#…eventually

Que to a long period in Robert’s life where a lot of his dad’s friends are super invested in him, his studies, if he ever spontaneously grew fairy wings or accidentally healed a wound or travelled at the speed of light-

(forget the logistics of pregnancy and conception for a minute, and just understand that in this scenario Robbie’s whorishness caused enough confusion for that to be a dead end on finer sex half of the Brave Brigade. Is he Trans? Intersex? Omega? HE’S JUST A HOE, THIS IS THE ESSENTIAL PART!)

Suna sucks in a breath through his teeth. Bad wording, that. Don’t spring this on her before she’s had coffee, he wants to say, but the damage has already been done anyway.

“Arrangement?” You repeat. “That’s one word for trying to pimp me out to one of your players!”

“Miss,” stutters the suit, “that’s not the intention. In the contract in front of you —”

“Oh, the contract,” you palm your forehead, painting on a smile worth millions of yen. “Of course! That makes it all better. I don’t do relationships, asshole. Paid or unpaid.”

You glance at Suna for an infinitesimal moment, so quickly he wouldn’t have noticed if he hadn’t already been looking at you.

“Please just think about it,” says the manager who had led the proposal.

“Uh-huh, this is what I think,” you say, holding up the sheaf of paper and tearing it down the middle. You flick your wrist and toss the halves at the group of executives, white petals from a discarded bouquet fluttering gracefully down to settle at their feet.

The door slams on your way out.

“Models, right?” Says another of the suits.

“Hah.” Suna unfolds himself from the chair he’s sitting in. These things are always too small for his legs. He helps collect the pieces of paper from the floor, handing them to the executive, who’s still shaking his head and muttering to himself about little girls who throw tantrums.

Once the papers are out of his hands, Suna balls his hand into a fist and drives it into the man’s stomach.

He leaves the door open as he walks out, leaving behind one of his bosses, doubled over and wheezing, the contract back on the floor.

Your footsteps still echo ahead of him, the sun leading the moon. Suna breaks into a sprint.

You are not caffeinated enough for this, you think, stepping out into the early morning next to the EJP Raijin training gym. Finally out of the oppressive maze of fluorescents, you turn your face up to the sun and inhale deeply.

Your exhale, however, becomes an involuntary shriek when Suna bursts out after you.

“You scared the shit out me!”

“Sorry, sorry.”

The two of you stare at each other for a moment, lost in memory.

You dated Suna Rintarō last year for eight months. Eight months of laughing till you lost your breath at his deadpan, dry humor, of chasing each other around the bedroom until you collapsed in a pile of exhausted limbs, of (worst of all) learning domesticity, falling slowly in love over home-cooked meals and nights in and trust built solidly between you. It had rankled when that trust crumbled, your faith in him unreciprocated. It was a messy breakup, a dam of emotion cracking slowly and then collapsing all at once. It was darkly funny that in the few months since the breakup, you had successfully avoided him while working until now, asked to perform a public relationship when you had separated because he refused to openly admit to his genuine one with you.

“Hey,” he says finally. You blink.

“Is that it?” You wish there was as much fire in your voice as there had been when you’d been chewing out the managers. “After all that?”

“No,” he says, chewing on the inside of his cheek. “I don’t know.”

“Did you plan that?”

He reels from the accusation. He’s bad at acting unless it’s pure suppression—you know he’s telling the truth when he tells you “I would never.”

“Okay,” you say after a moment, pursing your lips. “I’m sorry, too, then. That they’d do that to you.”

“I don’t mind,” he shrugs.

“Oh, so you’ll sign their contract when they find a model who will do it. Maybe an idol, if they get desperate enough to crack you?”

He says your name, exasperated and pleading at the same time. For someone so stoic, his every emotion seems plain to your eyes.

“I wouldn’t sign that shit if they asked anyone else. And they won’t ask me again because I punched one of the executives.”

“You did what?” You look up at him, directly into the electric eyes you’ve been avoiding the entire conversation, your words stumbling a little.

“I punched him,” Suna shrugs. “I don’t want a contract relationship either, but this,” he gestures between you and then jabs a thumb at the building. “Hurt you. So.”

You grind your teeth, scraping your gaze over him. He’s still tall, still dressed in all dark colors, still the handsomest man you’ve ever seen.

“…It didn’t hurt me.”

“Okay.”

“It wasn’t because it was you. Because it was anyone.”

“Okay.”

“You didn’t have to defend me like that.”

“Yes, I did.”

“Thank you, Rintarō.”

He gives you a long, searching look, trying to find something you’re trying desperately to keep stuffed in its box. You close your eyes against it, pretending that he won’t see it if you can’t see him.

“Anytime.” His short sentences are really starting to piss you off.

“If you get fined, I’ll pay—”

“Don’t even think about it,” he cuts across your sentence. “Come to my house for dinner. That’s all I ask.”

“Seriously?” You snort. “What do you even get from that?”

Rintarō presses his lips together, fighting to get the words out. You used to hate that expression, so common when the two of you fought. He chewed on his words before spitting them out, shaping them into deadly weapons.

“I want you back in my life.” His voice is low, quiet. Like he can’t stand to hear himself beg.

“What?” You ask, a milder echo of your shriek that morning. “You’re not—you don’t mean that.”

“Of course I do,” he rolls his eyes. “I miss you.”

“Did they put this idea in your head?” You gesture back at the building. “You probably haven’t even thought about me since we broke up! You don’t want that.”

You don’t want me, you’d said to him once. He’d been quiet in the face of the accusation, replaying the words a thousand times before you were reunited until he knew exactly what he’d say.

“I thought about you in the shower this morning,” he says, “and when I get home at night, and every time I see you in an ad wearing a Raijin jersey.”

Your lips part.

“I always wanted you,” he says. “I just…”

“You were ashamed of me,” you roll your eyes at him. “You hid me like a mistress.”

“I was afraid!” He spits back. “When you wanted to go public it scared me! And then I lost you anyway.”

“Why?” You want to know, but all the ire has drained from your voice. You’ve never heard Rintarō say he was scared of anything. “I just wanted to go out on dates, not hide our identities, not lie to reporters. That’s it. We’re not that famous.”

Rintarō crosses his arms, looking down. You touch his elbow, trying to ease the flow of words. Maybe it’s wrong, but you don’t think you’re angry anymore.

“My dad,” his voice falters, “my father was a businessman. An important one. I don’t even share his last name. He kept my mom and my sister and me secret, so we wouldn’t be hounded by the media, so we wouldn’t be,” he swallows. “Affected if business went south. I grew up wearing a mask every time we went anywhere as a family, lying about who he was, all because they didn’t want us growing up feeling watched. He retired and I still… it’s habit not to talk about it.”

You suck in a breath, leaning a little heavier on him. He opens his arms, pulling you in, though part of you suspects that it’s so he doesn’t have to see your face while he confesses. You’d known that his father was absent in a strange way, or at least picked up on the pieces of information he’d been willing to drop during your short relationship. He preferred to talk about his mother, his sister—you understood now why.

No wonder he’d gone to school so far away from home, chasing not only his talent but an identity that could stand out without hurting his family.

You suddenly felt terribly sorry for it all: for pushing to make your relationship public when you’d been together, for letting your feelings for him die on that hill, for not slapping that manager across the face for asking something like this of him.

“I didn’t know,” you say, rubbing his back as best you could. “I’m so sorry. I never would have—I shouldn’t have—”

“I should have told you,” he says. “I shouldn’t have let you go. I didn’t know what to say.”

“I’m sorry,” you repeat.

You’re careless, he’d shot at you once, during one of those terrible fights. The words ring in your ears.

If you’ll take me back, I’ll treat this more carefully.

“No,” he shakes his head. “Don’t be. Just—I want to give you my—I want to try again for you.”

“You’ve thought about this a lot, huh,” you say softly, pulling back so you can look at him. His normal clear eyes are misty, hopeful in a sad, desperate way.

“All the time,” he admits. “If you can’t, I understand. I won’t bother you and I won’t—they could bring a contract with an idol and I’d throw it out. You won’t have to see that.”

“Oh, Rintarō,” you breathe. “I didn’t know you loved me like that.”

He winces, looking away from you. He parts his lips, but no noise comes out.

“We should, um, have dinner,” you say. “I miss cooking with you. I can bring salad stuff and maybe a few outfits? In case it runs long?”

He crushes you back against his chest. When he speaks, his voice is a whisper, better felt than heard.

“I’d like that.”

Several months later, when your phone lights up with the notification Pro V-ball player Suna Rintarō reveals secret relationship with model in tell-all interview, you swipe it (and the ensuing flood of social media notifications) away, opening your messaging app.

to: tarō 🖤, 14:37

we could’ve gotten paid for this

from: tarō 🖤 14:38

we could have but then u tore up the contract and ate it

biggest bag fumble of all time

to: tarō 🖤 14:38

you were the one who punched someone!!!

from: tarō 🖤 14:39

for u… so ungrateful

to: tarō 🖤 14:40

very grateful

let’s use the interview money to buy a private island and live in peace & quiet forever

from: tarō 🖤 14:42

bet

You don’t buy a private island, but in the tiny town you make your home in the off-season, close enough to commute for your work and far enough that no one thinks to look for you, you wake up with the curtains closed every morning and go out to dinner whenever you want. Small-town gossip is famous, but the only thing any of the residents ever say about the two of you is that the couple down the street is so lovely, always whispering and giggling in line at the grocery, always wrapped up in their own world, only occasionally garnering noise complaints from their neighbors.