has surprised him twice in a row. Before he can answer, Satomi rummages in his pocket and brings out a box.
“Give me that,” he repeats, “and I’ll give you this.”
Kyouji has never refused him anything. He pauses in the middle of unwrapping it to watch Satomi knock the whiskey back, looking faintly impressed. His eyebrows come back down when he sees the watch, and his lips go thin around the cigarette.
“I had it fixed,” Satomi rasps, by way of explanation.
The crease between Kyouji’s brows deepens. “Oh. I didn’t know it was broken.”
“It wasn’t. I – boiled it.”
“...Boiled?”
“It,” Satomi finishes for him, unable to decide whether the feeling in his stomach is doubt creeping in or his very first adult drink.
He returns the empty glass to Kyouji, takes a clumsy step backward, and bows. From this angle he notices a set of bowls off to the side of the bar stairs – one filled with water, the other running low on kibble.
“Well,” Satomi says. “Goodbye.”
And whirls around and sets off down the sidewalk – perhaps in the direction of his house.
He makes it ten yards before ducking into an alley to puke, and at last Kyouji comes after him.
The hotel next to Bar Katsuko is surprisingly nice for a yakuza-run establishment. Satomi keeps this opinion to himself while Kyouji hauls him up the stairs, wrestles his coat and shoes off, and tucks him into a bed that smells oddly familiar.
When he wakes the room is dark, except for the light coming from Kyouji’s phone, in the corner, where he’s sitting as far as physically possible.
Satomi squints at him. “Water…”
When Kyouji brings it he switches on the light in the bathroom hallway, then makes to retreat to his corner, but Satomi grabs his sleeve.
He perches on the edge of the bed, as though he might take flight at any moment. “Need something else?”
Satomi swishes water around his mouth and keeps squinting until his eyes adjust to the light. Shapes form in the corners of his eyes – a stack of magazines on a desk; clothes hung up to dry on a rack; shoes lined up by the door. Takeout boxes in the trashcan.
“...What makes you think I need you?” he says at last, needing Kyouji, sick with it. “I don’t want someone blackmailed or kidnapped. What could a normal person want from a yakuza?”
Kyouji smiles. “Free meals?"
“Is that all you’re good for?”
“Well… What else do you want, Satomi-kun?”
Satomi flushes to the tips of his ears. He takes a sip of water and says: “I want to kiss you. No – I want you to kiss me.”
Kyouji laughs. It’s bright and strong, like the one he let out right after Satomi slapped him. All the tension goes out of him, and he looks at Satomi from the corner of his eye, grinning. “What’s the difference?”
But he takes the cup from Satomi’s hand and sets it on the table, then takes Satomi’s glasses too – folds them and puts them carefully aside, as though they’re as precious as the watch on his wrist. “So they don’t get dirty,” he explains.
He kisses the way he laughs.
A little later, when their clothes are beginning to be in the way, Kyouji notices Satomi’s wrist. “What’s this?” he says. “Did you hurt yourse –”
Then he reads the characters, and the words die in his throat.
Satomi takes his hand back. “Don’t lecture me. I was saving the money for you, you know, all this time – to have my stupid name lasered off your arm. But it’s expensive. It’s so expensive, you don’t even… And I had to fix your watch, and the money leftover wasn’t enough, so I…”
He trails off, grimacing at the memory of the appointment Morita cheerfully accompanied him to, and the sensation of needles.
Kyouji is quiet, too, looking at him over his own folded hands, elbows on his knees, head tilted to the side like a dog trying to figure something out.
At last he says: “Are you drunk?”
A little. “Not really.”
“Well, then, Satomi-kun.”
And then their clothes really are in the way.
And later still –
“Wait, wait, Kyouji-san – I want to be on top.”
To his credit, Kyouji doesn't even hesitate. He pulls his fingers out of Satomi and sits back on his knees, scratching his head with his other, dry, hand. “Huh. Well. It’s been a while, so be gentle with me –”
“No,” Satomi interrupts. Then adds, “Shut up." He climbs into Kyouji’s lap and reaches between them, then beneath him, and sinks down.
It fits. It’s good. Kyouji’s arms go around him, and Satomi cradles his head, watching Kyouji’s back in the mirror on the wall – the way the muscles ripple beneath the ink, setting the crane in motion.
And finally, sometime near dawn: “Kyouji.”
The suffix dissolves into a sigh. He’s full to bursting. He couldn’t take another bite. He puts a hand on his belly and feels Kyouji inside him, so deep he can almost taste it.
Kyouji lowers them both slowly to the mattress. He puts his hand over Satomi's and presses, just a little -- just enough to make Satomi gasp and shudder.
“Satomi,” he murmurs, close enough that Satomi doesn’t need glasses to read his expression. “Just a little more.”
Emptied out, he’s still pretty heavy – dead weight sprawled across the bed, one long leg hanging off the edge.
Satomi is surprised to discover he doesn’t mind. The gel holding Kyouji’s hawk-like hair in place broke during the night’s exercise, and this morning it’s soft again. Satomi strokes it with his eyes closed, recording the soft noise Kyouji makes when he stirs and remembers, as Satomi did, where they are and what they’ve done. He looks younger when he’s asleep.
“Breakfast?” he yawns.
“Not curry,” Satomi says, after a moment’s consideration.
When he comes out of the shower Kyouji is gone. Maybe he took offense. He has to come back, though. Right? All his stuff is here.
Satomi has just helped himself to a clean shirt when Kyouji reappears with a tray.
“Is that miso soup?”
Kyouji looks at him for a moment, closes his mouth, then says: “Yes. Yeah. The boss and his old lady cook for everyone on Christmas. It's kind of a tradition.”
Ah. He had gone next door and come right back. Of course. Satomi sits down on the bed and takes his glasses off again.
“What’s that smile for?” Kyouji wants to know from across the room, where he’s setting out rice and soup and eggs on a little table.
“Nothing,” Satomi says. “I don’t care if your boss dies anymore, by the way. Or when he dies. Whatever.”
“Oh? That sounds like a challenge. You’re not thinking about becoming a yakuza, are you? You'll have to start calling me aniki.”
Satomi finishes polishing his glasses on Kyouji’s shirt, replaces them, and looks at Kyouji from the corner of his eye.
“Hell naw," he says. "I'm going for kumicho."
Kyouji laughs. He's a morning-after mess in an unbuttoned shirt and wrinkled slacks. Satomi wonders if anyone gave him shit when he did the walk of shame through the bar. As though Kyouji has ever cared about looking like an idiot.
Something occurs to Satomi then. "Kyouji-san. The karaoke contests... I always wondered. How did you end up losing when those other guys are so much worse at singing?"
Kyouji doesn't answer right away. He is too busy maneuvering Satomi into a seat at the table, then piling extra tamagoyaki onto his plate. "Eat," he says, touching the place where Satomi's hair parts on his forehead.
Satomi shrugs him off. "Answer me."
"What? Oh, the contest."
Kyouji finishes cuffing his sleeves and reaches across the table to take Satomi's hand, briefly connecting their names.
"Well, Satomi-kun... I didn't really try," he admits.
And brings Satomi's hand to his lips again.