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Tsukki buttons up his cardigan and casts Keiji a wily sidelong glance.
“What,” the man half-asks from the adjacent cubicle, already sensing that his officemate-cum-drinking buddy-cum possibly the only bitch in this office Keiji can trust is about to open his mouth and make his whole day. His fingers pause over his keyboard, lifted delicately over the keycaps as if he were a pianist poised for his next piece– except the report he’s drafting up is hardly a masterpiece. Twenty pages (and counting) of dourness.
But Tsukki smoothly trains his eyes back onto the monitor, which displays an equally boring word document. “Who was that you brought to the office Christmas party a few weeks back?”
Keiji sighs, leans into the backrest of his office chair, and pivots around to face the blonde. He hopes he looks as exasperated as he feels.
“That was Osamu. And I didn’t bring him, he just happened to be the caterer.”
“So you two are… involved?”
“ Involved?”
“Well, maybe I assumed wrong but it sure looked like–”
“We are,” says Keiji, putting a stop to whatever his friend is about to say. “We’ve been dating for a year.”
The look, the infuriating look that Tsukki doesn’t even bother masking– as if he finds great humor in all of this, in poor serious neurotic Keiji actually dating someone (god forbid!). The pink corners of Tsukki’s mouth twitch up, and he hides his chuckle behind him uselessly pushing his glasses up.
Keiji rolls his chair forward into Tsukki’s space, his patience on the brink of snapping. Well, not quite. Tsukki is the only one he can bitch to about how Satoshi on floor 3 is a spineless bootlicking idiot who only acts the way he does because he wants a promotion (which Keiji has been gunning for for the past year– no two– no three– well, who’s counting at this point?). Or how Yoshimasa, their oh-so favorite client, kept texting him sleazy invitations for drinks at 2AM on a Tuesday. So despite the irritated look on Keiji’s face, which he doesn’t try masking either, he knows that at best, Tsukki’s just trying to rile him up, distract him. He’s probably noticed the way Keiji’s shoulders have been tensing up and rising for the past hour, a bad habit that manifests when he’s especially overtaxed. At worst–
“Everyone is calling him your boytoy,” Tsukki whispers, but it sounds more like a giggle.
“Excuse me?” Keiji asks.
“They call him your boytoy,” the other man repeats uselessly, as if that offers any more information or comfort. He bites down his smile, but ultimately fails, because as Keiji tries to pick apart what this all means, Tsukki is doubled over at his desk in a fit of giggles. Naoko-san from the cubicle to their left shushes them.
Keiji closes his eyes and presses his fingers into the bridge of his nose. There is nothing funny about this situation. “Do they–” he starts in a harsh whisper. Then stops, taking in an inhale, exhale. “Do they think I’m some old creep who picked Osamu up at a bar or club? Tsukishima, we are both adults. Capable, tax paying, normal adults. If they think I’m his– so help me god– his sugar daddy then they are seriously overestimating how much this company pays me.”
Tsukki opens his mouth to say something, but shakes his head and continues to laugh as silently as he can. Their project manager weaves through the aisles of cubicles, and Keiji surreptitiously rolls back into his cubicle. But he doesn’t spare his friend from his pointed stare.
“They’re not accusing you of being a creep, everyone knows you’re not, Akaashi,” the blonde reassures once his breathing steadies out. “It’s just–”
“I’m thirty seven, Tsukishima. I am a spring chicken. My knees might hurt occasionally when it’s raining or especially chilly out, and I might need a memory foam cushion for my chair, but I’m hardly a dinosaur,” he groans. “I’m in my prime!”
“And how old is Osamu? He’s a hunk, by the way.”
“Twenty-five. And to dispel the rumors, since I know you’re dying to know, he was a friend of a friend. We met at a volleyball game I was attending to support the Jackals.”
“There are no rumors, Akaashi.”
“Except the one where everyone apparently thinks my very loving and devoted boyfriend is my plaything.”
*
And Miya Osamu, in all his loving, devoted, and hunky glory, is a perfectly capable adult man, not at all ditzy or airheaded like the word boytoy implies. For god’s sake, Keiji thinks hard on the commute back home, so hard he feels like he might sprain his brain, Osamu runs a successful restaurant with not one, but two branches. Could any old horny boytoy do that? He doesn’t want to generalize, or decide on what all the boytoys of this world are like, especially based on his proud lack of personal, empirical data. But Osamu is a brilliant chef, a conscious one too. In fact, Keiji is the one who feels lucky his boyfriend gave him the time of day at all.
He grips the handrail a bit tighter as the train sways. A few other salary men and women press into him, it is the evening rush after all. Such is the life of an office worker. Keiji shakes off the thoughts and decides whatever his officemates (whom he hardly ever interacts with anyways) think of his relationship with Osamu is their problem, not his. All he knows is that they don’t have a hot chef that prepares dinner for two every night, and he does.
*
Osamu, of course, sends flowers to the office the next day. Like the infuriatingly perfect boyfriend that he is.
When Keiji folds open the card, there’s nothing sickly sweet or extravagant written, just a simple Was thinking of you. -O. He smiles and tucks the card under his keyboard.
Tsukki, for all the bullshit he gave Keiji, puts his palms up and shrugs, refusing to say anything to fan the flames. But there’s still that twisted smile plastered on his face. Idiot.
The older office ladies, however, are a different story. Long ago, well two years ago, but that may as well be ancient history at this point with how slow the clocks seem to run in this godforsaken office, Keiji was their favorite little pastime. Kuroo, the marketing manager from floor 1, whom he has been reluctant friends with (no, he doesn’t know how that happened either but he thinks Tsukishima had some kind of hand in it), used to tease Keiji relentlessly about it. The ladies would flock to his desk almost every day, bring him little cakes and pastries, and offer to walk with him to the station after work was done. He actually kind of suspected they had shifts to decide who would walk with him depending what day of the week it was.
But the magic wore off, he supposed, because admittedly he’s not really the most charming one on the floor. He was quickly replaced with a new hire named– fuck. What was it? Hinata. Hinata, loud and cheery and sweet, which was everything Keiji was not. But he had sighed a sigh of relief anyhow, that he didn’t have a flock of older office ladies circling him at all times. But he did miss the sweets, sometimes.
(“It’s not that they think they actually have a chance with you,” Kuroo grins smartly, as if he’s just figured something out. “It’s just that they think you’re kind of funny. Like a small animal. I mean, I don’t blame them. Look at you! You’re–”
“Easily annoyed, nitpicky, closed off, hard to connect with in a meaningful way,” Tsukishima offers over the rim of his beer.
“I was going to go with cute, but those things work too,” says Kuroo.
“Thank you, really,” Akaashi deadpans with a sigh. “I’m touched.”)
Ichika-san, Misaki-san, and Tomoko-san circle him like hawks, now. They must’ve smelled the peonies from a whole floor away. Keiji doesn’t bother to hide them, it’s too late; instead he gives them a well-meaning smile.
“Good afternoon ladies,” he greets mildly. “It’s good to see you again.”
But they go straight in for the prey.
“Now tell us,” Misaki-san says in a tone that sounds awfully conspiratory. They’re just flowers. “Who sent those over to you? Was it that Osamu?”
“Well, yes. It was very kind of him, don’t you think?”
“Mmm, yes, I think so,” Tomoko-san nods. “Does he do it often?”
“It would be financially irresponsible for him to make it too much of a regular thing, I suppose. So not really. Though this one was a surprise.”
Now it’s Ichika-san’s turn. “Oh, must be nice, must be nice!” She gives her lady friends a glance. “Your Osamu, your boytoy, I met him during the Christmas party. He was so sweet and mild-mannered. Very subdued. You don’t find men like that anymore, really. Good for you for snagging that,” she giggles, elbowing Keiji in his side. “You better keep him on lock. I hear at your age it’s good for the health to have a partner who challenges you to keep up. Believe me, I’ve been there.”
“Says who? ” Keiji asks, wide-eyed behind his horn-rimmed glasses. “I mean, I’m not disputing it, but I’m still in perfect health. He’s not even drastically younger than I am.”
The ladies coo. Keiji does not know what they mean with their cooing. But they don’t answer.
“The whole office is so jealous, Keiji-kun,” Tomoko-san adds. “I know the others probably don’t want you to know but they’ve given him a very silly, but apt nickname. Oh! But I think Ichika here may have spoiled the secret already. They call him boytoy! ”
*
“They call you my boytoy! ” Keiji seethes around his bite of sourdough. Osamu has been on a bread baking kick lately, and it shows. Mostly in Keiji’s stomach region.
“Am I not?” the taller man chuckles from the kitchen. God dammit.
“Osamu, you are missing the point here.” He puts down his butterknife swiftly. “Just because you’re younger than I am! What am I to them, a rich lonely divorced housewife who’s been deprived of good dick for twenty something years?”
“God, I hope not, with how much keeping up I need to do with you. ”
“My point is,” Keiji continues. “I’m not completely dried up to not see the humor in it, okay. I mean, look at you. You’re this boyishly good-looking, fit, bad boy chef, and I’m just a random office worker. And I’m not even being self-deprecating! They’re probably thinking, what tricks did Keiji and his chronically bad posture and bad attitude pull to snag a boytoy like that?! ”
Osamu rounds the kitchen counter and wipes his hand on his apron. He shoots his boyfriend a fond smile, and presses a sweet kiss to his curly head. “Well, for one, you’re pretty. I tell you as much as I can. Intelligent too, in a way that shows you just know so much and read so much. I love listening to you. And I think you’re charming and weird and funny in your own way. And that bad attitude you mentioned? Definitely sexy, ‘Ji. So you didn’t need to pull any tricks with me, I was crushin’ on ya since day one.”
That shuts Keiji up. “So you really don’t care that you’re known as the b-word in my office.”
“Not particularly. Does it bother you that much? Because you could talk to your HR. I guess. I’m assuming. You know I’ve never worked in an office in my life.”
The shorter man barks out a laugh. “Don’t you dare suggest HR to me again. I’d rather die than go there,” he says, leaning up into Osamu’s touch. Their lips meet, chaste. Keiji tastes like strawberry jam. “It kind of just irritates me, but it’ll pass. They’ll get bored of it.”
“Don’t you think it’s kinda sexy, though?” Osamu asks, pulling back, pressing his index finger and thumb into his chin like The Thinker. “That you, Akaashi Keiji, swept this– and these are your words, by the way– boyishly good-looking, fit, bad boy chef off his feet, and now here I am in your kitchen baking you bread like my life depends on it?”
Okay, maybe when he puts it like that…
*
The talk does die down. The office goes through its laundry list of gossip like a well-oiled machine, anyways, so Keiji’s not surprised. Last week, it was the fact that Satoshi on floor 3 did not end up getting the promotion he had been gunning for (Tsukishima, Kuroo, and Keiji all drank themselves silly to that). This week, it was that the COO had been audited and may be in a world of pain (Tsukishima, Kuroo, and Keiji all drank themselves silly to that, too, but for entirely different reasons. Their resumes had not been updated in years. ). Soon enough, everyone had forgotten about Miya Osamu, 25, boytoy.
It isn’t until Keiji invites some of his co-workers over after one of those after work outings he was roped into. The free drinks were a convincing come-on, and he was in an exceptionally good mood.
Somehow, they all decide (including Tsukishima, the lazy fuck, whose apartment is only a ten minute ride from the izakaya), that it’d be a good idea to crash at his place. Again, Keiji, being in an exceptionally good mood, and okay, maybe slightly inebriated, says yes.
When Keiji unlocks the door to his apartment, he quickly sobers up. The lights are already on, and there’s a pair of shoes and coat that aren’t his in the genkan, which means…
“Osamu?” he calls out. His head throbs.
“I’m here, kitchen,” Osamu replies. “Hold on. I’ll be there in a sec.”
But Keiji gets to him first, and there he is shirtless save for a ruffled apron that Keiji’s mother uses when she visits, in the middle of the kitchen, bent over the floor in rubber gloves, wiping up a puddle of something.
The b-word rings in Keiji’s semi-drunk head, like a haunting church bell, a harbinger of misfortune, a bad omen–
“I was preparing your lunch for tomorrow, but then I stubbed my toe, and made a mess all over my shirt, apron, and unfortunately yer floor,” is all Osamu says, apologetically. “Sorry if I look a bit silly.”
Tsukishima’s loud laugh cuts through the relative silence of the apartment, from behind the kitchen counter. He looks at Keiji incredulously, like he can barely sound out the words he’s trying to say. The interns Yachi and Yamaguchi, alongside Hinata (Keiji has finally committed his name to memory) all follow the sound and stop in their tracks when they spot Osamu in his compromising position. Ruffled apron and all. Shirtless. On all fours in the kitchen like he’s straight out of a tacky porno. Keiji’s mouth flaps open and closed, like a dumbstruck fish.
“Wow,” Hinata says, bending over the counter. Osamu blinks up at him. “Ichika-senpai was right! Akaashi-senpai really does have a boytoy!”