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thetomorrowshow · 8 months ago

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Whumptober 28 - Denial

title: just one bite

fandom: secret life smp

cw: violence/gore, very unsafe/gross food practices, vomiting

Jimmy’s barely stepped out of the Cherry Blossoms’ Nether portal when—

“What? Hey—!”

Someone jumps on him from behind, shoving him almost to the ground. He staggers forward several steps, trying to toss them off—he catches a glimpse of red hair swinging in his face—

“Gem—” Jimmy grunts, shoving her backward against the edge of the portal. “Get—off—”

She growls in his ear, tearing at his shoulder (between his neck and his armor, a small patch covered by his shirt and usually his jacket, which he had shucked for his trip to the Nether) with her teeth, both hands occupied by holding onto him.

Her weight is heavy on his back, too heavy with how he’s still out of breath from dodging a ghast on his way to the portal, and he shoves back again and this time her grip loosens.

“Someone, help!” he shouts out of frustration, glancing around for anyone as he bucks, finally throwing Gem to the ground.

She scrambles up almost immediately, and for a moment, Jimmy’s certain she’ll jump him again (there’s a glint in her eye, something red that he really doesn’t like), but Scott comes sprinting out of a building, and Impulse comes down the hill from their tower, and Gem backs off, slowly wiping her mouth on the back of her hand.

“Everything okay?” Scott asks, stopping at a safe distance away, keeping a suspicious eye on Gem. Gem moves closer to Impulse, and the two of them have some moment of communication—she nods toward Jimmy, gives Impulse a significant look. He nods back.

Jimmy huffs, clutching his chest. “Jeez, Gem, give a man a heart attack! She jumped me on my way out of the portal!”

“Maybe you shouldn’t have come through our portal,” Impulse suggests, voice . . . flat, less joke-y than Jimmy would have expected.

Right.

“Well, I’ll just be going,” Jimmy says loudly, backing away toward the stairs—

Only to get bumped into by another person, sprinting on past like they didn’t even notice him.

Bdubs makes a beeline for Gem, where he stops and she . . . nods, again, at Jimmy.

He looks back.

Bdubs is Red, now, Jimmy saw that pop up on his communicator, but when did he throw in with Gem?

And why is the look he’s giving Jimmy almost . . . hungry?

Jimmy doesn’t like this.

He doesn’t like this one bit.

“Sorry, Jimmy,” Gem says, thoroughly unconvincingly, her voice devoid of emotion. “We’ll see you soon.”

And, erm.

That was.

“That was ominous,” Scott laughs nervously, and Jimmy has to agree.

Then he leaves, not quite turning his back on them.

There’s something strange going on there, no doubt. Probably best to let it be and focus on his own task.

When Jimmy gets back to Baxter (not back-to-back at Baxter, Martyn isn’t there and he really isn’t sure that he trusts Martyn, anyways, as the man is now the only Red and Jimmy thinks he might jump at the chance to make them both Red), he strips off his armor to replace his jacket and notices the tear in the shoulder of his shirt.

He frowns, tugs down the collar of his shirt, checks out his back in the tiny mirror that Martyn had found.

Okay, not bad. Where Gem had gotten him through his shirt, his skin is a little red, some small bruises sure to bloom soon enough. There’s a bit of blood with the fading imprint of Gem’s teeth, only two or three of them deep enough to actually pierce his skin.

Why on earth did Gem bite him? He can’t taste that good. What kind of task would she, a Yellow, have that would make her attack (and bite?) another Yellow?

Weird. It’s all weird.

Well, he has a minute, and he’s already at Baxter, so Jimmy pulls off his shirt and sets to fixing it up real quick, messy stitches pulling the hole closed.

That’s life. Sometimes your friends ambush you and bite your shoulder. Usually it’s their dog that bites you, of course, but sometimes they need to cut out the middle-man.

So really, Jimmy doesn’t pay it much mind. It doesn’t feel strange compared to some of the things he’s done in the past, honestly. Not normal, not necessarily, but not weird.

What possible bad effects could it even have, anyway?

“Timmy! Get in here!”

It’s that evening, and Jimmy was just stopping by the Roomies’ base to ask for a trade (his pickaxe just broke, he’s short one diamond to make another) only to find the place seemingly abandoned. He’d wandered around for a bit, knocking on doors and glancing about, but he’d finally assumed that nobody was home and decided to go try Pearl instead (though she did die earlier today, and he isn’t sure how amenable she’d be to trading).

But right as he was about to head out, a whispered shout got his attention.

Jimmy looks around again, frowning.

“Grian?” he asks uncertainly. “Are you here?”

A long sigh, and a couple of meters away, a trapdoor pops open, hidden by surrounding grass. Grian’s head pokes out, and he frantically waves Jimmy toward it.

“This isn’t suspicious at all,” Jimmy says. “Is this part of your task?”

“Forget the tasks, get in!”

Which is very unlike Grian.

So Jimmy lowers himself through the trapdoor, follows Grian down a ladder and then a thin, rough-hewn tunnel, then up another ladder until they come out . . . in the Roomies’ base.

“Why couldn’t we use the front door?”

“Trapped,” Cleo says shortly, coming down the stairs, Etho right behind her. “Grian? I thought you said that we weren’t letting anyone in?”

“It’s just Tim,” Grian waves her off. “We need someone we can use as bait.”

“Bait?!” Jimmy sputters, taking a careful step away from Grian. “I’m—I’m not bait! Bait for what?”

What’s with people and having tasks that seem to directly harm him?

Grian, Etho, and Cleo all make dark eye contact. Eye contact that Jimmy doesn’t trust, not one bit.

The front door’s trapped. He can try to go back the way he came, but he can’t get down a ladder faster than someone can drive a sword through him. His pick broke, so he can’t mine out.

“Have you noticed anything . . . weird . . . going on?” Grian asks after a moment, and Jimmy scoffs.

“Weird? Other than you luring me here to use as bait?”

“They’re zombies, Jimmy,” Etho says ominously, and Jimmy blinks.

“What’s zombies?” he asks, assuming they aren’t talking about normal zombies. Everybody knows that.

“The others,” says Grian. “Gem, Bdubs, Impulse, Pearl. We think it started with Gem—she killed Bdubs, right? Then Impulse. But—”

“She killed Pearl,” Cleo interrupts. “And I saw it. Tore her apart with her teeth.”

Jimmy’s stomach turns.

He’s not the biggest fan of violence, but he can get his hands dirty. Figuratively. He usually has to be at least a sword’s length from any death he causes, because he really isn’t a fan of blood and flesh and all that! It makes him queasy just to kill from a distance.

To imagine Gem, literally tearing into Pearl with her own teeth, blood and viscera dripping everywhere until Pearl eventually died in her arms?

Traumatizing.

Jimmy actually wants to vomit just thinking about it. He really doesn’t like gore.

The injury on his shoulder aches, just a little. He rubs it absently, trying to shake the horrible image from his mind. “So—so what makes them zombies?”

“They’re hunting,” Grian says. “Bdubs wasn’t allies with Gem, but now he won’t leave her side. Same with Pearl and Impulse. They’re all together, hunting every Green and Yellow left. They were after Scar, last I saw.”

“They look wrong,” Cleo frowns. “They’re stiff, and their eyes are . . . off.”

“They’re zombies,” Grian repeats, and Jimmy. . . .

Jimmy still doesn’t really believe them. Why—how would there be zombies?

“Sure,” he says, glancing back to the trapdoor. “Can I go now? I have a task, right, and—”

“It isn’t safe—”

“If you don’t want—”

“We need to find other people,” Etho says reasonably, silencing the other two. “Maybe Jimmy can go get Joel?”

“Or he can be bait,” Grian suggests again. Cleo nods.

“Well, now I don’t want to leave,” Jimmy mutters. “Prove that they’re zombies.”

“Right. Come with me,” Cleo says, pushing past Jimmy to head down the ladder.

Which is how Jimmy witnesses the hunt.

Cleo leads him across the map to the Secret Keeper, where they hide behind one of the boulders, poking their heads over just enough to see what happens. They make it there just in time for the hunt to cross past them.

It’s . . . disconcerting, if he says so himself. Four Players on horseback, chasing after Scar, who runs by, panting and exhausted, his hair damp with sweat. Scar climbs up the boulder they’re sheltering behind, shoots a couple of arrows at the pack that has stopped, waiting.

“C’mon, Scar,” Gem calls, and Jimmy hears it again. That odd emotionless quality, the feeling that, perhaps, she prefers not to speak. “You, of all people, will love it.”

“It’s right up your alley, Scar,” Pearl entices, and maybe it’s a trick of his ears, but she sounds the same way. Still Pearl, but . . . not-quite-right.

“No! No thanks!” Scar yells, voice jumpy and panicked and downright terrified. “I don’t want to join your little murder cult, thanks!”

He ducks as an arrow whizzes over his head, and Scar shrieks before running away again.

The pack follows.

Cleo stays frozen for another moment, head tilted slightly as she listens, presumably ensuring that they’ll be safe.

That. . . .

That wasn’t right. Like, Jimmy’s sure that he can justify it with relatively few mental gymnastics, but it wasn’t normal behavior.

“I need to get some stuff from my base,” he whispers, and Cleo shushes him, but doesn’t tell him no, so Jimmy scrambles down from the boulder and makes a break for Baxter.

What does he need? Some food, probably. A note for Martyn—hey M, zombies!!! bye -J—enough iron to craft up an iron pick if he never gets another diamond, a change of clothes, some other necessary survival-y things.

And when he leaves Baxter, he finds Cleo with Scar again, over at the Heart Foundation.

“Scar,” Cleo’s saying, looking down at him from a horse (when had she gotten a horse?) that seems to be very skittish around the quite new fire spreading up to the heart. That hadn’t been happening when he left. “Scar, the ones chasing you—”

It’s out of nowhere that Pearl and Gem ambush Scar, shooting at him as the man jumps away, fear fresh on his face—

Then Pearl leaps off her horse and sprints, faster than should be possible, diving into Scar and knocking him to the ground. Jimmy winces as the arrow in Scar’s back get twisted under her weight, but he barely has a moment to notice it before Pearl buries her teeth into Scar’s upper arm.

Scar screams, flailing, and Pearl pulls back, stringy flesh snapping free in a burst of blood, and goodness gracious Jimmy might throw up, his legs are trembling and his palms are all clammy—

Gem dives to Scar as well, and her teeth dig into his cheek—

A hand grabs the back of Jimmy’s shirt and he panics, kicking out blindly, he doesn’t want to die like that—but it’s just Cleo; she sits him in front of her on the horse and snaps the reins and off they ride.

Jimmy doesn’t watch. He doesn’t watch, but he can’t cover his ears. He can’t not-hear Scar’s warbling pleas for help, his agonized screams, the slow trail-off.

His communicator buzzes.

He doesn’t have to check it to know.

“I told you,” Cleo reminds him, and Jimmy swallows several times.

“I’m gonna throw up,” Jimmy manages.

“Not on me.”

That night, back in the new housing arrangement, Jimmy’s hand brushes against his own shoulder while changing and his breath vanishes from his chest.

No.

If the zombies is a real thing, and Gem’s the one who started it—

Jimmy doesn’t look at the bite. He can’t. Well, he can—Grian has a mirror, but he won’t. He won’t look and see if it’s progressed.

His skin is a bit warm under his touch, though.

Probably just because he’s had his hand on it for so long. He just warmed up his skin, is all. He’s fine.

It still hurts. It still twinges when he presses on it, his shoulder aching just a bit, through and through.

He’ll be fine. They probably have to kill him, right? He’s fine.

Jimmy pulls on his nightshirt, careful that the collar doesn’t slide down in the back, and opens the door to the bedroom, before pulling the rough wool blanket off Grian’s bed and laying it out on the floor, where he’s decided to spend the night.

Goodness gracious. He didn’t expect this to happen this week.

“There’s five of them, then,” Grian says, walking in and stripping off his sweater, left in his white undershirt. He stretches, briefly flexes his muscles (defined by the hard work that comes with joining a new server) in the mirror before throwing himself onto the bed. “Great. I really wanted to have to worry about a zombie apocalypse on top of all my other problems, you know?”

“Yeah,” Jimmy chuckles. “I’ve got a task to do, dude!”

“I’m just surprised they haven’t got you, yet. You’ve cheated death way too many times already.”

Jimmy doesn’t touch his shoulder. He doesn’t even think about it. “Yeah. Guess I’m stuck with you, huh?”

Grian groans. “Tim, I really don’t want to babysit you this week. I’ve already got a dishwasher to keep an eye on, I don’t need two responsibilities.” “You won’t even notice I’m here.”

“Right. You’d better not betray me after this. I gave up space in my bedroom for you.”

Jimmy would never betray him.

He hopes.

It’s day two, and Jimmy’s feeling . . . fine.

Which is a relief, honestly. He skips breakfast to go on a walk, the early morning fog not-quite-cleared, around the back of the base and up the hill, where he stops on the bed monument and sits, the sheets a bit damp from dew.

He slips off his pack, massages his shoulder as he looks out.

He’s not spent much time on this part of the map. It’s nice, different from where he’s set up. It’s very green here, plenty of trees and scurrying animals and whatnot. If he looks to the left, he can see a bit of the mesa, and he briefly hopes that Martyn’s doing all right.

Who is he kidding? Of course Martyn’s doing all right! It’s Martyn, he’s been Red for ages and fine the whole time. And it isn’t like he could even become a zombie—he’d just be out of the game, wouldn’t he?

Facing forward, he can see the Heart Foundation, a grey drab of smoke still hanging over the remains of their heart. Jimmy can see them down there, Tango cooking something up in their open-air kitchen, Skizz feeding their horses.

It’s quiet, this morning.

Jimmy likes the quiet. He really, truly does. He complains about it sometimes, and he’ll be the first to admit that he can get a little loud, but some of his favorite moments in the Southlands had been those nights on watch, just him looking out over the wall at the rest of the world, thinking fondly of the friends who trusted him to protect them.

They should set up a watch, shouldn’t they? Sure, they’ve trapped the entrance, but that won’t stop a dedicated Player by any means. Especially not a team of five of them.

Has Scott been recruited?

(By which he means, of course, has Gem pinned down her closest ally, tearing chunks out of his face as he begs and screams for mercy, her loyal zombies descending upon him like a pack of hungry wolves.)

He left his communicator inside, hasn’t checked it since last night.

Scott could be down. Joel could be. BigB. Not Tango or Skizz, he can see them. Not Martyn, Red as he is. Not Grian, Cleo, or Etho. Not him.

Not him.

Jimmy scrubs a hand down the stubble on his cheek, resolutely ignoring the soreness in his shoulder.

This is just a task. A task that's turning a concerning amount of people Red, but a task nonetheless. If the aim of the task is to change everyone into a zombie, then they'll either achieve it or the time will run out.

They have to survive a week, all told.

They can do that. Jimmy isn't great at surviving in the best of times, but he refuses to let himself die.

He refuses to become a zombie. It makes him want to vomit, even as he pushes his imagination away from the idea of biting down on one of his friends, chewing dripping mouthfuls of—

Jimmy swallows. Twice. He won't throw up.

Then, from behind—the crunching of bramble, footsteps through the woods—

Jimmy spins around, and Joel freezes, sword raised.

“Are you—?” Joel manages, voice rough. He doesn't finish his question. He doesn't need to.

Joel looks like he's been living in a nightmare. His hair is unbrushed, leaves and twigs stuck in it. His hoodie is missing, shirt is torn and fraying at the edges, one long thread trailing down to his mud-stained knees. The shadows under his eyes are deep and oily, his eyes just the tiniest bit red around the rims.

Jimmy shakes his head. “A—a zombie? No, I—are you—?”

Quick as a flash, Joel launches into him. Jimmy barely has time to put his hands up, to do anything, he didn’t bring a weapon with him like an idiot and now he’s going to die—

Joel knocks them both to the ground (Jimmy’s shoulder lands on a stone and a whimper of pain escapes his lips), entirely on top of him, his sword thrown to the side, and Jimmy doesn’t have time to protest because he knows with sickening certainty that Joel’s teeth are about to rip out his throat and it’ll be so gross.

Joel’s face is right in front of his, suddenly, and Jimmy swallows. His wide eyes are fixed on him, unable to leave his face.

Joel is very close. Far too close. Jimmy doesn’t struggle, terrified as he is (though his face warms, blood rushing to it).

Joel’s breath is hot against his nose, his chest heaving against Jimmy’s chest, and Joel grins, teeth shining with saliva, and leans in even further.

“Me neither,” he whispers, lips practically touching Jimmy’s cheek, before rolling off of Jimmy and onto the dirt.

Jimmy swallows again.

“You should’ve seen your face,” Joel laughs, sheathing his sword. “You absolutely thought I was going to eat you, didn’t you?”

Jimmy shakes his head (less as an answer, more as a way to dispel the embarrassing lack of thoughts). “I just—well, anyone could be—”

Joel just laughs again, then starts picking his way down the hill. “Is Etho all right, then? I imagine you wouldn’t be here if there wasn’t someone here already.”

Jimmy rolls onto his side. He’d had bread in his backpack; hopefully it hasn’t been squished by his sudden slam to the ground.

He did not expect to get pinned by Joel when he woke up this morning.

And—not pinned, not—even if that’s what happened, it isn’t—

Right. No more thinking.

Jimmy rubs his shoulder, then follows Joel in.

It’s day three, and Jimmy definitely isn’t feeling quite right.

He’s fine, of course. He’s doing well, even. It’s really just the pressure of everything terrible that’s stopping him from feeling entirely perfect, and nothing else.

Martyn shows up around seven in the evening, and he stands outside of the barricaded wall built around the base with crossed arms as Grian looks down disdainfully from the top of the hill.

“I was Red last week, and you let me in,” Martyn shouts up at him. “It’s not fair! You can’t discriminate against me, just because I’m Red! I’ll file a report with . . . with somewhere, I’ll get you canceled!”

“The rules are clear,” Cleo calls down, standing beside Grian. Jimmy, up on the wall, grimaces an apology to Martyn. “No Reds.”

Martyn does the best impression of a kicked puppy that Jimmy’s ever seen, eyes huge and lip trembling.

“Please?” he asks, voice wavering. “I won’t do anything bad, promise!” “He’ll pee on everything,” Jimmy tells Etho beside him.

Etho raises an eyebrow.

Martyn ignores them. “Security wasn’t near this strict before,” he says, voice smoothly segueing into conspiratorial. “What’s with all the extra care? A couple of Yellows are feeling insecure?”

Cleo and Grian exchange a look. Joel, still working on reinforcing the wall, glances over.

“You . . . you know there’s zombies, right?” Grian asks slowly.

Martyn shrugs. “I mean, yeah? Every night. There always have been, I don’t know why this is news to you lot.”

“Other zombies,” Cleo clarifies. “There are. They’re becoming zombies.”

Martyn’s head tilts in confusion. “What’s becoming zombies? The horses? I thought that was established already.”

“No, it’s—it isn’t—”

“Is this someone’s task? Something to do with not seeing a single zombie all week?”

“Just let him believe that,” Grian says tiredly, as Cleo tries to continue explaining. “He’s immune, anyways. No real use trying.”

“Sorry,” Jimmy says, leaning over the wall.

Martyn clicks his tongue. “Timmy. What happened to the Big Dogs, huh?”

“Well, I’m pretty sure you were gonna kill me this week. . . .”

“I would ne—well, I would do that, actually, can’t really blame you. Still, Baxter’s missing you. He gets lonely, up on that hill all by himself.”

Jimmy shrugs. “Sorry,” he says. Then, because he does feel a little bad about abandoning Martyn with barely any warning, adds, “I’ll be back next week, okay? It’s . . . part of my task.”

“Oh,” Martyn nods knowingly. “Infiltrate another alliance. All right, Tim, see you around!” He skips off, whistling a high-pitched tune, and Etho shakes his head and clambers down from the wall.

Cleo and Grian leave the hill, go inside through the secret tunnel, and Joel finishes up the part of the wall that he’s been working on and follows Etho in, and Jimmy’s alone on the wall, staring out after Martyn as he leaves.

He’s fine.

His hands are shaking.

“Jimmy, come get dinner,” Joel calls from inside the base, and Jimmy shouts back some sort of response but he doesn’t move.

They have to die to become a zombie, don’t they? His—it doesn’t count. He’s still alive, he’s still Yellow.

The aching pain in his shoulder doesn’t mean anything. It’s just a bruise. It’s a bruise that is taking a little too long to heal and that’s okay. It’s probably a bone bruise, honestly. That’s why it’s healing slowly. Bone bruises take forever.

He really, really doesn’t want to be a zombie. He hasn’t done anything for his task all week because all he can think about is this awful apocalypse. How on earth Grian’s managing to do whatever it is he’s doing with that Magma Cube is far beyond Jimmy.

He can’t die. If he dies, he might become one of them. Even if he only has the tiniest bit of zombie infection in his shoulder. If that’s even true. Which it isn’t. More likely, it’s just a normal injury that’s part and parcel of these games.

“Oh, Jimmy!”

Jimmy’s heart freezes in his chest.

At some point, his eyes had drifted down to his shoes, scuffed and dirty, but now he looks back up, dread sinking down his throat.

Scar, coming into view down the path, twirling a shining knife around (one that Jimmy knows, with horrid certainty, he won’t use). His voice is oddly flat, his pace somewhat jolting as he skips his way toward the wall. Behind him, on horseback, are Gem and Pearl. Impulse and Bdubs are nowhere to be seen—that gives them something of a better chance, at least.

But before Jimmy can feel any sort of relief over that, another group catches his eye—Tango, Skizz, BigB, all headed around the side toward the base.

Oh no.

No, they’re being flanked, aren’t they?

“Come on, Jimmy!” Gem yells. “You know you need to, let’s just hurry things up a bit!”

His tongue feels stuck to the roof of his mouth, his feet welded to the ground. They’re here, and this is going to prove once and for all that their defenses don’t work and then it’ll be a bloodbath and goodness gracious he wants to vomit just thinking about it—

“Hey! Leave them alone!” That’s Skizz’s voice, loud and spitting fire, storming over to stand between the zombies and the wall, and oh so they haven’t been turned, that makes things quite a bit better.

“H-Help!” Jimmy manages, given strength by the Heart Foundation’s stance, and they’re human and he can’t just abandon them, can he? “Grian! Joel! They’re here, help!”

He fumbles for his bow, leaning on the wall of the parapet—but his fingers feel weak and can’t quite grasp the string. He drops his arrow before he can fire it, and is he even allowed to fire it? He’s still on Yellow, after all—can he fire it?

His moral quandary is brought to an abrupt halt as Grian pops up from the tunnel, scaling the wall in a matter of seconds. He frowns down at the opposing groups below, then whistles sharply.

“BigB,” he says, and BigB, now beside Skizz, glances up.

“Oh, hey, G.”

Scar grins, his eyes glinting, and Jimmy takes a step back.

“What’s going on?”

Joel has shown up, pushing himself out of the ground, and Etho follows him, both already drawing weapons.

“They’re here,” says Grian grimly. Etho shrugs, stretches.

“Guess we’d better face them, then,” he says, resigned in an almost upbeat way.

“Is Scott with them?” Cleo asks, rolling out of the hole and onto the ground.

Grian hums. “Don’t see him.”

“We aren’t here for a little chat,” Impulse calls up to them. Pearl hums, practically drooling. “We’re hungry. You all get it, don’t you?”

Jimmy swallows. He does feel hungry—just a bit, in the pit of his stomach. But it’s probably because he only had a piece of bread for lunch and he hasn’t eaten anything for dinner yet. It isn’t—it’s not the same kind of hunger.

“Plenty of food on the server,” Grian says evenly. “If you wanted a lunch invite, you should’ve just asked.”

“Oh my gosh, they smell so good,” Scar stage-whispers, loud enough that Jimmy can clearly hear. “Can we please just go for them? I really want to sink my teeth into Etho.”

“Nobody move,” Grian throws behind himself, digging in his satchel. He turns his attention back to the intruders. “You’re out of luck, fellas! Nothing to see here. Nobody’s home, even!”

“Hey, uh, Grian?” Tango asks nervously. “You mind letting us in?”

“Don’t let Tango in!” objects Etho, striding toward the gate to get the man in his line of sight. “He died earlier, he’s one of them.”

“I—what? No, I’m—”

“Come on,” Pearl drawls, then everything is thrown into chaos.

Skizz lunges at the zombies, sword drawn, forcing Gem’s horse to stumble back and Pearl to slide down from her saddle, pulling out her axe. At the same time, Grian finds what he’s looking for and throws it at Scar—an Enderman spawn egg that cracks on the ground next to Scar, an Enderman folding up out of it.

And Etho, sudden panic choking his voice, says, “Oh—Grian, I looked at it—”

The Enderman vanishes with a vwoop, then reappears in the base, arms reaching out toward Etho—

Etho runs, shoving out the gate and across the thinning woods, Scar whoops and takes chase, Tango darts in through the now-open gate, and Jimmy leaps down from the wall and follows after Etho, the screaming Enderman, and Scar.

He isn’t sure what he intends to do—kill the Enderman? Stop Scar?—but he follows, struggling to get his sword out of its sheath.

“Get him, Scar!” Gem encourages, far too close, and Jimmy glances to his left to see her loping along on her horse, keeping easy pace with the train of runners.

She could kill him, no problem. She would just have to divert her course a little bit, slam an arrow into his chest, swing her sword as she galloped by.

The fact that she doesn’t is more disconcerting than anything.

Jimmy just keeps running, feet pounding against the ground, backpack bouncing on his back, air coming in gasps.

Etho is having a worse time of it—he’s dodging and weaving to try and keep away from the Enderman, but his detours mean that Scar is quickly closing the distance between them, his sword poised to strike.

Can Jimmy attack him if he tries to kill Etho?

Does he dare?

He can hear Etho’s heaving breaths, the stones on the beach of the lake scattering under his feet, and Etho’s sword clatters against those same stones as he tosses it to the side and splashes into the water, immediately slowed by the drag of water against his legs. Scar continues in after him, slashing out—the sword cuts across Etho’s arm, just missing his armor, and Etho grunts but keeps pushing until the water becomes deep enough to swim.

Jimmy slows to a stop as he approaches the beach, the burned Heart Foundation base a dark shape over the murky water. Etho’s trying to make it there, the water chopping loudly under his windmilling arms, but Scar strikes—

“Don’t—” Etho cries out, the sound half-drowned as his head sinks under the water—

And again—

And Scar takes a weakly struggling Etho and drags him up onto the Heart Foundation, ignoring his waterlogged coughs to straddle his legs and bite into his chest.

Jimmy does vomit this time.

He really, finally does, he falls to his knees on the rocks and just turns his insides out, hacking and coughing and trying not to hear Etho’s screams over his retches.

He fails.

He hears the flesh tearing from bone, squelches and creaks and horrible gurgling, and what’s even worse is that he can smell the blood.

He can smell Etho’s blood from here, where the stones dig into his knees and his vomit paints the ground—he can practically taste the coppery viscousness floating over on the air. It rests heavy on the back of his bile-flooded tongue; Jimmy bites the taste back (not swallowing it, not devouring it) and pushes himself to his feet, even as the last of Etho’s cries fall silent.

He couldn’t save him.

When Jimmy looks up, Gem is still there. Sitting on her horse, watching him.

She’s going to kill him, now. She’s going to lick her lips and leap for him, and Jimmy’s too shaky from puking to even think about defending himself.

She doesn’t move, though. She stays, and offers him a humorless smile, and raises an eyebrow.

“Ready?” she asks, and Jimmy isn’t sure how to respond.

Instead, he picks up Etho’s sword in the hand that isn’t holding his own and sprints back toward the base.

“I’ll be fine,” Joel reassures Grian, hitching his backpack higher up on his back. “They know I’m here, they’d never think I’d go back to my base.”

It’s the fourth day, and Joel is leaving for supplies.

Jimmy’s feeling. . . .

Well, he wouldn’t say that he’s doing well.

His entire arm is burning. All the way down to his fingertips, buzzy and painful and nauseating. He hasn’t eaten anything, his stomach churning near-constantly.

He’s been ignoring it for too long, but he doesn’t dare look at his shoulder in the mirror. He can feel it, feel the heat that radiates from it, how swollen it’s become.

He’s fine.

He’s fine, and he’s hungry, and he’s fine.

(He’s hungry, but the food that Grian cooks tastes like ash in his mouth, and his stomach is constantly rebelling, so he usually only manages a couple of mouthfuls before feeding the rest of the plate to Cleo’s dogs.)

(And Jimmy watches Joel go, and something in the pit of his stomach growls at the sight of his friend.)

Grian’s certain that the zombie curse is Gem’s task, that she has to turn everyone she can. If he’s right, then it should wear off when the new week starts.

Jimmy’s already made it four days. That’s over halfway through. He can do three more.

Joel, apparently, can’t.

It’s after lunch that day that their communicators buzz with a dreaded message. Joel’s fallen to Gem, which means he’s joined the zombie crew.

That leaves so few of them. Grian, Cleo. Skizz, Tango, BigB. Scott, presumably.

Jimmy.

Jimmy spends most of the day away from the others, gathering food in the surrounding woods. There isn’t much to scavenge, at this point—he finds some berries, an apple tree (nothing that looks remotely appealing). One of Cleo’s traps has a rabbit in it, but he doesn’t touch it.

The bloody fur and raw flesh is the first thing to look somewhat appetizing to him.

On second thought—

Before Jimmy realizes what he’s doing, he’s disabled the game trap and dug his teeth into the mangled fur of the rabbit, tearing into its flesh with wild abandon. His handkerchief of berries falls to the ground and he eats, congealed blood smearing onto his cheeks, it’s—but he barely manages three bites before he’s violently vomiting all over his hands and the carcass, dropping to his knees as his body spasms and rejects the horrid meal.

No. No, that’s—

There are probably bugs on it, maggots, even, he just started eating a dead, raw rabbit without even wanting it, and there’s fur caught in his teeth and his mouth tastes foul—

He has to get rid of the evidence.

He isn’t a zombie. He isn’t.

Jimmy picks up the remains of the carcass and starts sprinting, down to the lake, where he throws the rabbit as far as he can. It lands with a plosh in the water, sinking instantly, and Jimmy sticks his hands in the water as well, washing them of his vomit and the rabbit.

That was—

He feels shaky.

Of course he feels shaky, and it has nothing to do with his cravings. He hasn’t properly eaten anything in ages and he’s thrown up twice in the past two days, there’s nothing in his body to fuel him.

But how can he eat when nothing sits in his stomach?

He’s not going to become one of them, but if he starves himself it’ll be the same difference. He has to figure out a way to eat something. Something close enough to whatever it is he craves that it’ll stay down. And it has to be closer than a rabbit carcass, he thinks, shuddering.

He unstraps his waterskin and swishes some lukewarm water around in his mouth, spits onto the stony beach.

He’ll make it through this.

And he’ll get this horrid taste out of his mouth.

Cleo has a bucket of rotten flesh that she keeps outside the doghouse, used to feed her pets.

That’s where Jimmy gets his supper.

He feigns eating the porkchops that Tango serves, squirreling bites away in his napkin when no one’s looking. Then, when Cleo wakes him up for the second watch, he sneaks out to the doghouse and raids the bucket, taking whole handfuls of squishy, dripping flesh, flies buzzing away.

He eats it right there, leaning over the bucket, too hungry to be as disgusted as he wants to be. He stuffs fistfulls of stinking, green-tinged meat into his mouth, barely chewing as it slides wetly down his throat, landing in his stomach with a sensation that’s almost physical.

It isn’t quite what he wants, but it works. It doesn’t satisfy the craving, it doesn’t make his arm stop burning, but he starts to feel like he can think through the hunger again.

He stops himself before he can eat too much. It wouldn’t do to finally find something that’ll stay down, only to overstuff himself and get sick. And he can’t take enough that Cleo notices that her stock has depleted.

Jimmy washes his hands with a calm sort of detachedness, willing himself not to think of what he’s just done and how revolting it was. If he doesn’t think about it, he can ignore it.

And ignore it he does, until he’s patrolling up the hill, looking out over the server.

There’s someone out there, far off. Climbing around the Secret Keeper’s boulders. Martyn, hopefully. Martyn’s still out there kicking, somewhere, and Jimmy doesn’t want to think about what would happen if the zombies were up at this hour.

Then he freezes, every line of his body going stiff, as he feels something hard poke into the small of his back.

“Hey, babe. Been all right without me?”

Jimmy swallows, his throat gone dry.

The pressure on his back releases, and he turns around as slowly as he can manage, hands held up to show that he doesn’t have a weapon.

Joel’s there. Of course Joel is there. Jimmy had recognized his voice, flat and unaffected as it was.

His eyes glint dully with red, his skin pale in the moonlight. He sheathes his sword, sweeps back his dark hair.

Jimmy swallows again, the rotten flesh threatening to make a reappearance. Joel takes a step closer, his eyes boring into Jimmy.

“I—get out, I’ll wake the others—”

“You’re hungry, aren’t you?”

Jimmy clamps his mouth shut. Joel smirks, eyes lighting up.

“You are,” he says. “Gem told me you’re one of us. I didn’t believe her. How’ve you been hiding it this long?”

He’s not. He’s not hungry, he’s not one of them.

“You didn’t really eat much, though, did you?” Joel contemplates aloud. “I made you a sandwich yesterday, and you didn’t eat more than a bite. Are you really starving yourself over this?”

“I’m not starving,” protests Jimmy. “I’m—I’m fine.”

“When did you last eat?”

“I—half an hour ago.”

Joel raises an eyebrow. “So late? What, were you waiting to sneak raw meat? I’ve heard that raw pork is about as close to human flesh as you can get.”

“Rotten flesh is closer,” Jimmy argues, before he realizes what he’s just admitted. Joel chokes out a shocked laugh, just as flat as his voice.

“You—sorry, rotten flesh? Rotten flesh? Jimmy,” Joel says, voice dripping with astonished pity. “That’s probably the grossest thing I’ve ever heard. How could you—?”

“You don’t get it!” Jimmy bursts out, and now he can’t control the words spilling out of his mouth because he’s been on edge for days— “You don’t—I’m fighting every day! Nothing tastes good, I keep throwing up, my friends are dying all around me and then trying to kill my other friends, my arm hurts so bad—”

He cuts himself off, tears burning at the corners of his eyes. The rotten flesh had filled the gaping hole in his stomach momentarily, but the hunger is roaring again, stronger than ever. He can’t even think about it—just the idea of cannibalizing his friends makes him tremble in fear, but it seems so—

So—

“Jimmy.”

He shakes his head, eyes on the ground. “No. I don’t—”

“Just give in.”

“I can’t. I won’t.”

Joel places a gentle finger under Jimmy’s chin (when did they get so close?), tilts his eyes up to meet his. Jimmy’s breath catches in his chest; he stares at Joel, lips trembling.

“Just let go,” Joel breathes, eyes fixed on Jimmy’s. “Don’t you want to be satisfied? After so long of denying yourself?”

Jimmy’s tongue darts out, wets his lips. As much as it disgusts him, he really, really doesn’t want to be hungry anymore.

“Does it hurt?” he whispers. Perhaps it’s that, the fear of the pain, the fear of letting go, that’s been making him hold on so long.

Joel winces. “Yeah,” he says, voice still low. “It hurts. But after that . . . after that, it feels so good. Better than you can imagine.”

It does hurt, then.

If there’s anything that Jimmy doesn’t do, it’s pain. He hates pain almost as much as he hates violence and gore, getting anxious over the smallest anticipated harm.

He’ll hold out. The hunger hurts, but it’s a pain he knows.

“Think about it,” Joel says softly, his breath warming Jimmy’s lips. “I’ll be waiting.”

He slips away, into the darkness of the woods. Jimmy stands there a moment longer, chin still elevated, until he can no longer hear Joel’s footsteps heading away.

Then he falls to his knees and sobs.

It’s the fifth day, and Jimmy can barely breathe.

He can’t look at any of his friends without craving them, without longing to sink his teeth into their flesh, and it grosses him out but he can’t stop thinking about it.

Grian’s skin looks so soft, especially the skin right under his chin, above his adam’s apple. Jimmy watches it move as they eat, scrambled eggs that squirm their way down Jimmy’s throat and will surely come back up later. He keeps his eyes fixed on Grian’s throat, pretending that he’s chewing that instead of eggs, and the imagined sensation of blood and skin filling his mouth makes the food almost bearable.

It also makes his hunger that much worse, though, so he abandons the breakfast table as soon as possible, hurrying out to check the game traps.

His arm is useless, at this point. It hurts almost as much as the hunger, has become a chunk of deadweight at his side, heat branching out from him to spread to the rest of his body.

For far too long, Jimmy contemplates just cutting it off and eating it, but would that count? Would it count to eat his own flesh, or does it have to be someone new?

Also, then he’d probably bleed out and just die anyway. That wouldn’t be helpful.

He ends up digging in the bucket of rotten flesh after he pukes up the eggs, shoving the gooey, stinking flesh into his mouth, shuddering and gagging with each piece he forces himself to eat.

It isn’t enough. It isn’t enough, but he can’t. He isn’t one of them. He’s human.

He’s sweating all the time now. The heat from his arm has started burning away at his body, carrying an incurable fever. It’s like his body knows exactly what he’s resisting and is determined to make him suffer about it.

“Jimmy, you doing okay?” Tango asks later that day (evening, the sun beginning to set, Jimmy’s head pounding and his stomach growling every other minute), as they feed Cleo’s dogs. Tango turns the bucket over into the yard, frowns as only a small pile plops out.

“Yeah? Why? Why wouldn’t I be doing okay?”

Tango shrugs. “I dunno, man. You look like you’re coming down with something. Are you feeling all right?”

“I’m—I’m great!” Jimmy blusters, tension flowing through his stomach in choppy waves. “I, I mean—maybe a bit warm, but—”

“Better than the zombies?” Tango quips with a grin.

Jimmy swallows. “Um. Yep.”

Maybe it’s speaking of them that summons them. Maybe they just can’t resist such succulent, intoxicating human flesh. Jimmy’s having enough of a hard time with it, and he isn’t even one of them.

But the zombies turn back up, jeering and chanting for them to come out and fight, and Jimmy heaves his chestplate on and picks up his sword to go meet them at the gates before remembering that someone should make sure they aren’t coming in from the back.

He pokes his head over the wall—Gem and Pearl and Impulse are there, but there’s no sign of Joel or Scar or Etho.

That can’t be good news.

“Grian,” Jimmy hisses, sidling over to where Grian is boredly listening to the zombies’ cries, his bow trained on them. “The back. Half of them aren’t even here, they might be coming in the back!”

Then, high on the air, a whistling sound—an arrow flying toward them—

Jimmy moves instinctively. He leaps onto Grian, pushing him down against the parapet, his nose buried into Grian’s soft hair, the hilt of the man’s sword jabbing into his stomach.

The arrow soars over them, landing somewhere on the other side of the wall—landing in Gem, if the answering scream has anything to do with it.

“Sorry! Sorry, I was aiming for Grian—”

Grian’s skin is so close to Jimmy’s mouth right now.

He goes still, breath catching in his chest. Wave after wave after wave of desperate hunger crashes into him.

He—

Then Grian pushes him off, and the moment is broken.

Right, right, Jimmy needs to get a hold of himself—

“Thanks,” Grian mutters, then rolls to his feet, turning his bow behind them.

Sure enough, Joel, Scar, and Etho are standing on top of their base, not far from where Jimmy had spoken to Joel just last night. Had that talk been Joel scouting out the area for a surprise attack? How could he have let it go on for so long without alerting anyone to Joel’s presence?

Joel—it looks like he smirks at Jimmy, though from this distance, it’s hard to tell. Jimmy turns away, raising his sword threateningly toward the zombies on the ground.

Down there, Gem is on the ground, trying to work an arrow out of her chest. Pearl and Impulse are beside her, swords raised against any further attack.

“Tango! Uh-oh, uh-oh—”

Skizz, on Grian’s other side, sprints past Jimmy, almost knocking him off the wall. He jumps off and runs toward the staircase up the hill, and Jimmy watches—Tango’s on the steps, fleeing the hill, panic in his eyes and an arrow in his shield—

Skizz doesn’t last long.

It’s mere moments before screams echo down the hill.

“Come on!” Grian yells, and Jimmy blindly follows him down and up the hill, joining Cleo and BigB already on their way. The four of them round the top of the staircase right as Joel pulls a bite of flesh away from Skizz’s arm with an awful ripping sound, blood spurting everywhere.

Grian leaps into action, forcing Etho to drop Skizz’s other arm and defend himself, even as Scar bites Skizz’s neck, blood quickly soaking Skizz’s shirt. Skizz screams and screams, free arm twitching up and back down, his lifeblood and chunks of flesh just falling to the ground as two zombies tear at him like they haven’t eaten in weeks—

Even as Cleo starts forward, Skizz’s tortured eyes roll back into his head and his body goes limp, dropping like a deadweight. Joel enjoys one more bite (and there’s something in his eyes, boring into Jimmy’s, something inviting and proud and gloating) before abandoning the body, running for the woods. Scar and Etho follow, Etho getting a good slash in on Grian’s upper arm before fleeing entirely.

Jimmy stares at Skizz’s remains, at how much red there is. Someone tore off his cheek before they got there, part of his jaw visible, redstained teeth eerily peering out at them. The air stinks with the scent of his blood, worse than any butcher’s shop, worse than any battlefield.

Jimmy’s stomach turns.

It always does. It always does, he can’t stand gore and violence, he can’t see it happen without bone-shaking terror and enough nausea to make a shipful of sailors hurl their guts over the railing, and right now is no different.

Jimmy collapses to his knees and pukes, two meals’ worth of rotten flesh coming up slimier than it had gone down.

“Timmy saved my life, really,” Grian says, slapping Jimmy hard on the back.

It’s the sixth day.

“Then puked on your shoes,” Cleo points out.

“Yeah, well. He knows I won’t forgive him for that, no use trying. But I think Scar’s arrow would’ve hit me off the wall if Tim hadn’t tackled me.”

“It’s good to have you on our side, Rancher,” Tango says proudly.

Jimmy doesn’t say a word.

He can’t open his mouth.

If he does, he doesn’t think he’ll be able to resist digging his teeth into Grian.

The man is right beside him, one heavy arm still weighing down his shoulders, and Jimmy is overly conscious of how close their cheeks are. He can’t think of anything but that, can’t think of anything at all except turning his head to attack Grian’s face, tear his skin from his flesh, eat and eat and eat until he can’t feel the starving fever that gnaws on his very bones.

It hurts so, so much.

He can’t continue like this.

If—a deal. A deal with himself. If Grian keeps holding on for ten more seconds, he’ll go for it. He’ll give in. He’ll finally give in. But if—if Grian lets go, then—

Before he can finish defining the deal in his feverish, disconnected thoughts, Grian hops away, off to the small kitchen in the corner, dishing up toast for everyone.

“Skizz will definitely come for me and BigB,” Tango says, taking one of the plates from the counter and sitting at the table. “This place isn’t working anymore—every time they get another one, they’ll just be one closer to totally overwhelming us.”

“So we need to hide,” nods Cleo.

“We need to get out of here,” Grian agrees. “I was thinking maybe the mesa? We can pay Martyn off to keep them distracted, maybe, and hide in the tunnels where we got the Warden.”

“Wouldn’t Etho want to check there?”

“Oh, right, that might be the first place. . . .”

“We could go to my backrooms,” BigB says.

“That sounds terrifying.”

“What? They’re totally normal!”

Sweat drips into Jimmy’s eyes.

The conversation blurs into background noise.

Grian’s not wearing any armor. Cleo already slapped on a chestplate, and Tango and BigB are fully kitted out, but Grian’s still just wearing his sweater and jeans.

He looks. . . .

His stomach is so empty. Jimmy’s stomach feels like it’s tearing itself apart. That’ll kill him. He’s starving.

Surely. . . .

Surely one bite won’t turn him into a zombie?

Just—just one bite, just something to ease the hunger pangs the slightest bit, something to tide him over until the end of the week. He won’t take any more than that, just that one bite, and then he’ll be quiet and do his job, he promises.

Just one bite, one bite of Grian’s mouthwatering flesh, surely he wouldn’t begrudge him one bite? Jimmy saved his life, after all. One bite won’t turn him into a zombie—after all, Jimmy was bit ages ago, and he’s fine!

One bite can’t hurt. It would just be to quell his shaking mind. He’s fine, he just needs one bite. Just one bite.

The sun coming through the window warms Grian’s cheek, a slight rose tinting his pale flesh as he laughs at something Cleo said. It looks delectable, melt-in-the-mouth, disgustingly delicious and it’s everything Jimmy needs, he just needs a little bit, just one bite, that’s all, just the cheek—or some other part, wherever is least inconvenient for Grian, wherever he wants it to be, just one bite—

“Don’t you think, Tim—”

Jimmy can’t hold himself back. He dives across the table with a crash that shakes the whole house, sending toast and plates flying, reaching for Grian, mouth already open—

“Jimmy!” “Hey, what—” He has to! None of them understand, he has to, Jimmy can’t survive any longer like this, he needs—he needs it—just one bite, he just needs a little bit, he just needs to tear Grian apart under his teeth, he needs blood and flesh in his mouth and sliding down his throat in satisfying chunks, he just needs—

Strong hands pull him back. Everyone is yelling, all around him, and Jimmy’s teeth snap down around nothing as Grian scrambles back, knocking his chair over and falling to the floor.

No, no no no, he just needs a bite—

“Just one bite,” he sobs desperately, tears streaming from his eyes as drool drips from his lips. “Please, any of you, just one—just one bite, I promise, I just need one, I’m so sorry—”

They don’t give it to him.

They want him to starve.

They pull him down hard into his chair, and Jimmy barely has time to struggle before they tie him down, heavy ropes pulled tight around his growling stomach and over his pounding heart. He writhes, tries to get at whoever is closest, but his mouth can’t quite reach anyone.

No, no, please! Please!

“Jimmy,” Tango says, and Jimmy manages to focus long enough on his face to see the shocked disappointment painting it. “Jimmy, how long?”

Jimmy takes in a shuddering breath, one that doesn’t fill the hole in his stomach. “Please,” he begs. He can’t take it anymore, he can’t, it hurts so much, he’s going to fall apart but he only needs a little bit to keep going! “Please, just one bite, please!”

“Of course!” Grian says angrily, tossing up his hands. “Of course it would be Tim, of course Timmy would hide that he got bit! You’re the person that everyone hates in zombie movies, Tim! You aren’t special, you moron!”

He doesn’t get close enough for Jimmy to even attempt to reach for, but his lips tremble as he stares at Grian’s flesh anyways, desperate for just a taste. He’s finally broken, he’s finally given in, but he doesn’t need much. Anything, please, anything.

They don’t give him anything.

They leave.

They leave, and they leave him there, and they show Jimmy Grian’s communicator—

<Grian> left you zombies a gift at the base

And he’s there alone.

Alone, shaking and starving, fever and pain radiating through him in waves, he just needed one bite. . . .

“Well. You know, we don’t usually have a taste for people like us, but. . . .” Joel smirks from the entrance, eyes fixated on the tears streaming down Jimmy’s face, at the reddened veins crawling up his neck from his useless arm, at the hunger etched deep into his fearful eyes.

Joel lunges for him, and Jimmy closes his eyes and hopes that he doesn’t throw up as he feels his stomach be literally torn open.

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gojover · 4 months ago

Text

the courtship affairs of a common man.

nanami kento prides himself on his discipline, efficiency, and ironclad work ethic. you, on the other hand, are a paragon of spontaneity and relentless optimism. as ceo, you’re used to getting what you want—and your next business venture? winning him over.

— pairing: secretary!nanami kento x ceo!fem!reader — contains: fluff, mild angst, smut (oral sex, desk sex, protected sex, angry sex, slight dirty talk), office romance!au, grumpy x sunshine, profanity, alcohol consumption, parental pressure to get married, corrupt corporate companies, implied misogyny—please let me know if i’ve missed anything! — word count: 17.9k — art credit: pinterest | read on ao3 here.

Nanami Kento is a man of routine. At precisely 7:26 A.M, he heads out of his apartment with his tie knotted perfectly and his shoes shined. At 7:43 A.M, he reaches the coffee shop he always frequents, and by 7:54 A.M, he walks out with an iced coffee with three shots of espresso (for himself) and a Mocha Cookie Crumble Frappuccino (for you).

If he drives fast enough, he can clock in at his workplace by 8:28 A.M, and by the time he reaches his desk, it’s 8:31 A.M. He waits patiently for you to arrive sometime between 8:36 and 8:49. Usually, you arrive exactly at 8:45 A.M, and until then, Nanami works on making a list of all the tasks scheduled for today, in order of greatest priority.

It’s when the clock starts inching towards 9:25 A.M and you still haven’t arrived, that Nanami Kento starts to get a little bit worried.

At 9:26 A.M, Nanami finally sets down his pen. He isn’t the type to fidget, nor is he the type to worry unnecessarily, but there’s an undeniable itch in his chest—a quiet, nagging thought that something is off. He checks his watch. Then his phone. No missed calls, no unread messages. Highly unusual.

The drink he bought for you sits untouched on your desk, the condensation already forming a damp ring on the pristine surface. You always take the first sip as soon as you walk in, mumbling some variation of how you need caffeine to tolerate capitalism.

He waits exactly three more minutes before standing.

If anyone notices the way he strides towards the elevator with more urgency than usual, they don’t comment. The building’s lobby is its usual mess of suits and hurried footsteps, but your usual entrance—heels clicking against polished tile, a cheerful “Morning, Nanami!”—is absent.

He exhales through his nose, tilting his head slightly as he debates his next move. Calling you outright would be overstepping. You are his boss. He is your secretary. If you were simply running late, you would text.

That means something must have happened.

Nanami adjusts his tie and makes the call anyway. The phone rings. Once, twice, three times—and then, finally, your voice; groggy and unmistakably hoarse.

“...Nanami?”

He clenches his jaw. “Where are you?”

You pause, followed by a rustling sound, as if you’re shifting under blankets. “Oh, shit.”

“You overslept,” Nanami states.

“Uh,” you say intelligently. “Maybe?”

Nananmi doesn’t sigh, though he wants to. You’re an excellent CEO—brilliant, quick-witted, sharper than most people twice your age. But responsible when it comes to your own well-being? Absolutely not.

There’s more shifting on your end, followed by a muffled groan. “I might be a little hungover.”

“Of course you are.” His glasses have slid down the bridge of his nose, so he adjusts the frame.

“Listen, it was my friend’s birthday—”

“That’s not an excuse.”

“Okay, mother.”

Nanami does sigh this time. He glances at his watch. If he leaves now, he can get to your apartment in twelve minutes, fifteen if traffic is bad. “I’m coming to get you.”

“Wait, what?”

“You’ll waste another thirty minutes trying to function. I’ll be there in twelve.”

There’s a long pause. Then, in a voice that’s entirely too suspicious for someone who just admitted to being hungover, you say, “...How do you know where I live?”

“I fill out your paperwork,” the secretary says.

Another pause. “This feels like an invasion of privacy.”

“You list it under the company address.”

“Well, I could be lying.”

“Are you?”

Silence. Then, begrudgingly, you admit, “No.”

Nanami does not have the time for this. He’s already halfway to the parking garage, briefcase in hand, and his patience—though formidable—is starting to wear thin. “Stay put. Drink some water. Don’t make it worse.”

You hum. “Define worse.”

“Don’t make me regret my employment here.”

There’s a chuckle on your end before the call clicks off. Nanami shoves his phone into his pocket and fishes for his car keys. The headlights of his white Toyota Corolla blink back at him. He slides into the driver’s seat as quickly as possible and starts the engine.

Nanami Kento does not speed. He is a very responsible driver. Yet, here he is, at 9:41 A.M, speeding towards your apartment because you overslept, are likely still half-drunk, and have a board meeting in less than an hour. Objectively speaking, this should not be his problem. But Nanami has long-since accepted that you are his problem.

There is a margin of error in his schedule now, and he does not like it. His mind is already running through the necessary steps to minimise the damage.

Best Case Scenario (Highly Unlikely): You’re already awake, dressed and hydrated. You recognise the consequences of your actions. You get in the car immediately. The meeting proceeds as planned. (The probability of this happening is about the same as Gojo Satoru from HR filing his paperwork on time.)

Most Likely Scenario (Unfortunate but Expected): You answer the door in your pyjamas. You have not consumed a single drop of water. You groan at him, complain about work, and stall for at least ten minutes. He has to herd you into productivity like a kindergarten teacher. He gets you to the office just in time—barely.

Worst-Case Scenario (God Forbid): You’re still in bed. You refuse to move. You throw up on his shoes (he will quit). You open the board meeting by saying something absurd like, “Gentlemen, what if we invested in a company that just makes really big spoons?” and Nanami Kento gets fired.

He adjusts his tie at a red light. No, he refuses to let it reach that point.

By the time he pulls up to your apartment, he is ready. He checks his watch once more. 9:53 A.M. Nanami forgoes the elevator in favour of climbing up the staircase two steps at a time. Your apartment is on the fifth floor, and he knocks twice. Firm and precise.

The door swings open, and you are—well. Exactly what Nanami had expected.

You’re standing in the doorway wearing an oversized hoodie and what are definitely not your pants. Your hair is a tangled mess, mascara faintly smudged beneath your eyes. Nanami is not a man easily shaken, but this is certainly not how he expected to start his morning.

“You look awful,” he says.

You groan, dragging a hand down your face. “Good morning to you too, sunshine.”

Nanami steps into your apartment uninvited. The place is surprisingly not a disaster, though for a luxury apartment, it does seem a tad bit shabby. An empty wine glass balances precariously on your coffee table, next to a half-eaten slice of cheesecake and—God help him—what appears to be a sequined tiara.

He chooses not to ask. Instead, he sets his briefcase down, rolls up his sleeves, and heads straight for your kitchen.

You blink. “What are you doing?”

“Fixing this.” He pulls open your fridge, scanning the contents with a critical eye. It is, to his horror, mostly condiments. “When was the last time you ate a proper meal?”

You scratch your cheek. “Um. Last night?”

He shuts the fridge a little harder than necessary. “Cheesecake doesn’t count.”

“Rude. That cake was expensive.”

Nanami ignores you, opting instead to fill a glass of water. He hands it over, watching as you take a slow, reluctant sip. “Drink all of it,” he instructs.

“You sound like my mom,” you say, squinting at him.

“Yes, well, if your mother were here, I assume she wouldn’t have let you drink half your body weight in alcohol the night before a board meeting.”

“Wait.” Your eyes widen. “The board meeting.”

Nanami resists the urge to point out that this should have been your first concern, not the last. “Yes,” he says, “the one that starts in thirty-five minutes.”

You suck in a breath sharply. “I need to shower.”

“Obviously.”

“I don’t have time to do my hair.”

“You’re wearing it up.”

“I don’t have time for makeup.”

“You keep a bag in your office.”

You scowl. “You’re very annoying, you know that?”

Nanami gives you a pointed look, taking your empty glass of water from your hands. “Yes.”

You grumble something under your breath before disappearing into your room, the door clicking shut behind you. Nanami sighs. He takes off his glasses, pinching the bridge of his nose, before rolling his shoulders. He deserves a pay raise.

By the time Nanami drags you into the office, you’re at least functioning. He’s made sure of it. He forced you to drink two full bottles of water and a homemade electrolyte mix (which you gagged on); stopped you from wearing a sweatshirt that said Eat the Rich (your argument was that it was thematically appropriate); shoved a bacon, egg, and cheese sandwich into your hands (which you sullenly ate in the elevator, glaring at him the entire time); and silently questioned all of his life choices.

And now, he stands beside you in the conference room, arms crossed, expression stoic, while you sit at the head of the long, polished table, addressing a room full of corporate executives.

To your credit, you’re holding your own. Your voice is even. Your sentences are concise. Your data is accurate. If Nanami didn’t know that you had been half-dead in bed forty minutes ago, he wouldn’t be able to tell.

The board members—a collection of old money, new money, and at least one guy who definitely inherited his position from his father—watch you with varying degrees of interest. Some, like Flower Bandana and Secret Tattoo from Marketing, nod along. Others, most notably, Wire-Rimmed Glasses and Charcoal Pants, pretend to skim the reports in front of them. Nepotism Baby, however, is very obviously checking golf scores under the table.

Nanami clocks all of it. Still, you power through.

“—and as you can see, our projected quarterly growth remains steady despite recent market shifts. However, to maintain momentum, we need to prioritise long-term investments in—” You pause. Nanami notices it immediately—a brief hesitation, a flicker of your fingers against the table.

You’ve forgotten what you were saying.

To the untrained eye, it is imperceptible. To Nanami, who has spent an ungodly amount of time observing you, it’s as obvious as a flashing neon sign.

Before you can recover, Salt-and-Pepper Board Member—the one who always speaks in a tone that suggests he hasn’t been happy since the Reagan administration—leans forward. “Miss CEO,” he says, adjusting his gold watch, “before we move forward, I’d like to address something.”

“Of course,” you reply smoothly, though Nanami catches the way your hands tense against the table.

Salt-and-Pepper clasps his hands together. “While we appreciate your insights, I have to ask—” a pause, carefully calculated for dramatic effect— “what exactly is your long-term vision for the company?”

The room stills. It’s a trap. A carefully laid, passive-aggressive, MBA-scented trap. Nanami watches you closely. He knows this type of boardroom maneuver—an underhanded way to question your competence without outrightly saying it. Testing the waters to see if you’ll crack, so to speak.

You, as always, rise to the occasion.

“My vision?” you repeat, tilting your head slightly, voice measured. “That’s an interesting question.”

Nanami presses his lips together. He can see the gears turning in your head.

You lean back in your chair, lacing your fingers together. “If I had to sum it up, I’d say my long-term vision is simple: Growth, innovation, and ensuring that this company doesn’t crumble under the weight of its own outdated bureaucracy.”

Salt-and-Pepper’s eyes narrow just slightly. You continue.

“Because let’s be honest, gentlemen—” (Nanami notes how you conveniently exclude the few women in the room; they could do no wrong in your eyes) “—we could sit here, shuffle numbers, and pat ourselves on the back for maintaining the status quo, or we could actually build something for the future. Something sustainable, something adaptive. Something that doesn’t leave us scrambling every time the market shifts.”

Impressive. Nanami hides his amusement behind a neutral expression. You’ve managed to say absolutely nothing while making it sound like you’ve said everything. A skill only a true genius could master. Salt-and-Pepper’s eyebrows pinch. He opens his mouth—likely to challenge you—but before he can, Nanami steps in.

“Further details on our strategic initiatives can be found on page five,” he says, flipping to the appropriate section in the report. “You’ll find that the CEO’s approach aligns with our projected financial goals and ensures continued shareholder confidence.”

Translation: Shut up and read the damn report. Salt-and-Pepper huffs in irritation.

The meeting continues. Charts are analysed. Projections are debated. Wire-Rimmed Glasses tries to poke holes in your marketing budget, only for Secret Tattoo to shut him down with three lines of data and an unimpressed eyebrow raise. Nepotism Baby suddenly develops an interest in the conversation only when someone brings up potential tax incentives.

Throughout it all, Nanami stands beside you like a quiet, immovable force of nature, ready to step in whenever necessary—though, to his silent chagrin, you seem to be having fun.

“You know,” you say, after redirecting a particularly obtuse question from Charcoal Pants, “I was going to bring this up later, but since we’re already on the subject of outdated models—”

Nanami immediately dislikes where this is going.

“—I’d love to discuss our executive compensation structure.”

The temperature in the room drops several degrees. There’s a long, pointed silence. Salt-and-Pepper visibly tenses. Wire-Rimmed Glasses stops pretending to read his report. Charcoal Pants blinks very fast. Nanami sighs. You are testing his patience. He’s not sure what you’re trying to achieve by discussing potential salary cuts to the Board of Directors, but it is too late now, and he is in too deep.

“Compensation structure?” Salt-and-Pepper repeats, as if you’ve just suggested setting fire to the stock portfolio.

“Yes,” you agree. “As you all know, our yearly executive bonuses amount to a significant percentage of our net profits. While rewarding performance is important, I believe we should also explore options that align with our long-term company health.”

One of Salt-and-Pepper’s eyes twitches. “I see. And what exactly do you propose?”

“A more balanced structure. Something performance-driven, sure, but also weighted in a way that ensures we’re reinvesting into the company and our employees. After all, a company is only as strong as its people.”

“That’s a… bold suggestion.” Salt-and-Pepper smiles, but it is a smile in the way a wolf bares its teeth.

“Oh, I know.” You flash him a blindingly fake grin. “But that’s what visionaries do, right? Think boldly?”

The discussion moves forward. The board members clearly have no interest in discussing executive pay cuts, and after five minutes of unproductive back-and-forth, Nanami steps in to smooth things over.

“We can table this discussion for another time,” he offers. “Let’s return to our key agenda items.”

Translation: You are all embarrassing yourselves. Move on. Thus, the meeting drags to an exhausting close. As the last board member exits, the conference room falls into silence. Nanami breathes out slowly. He turns his attention back to you—where you sit, still slumped in your chair, spinning a pen between your fingers.

You look pleased with yourself. Of course, you do.

“You’re mean,” he says plainly.

You grin, unapologetic. “But you’re still here.”

Nanami presses his lips together, but he doesn’t deny it. You’re right; he is still here. Still standing beside you, still following you through your commitments and obligations, still making sure you don’t self-destruct before lunch, let alone the fiscal year. Still watching.

Nanami Kento isn’t blind to his own habits. He is not a man given to sentiment, nor is he someone who allows himself to be distracted. He has spent years cultivating a certain discipline, a carefully maintained distance between himself and his work.

Yet, here he is.

Here he is, noticing things. Like the way your fingers tap absently against the table when you’re thinking. The way you tilt your head ever-so slightly when someone challenges you, as if already preparing a rebuttal. The way you wield charm and sharp wit like a weapon, disarming a room full of men who think they can rattle you.

Here he is, memorising things. Like the exact cadence of your voice when you’re amused versus when you’re irritated. The way you argue, not just for the sake of arguing, but because you genuinely believe things should be better.

Here he is, wondering things. Like why the sight of you so thoroughly holding your own in that room makes something in his chest feel curiously, infuriatingly warm.

He shouldn’t. He shouldn’t worry about you, shouldn’t be so aware of the way your presence has begun to take up space in his thoughts.

Nanami isn’t sure when it started. Maybe it was the first time you dragged him into a fight you had no business winning, arguing down a board member twice your age with nothing but facts and deduction. Maybe it was the morning you shoved a coffee into his hands without preamble, grumbling something about corporate capitalism slowly draining the life out of him. Maybe it was when he realised that despite your recklessness, despite your exhausting tendency to push every limit—

You were trying.

Maybe that’s why he stays. Not because you’re impossible. Not because you test his patience on a daily basis, but because, despite it all, Nanami believes in you. Maybe—just maybe—that belief is starting to feel like something else entirely.

He clears his throat, shaking off whatever momentary lapse has settled over him. “Your next meeting is in fifteen minutes,” he says, already turning towards the door. “Try not to fall asleep before lunch.”

“No promises,” you call after him, and Nanami forces himself not to look back.

The next morning, you arrive at 8:45 A.M on the dot, and though you don’t greet Nanami with a chipper good morning wish, you do shove a neatly-wrapped roll of melonpan into his arms.

“For yesterday,” you explain. “Thanks for picking me up even though it’s not a part of your job.”

Nanami stares at the melon bread in his hands. It’s soft, and still warm, wrapped in crinkly butter paper. For a moment, he simply blinks at it, as if it’s some kind of foreign object, something misplaced in the orderly structure of his morning routine. (It is.)

Then, he looks at you. You’re already at your desk, halfway through flipping through a manila folder, scanning through documents with your brows furrowed in concentration. But Nanami catches it—the way your fingers loosely hold the paper, the way your shoulders aren’t as stiff as they were yesterday. It’s an offering—but more than that, it’s you remembering, because the name of the bakery printed on the butter paper is his favourite one.

He sets the melonpan carefully on the desk beside his coffee. “It was never not part of my job.”

“Huh?” Your head snaps up.

“Looking after you.”

Your brows knit together in something Nanami recognises as your default setting: Suspicion. “That’s not in your job description.”

“It should be,” he says, shrugging.

Your expression flickers—just for a second—before you roll your eyes. “Great. So I’ve officially become a liability. Good to know.”

“You’ve been a liability since day one.”

“Wow. You’ve been holding onto that one, huh?”

“I’m simply stating facts.” Nanami picks up the bread, breaking off a piece, and takes a bite. The outer layer of cookie dough is crisp, and it melts on his tongue with just the right amount of sweetness.

Your lips press together, like you’re trying to fight off a smile. “So?”

Nanami chews, swallows, and nods once. “Acceptable.”

“Oh, shut up. You love it.”

He says nothing, merely covers up the bread with the butter paper once more and places it next to his coffee once more. You look pretty today, he thinks. You’ve recovered from yesterday’s series of meetings. You’re smiling more. It might turn out to be a good day after all. Nanami doesn’t allow himself to linger on the thought. He reaches for his coffee, taking a sip, while you return to your documents, flipping a page with a little too much force.

“You have a meeting at ten,” he reminds you.

“I know.”

“And a working lunch with Legal.”

You make a noise of protest. “Not the suits. Again.”

“They have concerns about the expansion,” Nanami says mildly.

“They always have concerns.” You sigh, tilting your head back against your chair. “I swear, they enjoy making my life difficult.”

Nanami hums noncommittally. It’s not an argument he’s inclined to entertain—mostly because he knows you’ll win, and you’ll be smug about it. Instead, he glances at his watch. “You have exactly ten minutes before the executive team starts pestering me about your whereabouts.”

You make a face, dropping your folder onto your desk with a soft thud. “Can’t I just—skip?”

Nanami gives you a look. You groan and stretch your arms above your head, letting out a soft sigh before reaching for your pen. He watches as you jot something down in the margins of your notes. You’re still tired, he realises. Maybe not visibly, not in the way you were yesterday, but he sees it. The way you rub your temple when you think he isn’t looking, or the way your posture shifts just slightly when you exhale. It’s ridiculous, really, how attuned he is to you.

He clears his throat. “I rescheduled your two-thirty to tomorrow.”

You blink at him. “Why?”

“Because you’ll need the break.”

You purse your lips, considering this, and for a second, he thinks you’ll argue. But then, to his quiet surprise, you nod. “...Okay.”

The ten o’clock meeting is exactly as tedious as Nanami expects it to be. The executive team drones on about projections and budget allocations, with at least three separate tangents about “synergy” and “maximising operational efficiency.” Nanami watches as you nod along at all the right moments, feigning interest while you fiddle with your pen. He knows you’re not actually absorbing any of it—your attention is already elsewhere, likely preoccupied with the looming meeting with Legal.

(He knows this because, at one point, you doodle a tiny stick figure on the margins of your notes. When the CFO asks for your thoughts, you barely miss a beat before delivering a perfectly rehearsed response.)

When the meeting ends, he follows behind you. You stretch discreetly, rolling out your shoulders, and when you glance at him, your expression is a silent plea for mercy.

Nanami sighs. “Stop looking at me like that.”

“Like what?”

“Like you expect me to spare you from your next obligation.”

“But you could,” you say, all mock innocence.

“I won’t,” he answers.

You heave a sigh. “You’re heartless.”

“I’m efficient.”

“Same thing.”

“You have twenty minutes before your next meeting,” Nanami says instead. “Eat something.”

“Okay, boss.”

Your secretary rolls his eyes. “You’ll thank me later.”

You do, albeit reluctantly. The legal team’s working lunch is predictably dull, full of jargon and contingency plans and hypothetical risks that you pretend to take notes on. At some point, you throw Nanami a look so filled with unspoken suffering that, if he were a softer man, he might have pitied you.

See? your expression seems to say over the rim of your coffee cup, eyes flat with boredom. This is my suffering.

Nanami lets his mouth twitch upwards. You’ll survive.

You don’t know that. You narrow your eyes at him.

You do survive—just barely—through an hour of suffocating legalese, sitting through discussions on compliance policies and liability frameworks with a blank notepad and polite nods. You haven’t written anything down except Help me in the margins, which Nanami had caught a glimpse of when you’d shifted the notepad slightly. When the meeting finally, mercifully, ends, you slump back in your chair, stretching your legs out beneath the conference table with an exaggerated groan.

“I deserve a reward for making it through that,” you mutter.

Nanami flips through his schedule. “Your reward is not getting sued.”

“That’s a terrible reward,” you retort, scrunching your nose.

“It’s an important one.”

“You’re no fun, you know that?” you say, but there’s no real bite to it. Just annoyance, not directed at him.

“I do,” Nanami says, without missing a beat.

You huff a soft laugh, shaking your head before pushing yourself to stand. He follows suit, gathering his notes. It’s only when you step out of the conference room that he notices it again—the way your fingers tap absently against your arm, the slight crease in your forehead.

You’re preoccupied. Not just with work—no, he’d recognise that kind of stress easily. This is something else.

Nanami doesn’t pry. He never does. If you wanted to talk about it, you would. But when you step into the elevator and don’t immediately pull out your phone or launch into complaints about Legal, he speaks before he can stop himself. “What’s on your mind?”

You turn to him, mildly surprised. “What do you mean?”

“You’ve been distracted all morning,” he says evenly.

“It’s nothing serious,” you say, a little softer than usual. “Just… something personal.”

That’s more than he expected you to admit. Nanami nods. He doesn’t push further or demand an explanation, but he asks, “Do you need anything?”

“I—” Your fingers still against your arm. “No. I’m fine.”

Nanami Kento doesn’t believe in prying. He’s spent years making sure the lines between professional and personal stay intact, clean and neat. You, however, have spent just as long ignoring those lines completely. He could leave it at that. Should, probably. It’s not his place to push, not when you so rarely let people in. But the problem is, he knows you too well—or, at least, better than most. He knows you well enough to recognise when you’re on the verge of running yourself into the ground, or to see through the half-hearted distractions you use to keep yourself from thinking too much.

The elevator doors slide open, and you step out first, wringing your hands like you’re physically squeezing out whatever was on your mind. He doesn’t comment when you pick up your pace, diving headfirst back into work as though you were never distracted in the first place.

It’s strange, he thinks, this feeling that lingers in his chest as he watches you settle back behind your desk. He’s always known his role in your life. He’s your secretary, your buffer against boardroom politics, the person who keeps your world running just a little more smoothly. He arranges your meetings, reorganises your schedule, and reminds you to eat when you’re too caught up in your work to remember.

Still.

There are moments like these—moments where the boundary blurs, where the concern twists into something deeper. Moments where he finds himself wanting to do more than just keep you organised.

It’s a dangerous thought, one he has no business entertaining, so he doesn’t.

Nanami Kento is not a morning person. He is, however, a responsible person, which means he is usually awake at a reasonable hour, even on weekends. Today is no exception.

His apartment is quiet, save for the rhythmic ticking of the clock on the wall—the minute hand inches towards 7:42 A.M—and the occasional rustle of a turning page as he reads. A fresh cup of coffee sits within reach, steam curling lazily into the air. It’s black, strong, and exactly the way he likes it—no unnecessary sweetness, no frills. This is how he prefers to spend his time off: A slow morning, a good book, and silence.

Then his phone buzzes. Nanami glances at the screen, frowning slightly at the name that appears. You. He sighs, already feeling a headache coming on. Nothing good ever comes from you calling him on a weekend. Or at all, really.

Still, he picks up. “What?”

For a moment, there’s nothing but silence on the other end. Then he hears you take in a breath, like you’re working up the nerve to speak. “Hey, um— Are you busy?”

“It’s my day off.” Nanami closes his book and leans back in his chair, his fingers pressing against his temple.

“I know,” you say quickly. Your voice sounds a little different—softer, almost unsure. That alone puts him on edge. He isn’t used to you hesitating. “That’s… actually why I called.”

His frown deepens. He recognises this setup. This is how people sound right before they ask him for something. Nanami shifts the phone to his other ear, already resigned. “What do you want?”

“Okay, first of all,” you say, defensive already, “I resent the implication that I only call you when I need something.”

“That is the only time you call me.”

“...Okay, fine. That’s fair.”

Nanami sighs again. He swears he isn’t the sighing sort of person, but you seem to bring out sides of him he never knew existed. “What is it?”

There’s another pause, longer this time. He hears the faint sound of movement—maybe you shifting your weight, maybe you fidgeting. He almost rolls his eyes.

“There’s a flea market today,” you say, but there’s something different about the way you say it. Your voice is notably quieter, almost hesitant. “I, um… I wanted to go, but I don’t really have anyone to go with.”

Nanami stills. You? Hesitant? You, who has no problem bossing him around at work, who never hesitates to demand his time and attention, shy about asking him for a favour? Something about the way you say it makes his chest unfurl with warmth.

“So,” you continue, voice uncertain in a way he isn’t used to, “I was wondering if maybe you’d wanna come with me?”

Nanami doesn’t answer right away. He could say no. In fact, he probably should say no. It’s his day off, and he has no interest in spending his weekend surrounded by noisy crowds, looking at secondhand trinkets he doesn’t need.

He exhales, already regretting this. “What time?”

“Be ready in an hour?” you ask hopefully. “Dress casual. But, like, not too casual.”

“I’m hanging up now,” he says.

“Wait—”

Nanami places his phone down on the table and stares at his coffee like it has personally betrayed him. How did this happen? One moment, he’s enjoying his peaceful morning. The next, he’s been roped into spending his day off at a flea market. It’s fine. He can handle this. He just needs a plan.

Best Case Scenario (Highly Unlikely): You’re already waiting outside when he arrives. You haven’t made any impulse purchases within the first ten minutes. You respect his personal space. You finish browsing in a reasonable amount of time, and Nanami returns home with his sanity intact. (This is about as likely as Gojo Satoru from HR suddenly developing the ability to stay awake for longer than five minutes during important meetings.)

Most Likely Scenario (Unfortunate but Expected): You’re ready, but you’re too excited. You get distracted by every shiny object at the market. You see a vintage typewriter and suddenly develop an unrealistic dream of becoming a novelist. You haggle dramatically over an item that costs the same as a cup of coffee. He ends up carrying all your bags.

Worst-Case Scenario (God Forbid): You’re waiting outside, but you’ve already made three online purchases while waiting. You spot a tarot card reader and decide he needs his fortune told. You find a vintage sword and somehow convince him to buy it. He loses you in the crowd and considers leaving you there. He doesn’t. (Unfortunately.)

Nanami arrives exactly on time, at 8:42 A.M, dressed in a dark olive button-up with the sleeves neatly rolled to his elbows, paired with well-pressed slacks and his usual leather shoes. His watch glints under the afternoon sun as he adjusts his glasses, scanning the crowd until his gaze lands on you.

You’re waiting near the entrance, shifting your weight from foot to foot with barely contained excitement. You’re wearing a breezy sundress, the colour bright against your skin. A canvas tote hangs from your shoulder. You rock onto your toes when you spot him, waving as if he might somehow miss you in the small crowd. Nanami sighs. You look pretty, he thinks, but when has he ever not thought so?

Just like that, Nanami Kento finds himself being led—against all better judgement—towards the market, where the streets are lined with stalls draped in colourful awnings, and the scent of saffron and cherries mingles in the air. Vendors call out their wares, old books are piled up in uneven stacks on wooden crates, and delicate silver necklaces and earrings gleam in glass cases. Somewhere, a musician plays a soft tune on a violin, the notes drifting through the air like the slow unraveling of a ribbon.

You walk slightly ahead, turning back every so often to ensure Nanami is still there, as if he might bolt at the first opportunity. How stupid of you. As if he’d go anywhere else. The man doesn’t miss the way your shoulders are loose, the way you no longer hold tension in your frame like a coiled wire. This is why weekends exist, he supposes.

When you reach a stall selling secondhand books, you stop abruptly. “See? This is nice,” you say, running a finger along the worn spine of a novel. “Better than sitting in a meeting with Legal.”

Nanami hums. His gaze is on you. You pick up a book with a cracked leather cover, flipping through its yellowed pages. Then, suddenly, you turn to him, holding it up.

“Tell me,” you muse, lips curving. “Have you ever been wooed in a flea market before?”

He blinks. “I don’t think so.”

You clear your throat and read aloud: ‘...and he regarded her with a most admiring countenance, struck by the quickness of her wit and the sharpness of her tongue…’

Nanami crosses his arms as you hold the book open like a scholar about to present a groundbreaking thesis. The corners of his lips twitch, but he schools his expression into something neutral. “Is that so?”

You nod solemnly. “A most admiring countenance,” you repeat, tapping the page. “That’s what it says. I think that’s a very poetic way of describing how you look at me all the time.”

He looks at you, ready to say something horrifically stupid, probably, but then you grin, mischief shining in your eyes, and he shakes his head with a quiet sigh. “You do realise that’s from a romance novel.”

“Oh, I’m very aware. I just thought, maybe, if I read enough passages, you might be so swept away by the romance of it all that you’ll fall madly in love with me.”

There it is. That ridiculous, absurd, entirely unserious thing you do—teasing him just enough to see if you can get a reaction. Nanami knows this game well.

“Hm.” He tilts his head slightly, his voice even. “And if I say it’s working?”

You blink. For once, you don’t have a quick-witted reply. Your fingers tighten around the book as you search his expression for something—anything—to indicate that he’s joking. But Nanami is frustratingly unreadable, his gaze steady, the sunlight catching the sharp planes of his face.

You shift, looking back at the book. “Then I’d say I need to find more material,” you mumble. “Something more compelling.”

He chuckles, amused at the way you retreat when met with your own words. “Of course.”

You huff, flipping through the pages again. He watches as your fingers dance over the old paper, as you scan each line with an almost childlike curiosity. There’s a sort of reverence in the way you handle books, as if each one holds a tiny universe inside. Nanami understands. He takes a step closer, just enough to catch the scent of your perfume—light, familiar. You’re so engrossed in your search that you don’t even notice.

“This one’s nice,” you murmur, tapping another passage with your fingertip before reading it aloud. “‘To be looked at with such devotion… it is a wonder she could bear it at all.’ Sounds familiar, doesn’t it?”

Nanami doesn’t say anything. He reaches into his pocket and pulls out his wallet.

You brighten instantly. “So you are being wooed.”

He hands over a few bills to the vendor without acknowledging your comment. “Just buy the book.”

You chew on the inside of your cheek, barely holding back a laugh, before placing the book inside your tote bag. Your fingers brush against his briefly—just the lightest touch, gone too soon. The transaction is done, and the book is safely tucked away, but Nanami doesn’t know why his mouth suddenly feels too dry, or his clothes feel too warm.

“You’re a very easy target,” you say, tilting your head up to look at him.

“Enlighten me.”

“Well, for one, you act all stern and no-nonsense, but you just bought a book because I read one romantic passage out loud. That, Nanami, is the behaviour of a man who is, against his better judgement, deeply susceptible to my charm.”

Nanami doesn’t dignify that with a response. Instead, he turns and starts walking down the narrow aisle between the market stalls, knowing full well that you’ll follow. You fall into step beside him. “Hey, I wasn’t done talking.”

“I know.”

“You’re so rude.”

“You’ll live.”

You roll your eyes and he lets you get distracted by the next few stalls—one selling mismatched ceramic mugs, another displaying old postcards with faded ink scrawled across them. You pause at a stall selling silver jewelry, fingers trailing over delicate rings arranged on a velvet-lined tray.

Nanami watches, hands in his pockets, as you try on a ring, twisting it around your finger before putting it back. “Not getting one?” he asks.

You shrug. “I don’t know. I like the idea of having one, but I don’t think I’d wear it often enough to justify it.”

He glances at the tray, his gaze settling on a simple silver band. He briefly considers buying it for you, but the thought unsettles him for reasons he doesn’t want to examine too closely. He says nothing and waits for you to move.

You wander through the market together, stopping here and there—laughing when you find a truly heinous painting of a cat, nudging Nanami when you spot a tarot reader just to see his reaction, groaning dramatically when he refuses to let you buy a vintage sword. (He doesn’t trust you with a sharp object. This is a reasonable stance, he thinks.)

By the time the afternoon sun hangs high, painting the streets in gold, Nanami finds himself carrying a small bag of your purchases despite his earlier aversion—not because you asked, but because, without thinking, he took it from you when your hands were full, and somehow, neither of you mentioned it.

Nanami Kento is brushing his teeth, already halfway through his night routine, when his phone buzzes against the bathroom counter. He considers ignoring it—nothing good ever comes out of late-night calls—but then he sees your name flashing on the screen, again. He closes his eyes. He spent half the Saturday with you at the flea market. It’s a Sunday night, and he’s already thinking about the miserable Monday morning waiting for him. He doesn’t need whatever nonsense you’re about to tell him. Still, he picks up the phone.

A sigh leaves him, muffled by the toothbrush in his mouth. He spits, rinses, and presses the call button. “What?”

“Nanami,” you say, pathetically slurred.

“Oh, for God’s sake.”

“No, listen, listen,” you insist, voice wobbly. “I have—a problem.”

“Of course, you do,” Nanami says. “Where are you?”

“At home.” There’s a rustling sound on the other end, like you’re rolling around on a couch, or maybe tangled up in a blanket that you don’t have the coordination to escape from. “I made it home all by myself. I think that’s really impressive. You should say you’re impressed.”

“I’m not.”

“You’re so mean,” you whine. Then, lower, in a voice so pitiful he almost snorts, “I think I’m dying.”

Nanami checks the time. 10:34 P.M. He should tell you to drink some water and go to sleep. He should just hang up. From the other end of the line, you let out a tiny, miserable noise. It’s barely a sniffle, more like a small whimper of distress—pathetic, and fleeting, but it sits wrong with him. He stands there for a moment, staring at his own reflection in the bathroom mirror, waiting for the irritation to take over. It never does.

Instead, his eyebrows furrow in something that isn't quite a frown, but close enough. Then, he grabs his coat. If he leaves now, he can reach your apartment in twelve minutes, fifteen if traffic is bad.

Your apartment is unlocked when he gets there. Nanami pushes the door open, stepping inside and toeing off his shoes. He barely has the time to take in the mess—your shoes kicked off in two completely different directions, your bag lying lifeless in the middle of the floor, clearly dropped mid-stride—before you come stumbling out of the kitchen, gripping a glass of water like it’s the only thing keeping you tethered to this world.

“You came,” you breathe, eyes wide. “My saviour.”

He frowns. “Why is your door unlocked?”

You wave a hand, dismissive. “It’s fine.”

“It’s not fine.”

“Why are you mad?” You blink at him, wobbling slightly where you stand, and tilt your head like he’s the one being unreasonable.

Nanami presses his lips into a thin line. Instead of answering, he reaches out to flick you on the forehead. You yelp, nearly dropping your glass. “That’s for being careless.” He folds his arms. “How much did you drink?”

“Mm. Enough.”

“That’s not an answer.”

“Enough to want to die, but not enough to actually die,” you clarify, solemn. “Does that help?”

“No.”

You snicker at his flat tone, but it quickly turns into a hiccup. Eyes wide, you slap a hand over your mouth, until you relent and start giggling uncontrollably. Nanami watches you, expressionless. He has never been more tired in his life.

Without another word, he moves past you and into your kitchen. “Sit down. I’ll make you something to sober up.”

“I don’t wanna sober up,” you whine, trailing after him.

He eyes you critically, pulling open a cabinet in search of honey and ginger. “What’s your excuse for getting drunk this time? Another friend’s birthday party?”

You snort. “Don’t be silly, Nanami. You’re the only friend I have.”

He stills. You blink at him, swaying slightly. He ignores the warmth creeping up his cheeks, and tells you to sit down before you fall over. You huff, but oblige, dragging a chair out and collapsing into it. Your head flops onto the counter, cheek squished against the cool surface. “You’re kinda good at this,” you mumble.

Nanami doesn’t bother looking at you as he fills the kettle. “It’s just tea.”

“No,” you say, voice thick with something close to admiration. “Like. Taking care of people.”

His hands still for a fraction of a second before he returns to slicing ginger. He doesn’t acknowledge your words, but something in his chest twists. It’s not like it’s hard to take care of you—you stumble through life with the kind of reckless abandon that practically demands someone step in before disaster strikes. He glances at you. Your arms are folded under your head, body lax, but your eyes are distant, slightly unfocused.

He asks, “What happened?”

You blink sluggishly, turning your head just enough to look at him. “Huh?”

“You don’t drink like this for no reason,” he says. “What happened?”

Your lips purse. You look like you’re debating whether to brush him off or tell him the truth. Then, with a hiccup and sniffle, you mumble, “My parents want me to get married.”

“What?”

Your nose wrinkles, like the very thought is giving you a headache. “It’s stupid,” you grumble. “They want me to meet some guy, settle down, be stable or whatever. Like that’s something I can just do.” You lift your head slightly, eyes glassy, lower lip wobbling. “I don’t wanna get married.”

Nanami swallows. There’s something painfully childlike in the way you say it, as if you’re afraid of being forced into something you can’t escape from. Your face is flushed from the alcohol, but your expression is unguarded. He could be rational about this—tell you that you don’t have to do anything you don’t want to, that it’s your life. But he knows that’s not what you need right now.

Instead, he reaches out, pressing his palm against the top of your head, warm and steady. He hears your sharp intake of breath.

“You don’t have to get married if you don’t want to,” he says, voice quiet but firm. “No one can make you.”

You stare up at him, wide-eyed. The room is still. The only sound is the quiet whistle of the kettle coming to a boil. Then, like a switch has flipped, you sniffle, rubbing at your nose with the sleeve of your sweater. “You’re so nice to me, Nanami.”

“I really am.”

“I should marry you,” you say seriously.

He pulls his hand back immediately. “Absolutely not.”

“Why?” you say, lips quirking into a lazy grin. “You afraid you’d fall in love with me?”

Nanami levels you with a flat look. “I’m afraid you’d forget that we ever got married in the first place.”

You cackle, unbothered, and he shakes his head, exasperated. The kettle clicks off. Nanami turns back to the counter, pouring the hot water into a mug. He stirs in the honey and hears you sigh behind him.

“I mean it, though,” you say, softer now. “I don’t wanna get married. Not to someone I don’t love, or ‘cause my parents think I should.”

Nanami glances at you over his shoulder. Your face is half-hidden behind your arms again, but your eyes are clearer now, a little more serious despite the alcohol buzzing through your system. He walks over, setting the tea down in front of you, and says, “Then don’t.”

You blink up at him again. He nudges the mug towards you, and you wrap your hands around it, staring down at the amber liquid.

Nanami inhales slowly. “Now drink your tea and go to bed.”

You hum, blowing gently on the surface before taking a sip. Then, peeking up at him through your lashes, you say, “Will you stay?”

He hesitates. It’s late. He has work tomorrow. You have work tomorrow. But when he looks at you—tired, drunk, a little lost—he knows he won’t be able to leave until he’s sure you’re okay. “...I’ll stay until you fall asleep.”

You smile sleepily, satisfied, and take another sip of your tea.

The board votes.

Salt-and-Pepper calls it. Wire-Rimmed Glasses raises his hand first, the corporate equivalent of a teacher’s pet. Charcoal Pants follows, though his fingers twitch with uncertainty. Nepotism Baby—who has been thoroughly checked out for the past forty-five minutes—glances up from his phone just long enough to nod vaguely before going back to whatever meaningless app he’s scrolling through. Nanami watches you from the corner of his eye. You don’t move.

Salt-and-Pepper looks pleased. “Well, that’s that. We’ll move forward with drafting the initial—”

“Wait,” Secret Tattoo from Marketing cuts in. “Are we seriously doing this?”

Salt-and-Pepper’s eyebrows rise, as if he hadn’t expected resistance. Foolish of him. “Is there an issue?”

An issue? Oh, where to begin. Your fingers drum once, twice, against the table. “Zen’in Industries.” You say it like you’re testing the words, rolling them around in your mouth to see if they taste any less like poison. “That’s the best we could do?”

Wire-Rimmed Glasses adjusts his frames. “They’re the most viable partner given the timeline.”

“That’s debatable.”

“The most viable approved partner,” Salt-and-Pepper clarifies. “We’ve reviewed the alternatives.”

“You reviewed them wrong,” Flower Bandana mutters under her breath.

Secret Tattoo leans back in her chair, arms crossed. “I don’t like it either.”

“This decision was made with careful consideration,” Salt-and-Pepper says. His left eye twitches, and he turns back to you. “Miss CEO, while I understand your concerns, business decisions must be made pragmatically, not emotionally.”

Translation: Suck it up and sign the damn papers.

You tilt your head. “Right. And pragmatism is why we’re aligning ourselves with a company whose leadership has been, let’s see, sued five separate times in the last decade for fraudulent business practices, labour violations, and—oh, my favourite—potential ties to organised crime?”

Wire-Rimmed Glasses clears his throat. “Those cases were dismissed.”

“They barely avoided a federal indictment,” you say.

Nepotism Baby suddenly chimes in. “Zen’in’s big. They’ve got resources.”

Nanami resists the urge to sigh. Yes, genius, that’s how companies work. You shoot the boy an unimpressed look, and say, “They also have a history of—how do I put this politely—being absolutely terrible.”

Charcoal Pants shifts uncomfortably. “That’s a bit—”

“Am I wrong?”

Secret Tattoo raises a hand. “Would now be a bad time to remind everyone that they also had an entire warehouse shut down for safety violations?”

“That was an isolated incident,” Wire-Rimmed Glasses says.

“Was it?” you ask. “Because my notes say it happened twice.”

Nepotism Baby leans towards Wire-Rimmed Glasses. “Wait. Twice?”

Salt-and-Pepper clears his throat. “Miss CEO, I assure you—”

“No, really, help me understand.” You lean forward, elbows on the table. “Because last I checked, we weren’t in the business of giving ethics violations a seat at our table.”

“This partnership will allow us to expand at a rate we can’t achieve alone.”

“Uh-huh. And remind me again, what’s the exact rate we’re aiming for? Because if you’re simply going to say something like, faster than usual, I feel like there are other ways to do that. Like, I don’t know, hiring more people. Investing in R&D. Not selling our souls to a family that definitely has bodies buried somewhere.”

Nepotism Baby looks even more alarmed. He leans back towards Wire-Rimmed Glasses. “Wait. Bodies?”

“Metaphorically,” Charcoal Pants says weakly.

You click your tongue. “Probably.”

“The decision has been made.” Translation: Sit down and deal with it. Salt-and-Pepper’s patience has officially run out. Flower Bandana shakes her head. Secret Tattoo mutters under her breath about corporate bootlickers.

Your fingers curl around the pen in front of you. Nanami, ever the observer, sees it immediately—the way you stiffen, the way your expression shutters, before you school it into something blank. “Fine,” you say coolly. “If that’s what the board wants.”

Salt-and-Pepper nods, pleased. “I’m glad we could come to an understanding.”

The meeting adjourns. The board members leave. Salt-and-Pepper sniffs condescendingly in your direction before stepping out. Nepotism Baby stretches, lets out an obnoxiously loud yawn, and wanders off. Charcoal Pants moves quickly, as if afraid you might call him back, and Wire-Rimmed Glasses follows him. One by one, they filter out, until the conference room is empty, save for you and Nanami.

Your fingers uncurl from the pen you’ve been gripping so tightly that there are deep grooves in your skin. You set it down. Tilting your head back, you stare at the ceiling for precisely three seconds before letting out a single, humourless laugh.

“Well.” Your voice is calm, but only barely. “That was fucking awful.”

“You handled it well,” Nanami says.

You let out a breath, somewhere in between a scoff and a sigh. “I shouldn’t have had to handle it in the first place.”

That’s fair, he thinks. You drag a hand down your face as if trying to smother the frustration bubbling just beneath your skin. It doesn’t work. “I knew they’d pull something,” you mutter, “but Zen’in? Of all the goddamn companies in the world, they want them?”

“It’s a strategic decision.” He knows it’s not what you want to hear, but he says it anyway.

You drop your hand and turn to him. “Say that again, and I’ll replace you.”

“I’m only pointing out the obvious.”

You sigh, but don’t argue. You both know the board sees nothing but numbers, nothing but projections and timelines and carefully-worded justifications. They don’t care about anything outside the bottom line.

“I don’t want to work with them, Nanami,” you admit.

He already knew that. But hearing you say it—softer now, tired—settles something heavy in his chest. He doesn’t like it. “You won’t do it alone,” he says simply.

Your lips twitch upwards, but it doesn’t quite reach your eyes. “Okay.”

“Okay.”

You study him, searching for something, but whatever you find must be enough, because you sigh and push yourself up from your chair. “Guess we’re stuck with this mess, then.”

“Seems that way.”

“If I’m suffering, then you’re suffering with me.”

“Unfortunate,” Nanami says, but he knows you know he doesn’t mean it.

You guffaw, tension easing—slightly. He can tell it’s still there, simmering beneath the surface. He’s still thinking about it, watching you as you head for the door. He sees the way your jaw is set too tightly, the way your shoulders are stiff. You’re angry. Not just irritated, not just frustrated—angry. It’s not just about the board’s incompetence. It’s Zen’in Industries.

“Let’s get something to eat,” Nanami says.

“God, Nanami. Are you asking me to lunch?”

He stiffens slightly at your teasing, but he doesn’t say anything. He just walks past you, already heading to the elevator. You laugh, falling into step beside him.

At lunch, you pick at a Greek salad with disinterest, stabbing a piece of feta cheese with your fork. The restaurant is a nice place—not overly extravagant, but tasteful in a way that suits Nanami’s particular preferences. He hadn’t put much thought into where to take you. He just needed to get you out of that boardroom.

Now, though, as he watches you pick apart your salad, he wonders if it even helped.

You roll an olive on your plate with your fork. Across from you, Nanami takes an absent sip of his lime soda, only half paying attention to the taste. The silence is not uncomfortable, but he feels awkward regardless. He should be focused on the partnership, on the logistics, on the long list of ways this shouldn’t be as much of a problem as you’re making it out to be. But instead, his mind drifts.

To you.

To your sharp edges and sharp tongue, to the way your expressions flicker just a little too fast sometimes, as if you’re trying too hard to rein yourself in. To the way you are so painfully aware of everything around you: Every person in a room, every slight shift in tone, every implication buried in corporate jargon.

You are, objectively speaking, a brilliant CEO. Ruthless when you need to be, charming when it suits you, but most of all, uncompromising. Yet, when it comes to this—when it comes to Zen’in Industries—your anger is not just professional. It is personal.

Nanami doesn’t like personal. Personal is messy. Personal gets in the way of logic, of utilitarianism, of clear-cut and efficient decisions.

He tells himself that is why he is still thinking about this. Not because the tightness in your shoulders makes his chest ache. Not because he has never once seen you almost falter the way you did today. Not because he has spent the past half-hour cycling through every possible reason for your reaction and coming up empty.

No, he tells himself, it is because this is a complication he cannot account for, and that is what bothers him.

You press your fork into the olive, just enough to puncture the skin. Then, so casually, you might as well be commenting on the weather, you say, “Did you know that I was in a relationship with Zen’in Naoya?”

Nanami freezes. His brain—normally so methodical, so efficient—comes to a screeching halt. There is no quick calculation, no immediate strategy to deal with this information. There is only the sound of your voice, so stunningly normal in its delivery, juxtaposed against the implication of the words themselves. His grip tightens around his glass of lime side. He doesn’t set it down or react outwardly—but he shifts in his seat.

Zen’in Naoya.

He knows the name well. Anyone even remotely involved in business does. He is a member of the Zen’in family—one of those Zen’ins. A man with power, influence, and a reputation that precedes him. Not for anything good, either. Nanami has never met him in person, but he’s read enough and heard enough to know that he would not want to.

He finally sets down his glass. For once, Nanami Kento does not immediately know what to say.

“Nothing to say?” you ask lightly.

Nanami studies you carefully. You are not looking at him, but he recognises this version of you—the one who pretends you’re fine, who deflects with indifference. The one who would rather fill the silence than allow it to become suffocating.

“You never mentioned that before,” he says slowly. It is not a question; just an observation.

You attempt to smile, but it comes out more like a grimace. “It never came up.”

Nanami is many things, but he is not stupid. The warble in your voice, the way your fingers tighten ever-so slightly around your fork—this is why you were so angry in the meeting. This is why you stiffened at the mention of the Zen’ins, why you dug your heels in so hard. He should have realised it sooner.

He breathes out slowly. “And now it has.”

“Yes,” you say simply. “Would you like me to tell you about our first date?”

Nanami does not react. He makes sure he sounds neutral when he answers, “No.”

You hum, feigning disappointment. “It was terribly boring, anyway. He took me to some overpriced restaurant with a six-course meal, and every single dish had foam in it.”

Nanami ignores the way his stomach twists at the thought of you on a date with someone like Naoya. It is illogical. Unnecessary.

“I was nineteen,” you continue. “Very stupid. I thought I knew everything. He was older, and it seemed impressive at the time. He said all the right things. I was easily impressed back then.”

Nanami’s fingers curl against the table. Back then. As if there is a before and after to who you are. He doesn’t like the insinuations of that. “You’re not now,” he says.

“No, I guess not.” For the first time in the conversation you look up at him. Nanami does not look away. You lean back in your chair and say, “So, now you know.”

Now he knows. Nanami doesn’t know what to do with that knowledge. It sits uncomfortably in his mind, wedged there like a stubborn wooden splinter. For now, he does the only thing he can do. He nods, takes another sip of his lime soda, and says, “Eat your salad.”

You laugh. It’s a short huff, but it almost makes Nanami smile.

“Miss CEO,” one of the Zen’in representatives—a wiry, balding man who sweats too much—says, visibly struggling to remain polite, “surely you understand that our current offer is more than fair.”

“Fair,” you echo, as if testing the word on your tongue. “That’s an interesting way to put it.”

Nanami—who has spent the last three weeks enduring these negotiations—already knows where this is going. He resists the urge to sigh.

“Would you care to elaborate?” Balding Man asks. He keeps his tone professional, but there is an undeniable sense of annoyance in his eyes. Nanami takes a deep breath. You, however, smile.

“Well,” you say. “I just think it’s funny—”

Oh, no. Nanami shuts his eyes for a brief moment, pressing his fingers to his temple. He has heard you say this exact phrase at least five times this week, and every time, what follows is never actually funny. It is, usually, a goddamn nightmare.

Balding Man shifts in his seat. “Funny,” he repeats cautiously.

“Mhm,” you hum. “I just think it’s funny that, in your latest revision, you’ve somehow—” you tilt your head— “conveniently removed the profit-sharing clause we originally discussed. The one your team proposed, by the way.”

“That was an adjustment made to account for—”

“—what, exactly?” you interrupt, leaning forward slightly. “Because as far as I can tell, it was an attempt to quietly slip in a clause that benefits your side while offering absolutely nothing in return. Now, I’m sure that’s just a simple oversight, right?”

Balding Man opens his mouth, then closes it, then opens it again, like a fish flopping around outside water. Nanami watches this unfold with an increasing sense of frustration.

You are doing this on purpose.

This is not a necessary discussion. The contract could have been finalised two meetings ago, but you have spent the last three weeks turning every single interaction into an exercise in endurance. You nitpick everything. You argue over semantics. You demand last-minute revisions on things that don’t even matter. At one point, you outright rejected a clause you had originally asked for—just to make them go through the process of re-drafting it.

And because Nanami Kento is your secretary, he has spent most of his time smoothing things over before the Zen’ins lose their patience entirely. It is, frankly, exhausting.

“We can revisit that clause,” Balding Man says tightly.

“Oh, we will,” you say, with a delightfully insincere smile. “In fact, let’s go ahead and set up another review meeting.”

Nanami finally steps in. “That won’t be necessary,” he says, voice clipped.

Your head snaps to him so fast that he almost regrets speaking. Almost.

“Excuse me?” Your voice is deceptively calm.

Nanami meets your gaze, unwavering. “Dragging out negotiations benefits no one.”

Balding Man exhales, muttering something under his breath. You, however, do not look impressed. Your fingers drum once, twice, against the polished surface of the table. “I wasn’t aware I asked for your opinion, Nanami.”

A sharp silence settles over the room. Nanami’s fingers curl into his palm. You do this all the time. You argue, you challenge, you push every meeting to its breaking point. When things spiral, he’s the one left cleaning up the mess. Now, when he finally intervenes, you’re mad at him? Fine.

Nanami sets his jaw. “I’m only saying what needs to be said.”

The corners of your mouth turn down—just a fraction—before you lean back in your chair. Without looking at him, you say, “Let’s wrap this up.”

Nanami doesn’t allow himself to feel relieved just yet, but at least you don’t push back any further. The rest of the meeting crawls towards a conclusion, with the Zen’in representatives clearly eager to be anywhere else. The moment the last pleasantries are exchanged, Balding Man all but scrambles out the door, leaving you and Nanami alone in the conference room. The silence is razor-thin, stretched taut like a wire about to snap.

“That was productive,” you say, standing up.

He closes the folder in front of him with a controlled snap. “It could have been productive three weeks ago.”

You don’t even look at him. “Tragic, isn’t it?”

He levels you with a stare, but you keep your attention on straightening the cuffs of your blazer, smoothing out imaginary wrinkles. The dismissal is blatant. His patience thins. “You’re making my job harder than it needs to be,” he says.

At that, you finally glance at him. “Then maybe you should stop getting in my way and embarrassing me in front of our collaborators.”

“I’m doing my job.”

“Are you? Because from where I’m standing, it looks more like you’re doing theirs.”

The words are like ice—controlled, but cold enough to cut. Nanami’s fingernails dig crescents into his palm. “You’re dragging this out for no reason,” he says evenly.

You hum, turning towards the door. “If you think that, then maybe you should stick to taking notes instead of giving opinions.”

That stops him in his tracks. You don’t wait for a response. You step out of the conference room without another glance, the steady click of your heels the only sound in the empty hall. Nanami exhales, fingers flexing at his sides.

You’re shutting him out. If that’s how you want to play, so be it.

It starts with the coffee. Nanami always brings it to you in the morning when he reaches his desk at 8:31 A.M—black for him, a complicated order with enough sugar to kill a lesser man for you. He knows the exact amount of cream that you like, and the precise temperature it needs to be when you take your first sip. But the morning after the meeting, when he sets his cup down on his desk, there’s no second cup. He hears the slight pause in your typing when you notice. A small shift of paper against paper.

“Nanami,” you say.

He doesn’t look up. “Yes?”

“Did you forget something?”

He smooths his tie down over his chest, eyes still on his tablet. “I assumed you wouldn’t need my help with something so simple.”

There’s a long, brittle pause. He knows you’re looking at him. He can feel your eyes upon him from across the room. But he doesn’t glance up, doesn’t shift. Finally, you close the file in front of you with a muted snap and rise from your chair. Your heels click sharply against the floor as you pass him, pausing just briefly at his side. “Hope your schedule’s clear,” you say, voice like glass. “You’ll need to redraft the acquisition proposal by noon.”

“Fine.” His mouth tightens.

He retaliates with paperwork. Nanami knows exactly how to drown someone in administrative hell without breaking a sweat. The next morning, he leaves a neat stack of contracts, memos, and reports on your desk, all unlabeled. He knows you hate that. The revised budget is buried beneath the expense sheets, and the acquisition report—still missing a key section—has no notes attached. He hears the scrape of a chair, followed by the clipped sound of your heels striking the marble floor as you stalk towards his desk.

“Did you think this was acceptable?” you say, tossing the report onto his desk. Nanami’s hands are still on his keyboard. He doesn’t look up. “The section on profit restructuring is incomplete,” you add.

“I assumed you’d prefer to review it yourself,” he says, “since you were so insistent on final approval.”

“Correct it,” you say, voice low. “And put it on my desk by the end of the day.”

Nanami closes his laptop with deliberate care. “Of course.”

Meetings become a war zone. He starts cutting in before you’ve finished speaking. You return the favour without hesitation. One afternoon, during a strategy meeting, he hears you inhale and knows exactly what you’re about to say. “Actually—” he begins.

“I don’t need clarification,” you say flatly, not even looking at him.

“It’s important to avoid miscommunication,” Nanami says. His eyes flick towards you.

Your smile is thin. “Then stop talking.”

Nanami’s mood darkens. Balding Man, sitting across the table, looks like he’d rather fling himself out of the nearest window. Nanami doesn’t care. You’ve made it clear how little you care about his input. If you want to micromanage everything, he’ll stop bothering to clean up your messes.

He starts adjusting your schedule. Meetings appear on your calendar without explanation—overlapping appointments, double-booked sit visits, late-night briefings. At one point, you get a notification for an 8 A.M call with the accounting department, only to find out Nanami cancelled it an hour earlier. You stride into his office. He doesn’t look up from his tablet.

“I thought you handled scheduling,” you say.

“I must have misunderstood your preferences,” he says without inflection. “Since you’ve made it clear that you prefer to handle things yourself.”

You stare at him. He still doesn’t look up. Finally, you scoff under your breath and leave. Nanami watches the door swing shut, something sharp and pointed pressing into his chest.

Lunch becomes unbearable. You still sit together—out of habit, perhaps—but the silence is cutting. Nanami eats his neatly-packed bento with steady, measured bites; you stab aggressively at your pasta, tearing the penne apart like it’s personally offended you. Once, you push your tray an inch towards him and say, “Taste this.”

“I’m allergic to it,” Nanami says, scrolling through some news article on his phone.

“You’re not allergic to chocolate mousse.”

“I could be.”

You make a noise, sharp and irritated, and push the tray away. Nanami doesn’t look away from his phone. He feels the tightness in his shoulders. He hates this. He hates that you’re angry. He hates that he’s angry. Most of all, he hates that he can’t stop himself from pressing harder.

The final blow comes during a boardroom meeting. One of the department heads starts talking in circles, and Nanami—already at the edge of his patience—starts to cut in. “We already—”

“I think it’s important to clarify the terms,” you say smoothly, before he can finish.

Nanami’s gaze snaps to you. His eyes narrow. “There’s no need to clarify anything.”

“Just making sure,” you say, flashing him a bland smile.

Nanami closes his laptop with unsettling calm. You start gathering your papers. His hands curl into his lap. “If you want to manage everything,” he says quietly, “I’ll stop bothering to give input.”

You look at him; your eyes are ice when you say, “Maybe you should,” and walk out without another word. Nanami watches the door shut behind you. He clenches his jaw so hard, it begins to hurt. This is untenable, he thinks.

Nanami hears the clock ticking.

It’s past midnight, and the city outside the office windows glows faintly beneath the dark sky. The only light in the room comes from the soft, sterile glow of your laptops, casting cold shadows across the polished table. His tie is loose around his neck, and the sleeves of his dress shirt are rolled up to his elbows. Across from him, you sit with your laptop open, eyes fixed on the screen. Your hair is slightly disheveled. There’s an untouched cup of coffee beside you, gone cold hours ago.

It’s quiet, except for the sound of typing and the low hum of the air conditioning. Nanami reviews the document in front of him, trying to concentrate, but it proves to be a difficult task when his gaze keeps drifting towards you. He observes—the tightness in your jaw; the slight furrow of your brow; the way your fingers tap a little too hard against your keyboard. He knows you’re frustrated. You’ve been frustrated for weeks. So has he.

He hears the sound of a key sticking, followed by an annoyed exhale. “Fucking hell,” you mutter under your breath.

“You should take a break,” he tells you.

“I’m fine,” you snap.

Nanami sets his pen down. “You’re not fine. You’ve been working non-stop for—”

“I said I’m fine.”

He leans back in his chair, arms crossing over his chest. “Yes, clearly. That’s why you’ve been rereading the same page of that draft for the past thirty minutes.”

Your head snaps up. “I’m sorry, are you the CEO now?”

“Are you trying to sabotage your own company?”

“Oh, fuck off, Nanami.”

“Gladly,” he bites out, closing the folder in front of him. “Maybe then you can stop wasting my time.”

Your chair scrapes loudly against the floor as you push back from the table. “I’m sorry I’m such an inconvenience,” you say sharply. “God forbid you actually have to work for a change.”

Nanami’s expression darkens. His hands press flat against the table as he stands. “It’s not about the work. It’s about you actively making it harder for yourself—and for me.”

“And here I thought handling me was part of your job description.”

“I don’t mind doing my job,” he says icily. “I mind when you refuse to let anyone help you and then act surprised when things don’t go your way.”

“Then why don’t you quit?” you say, chin lifting. “If you hate working for me so much, why don’t you just leave?”

“Maybe I should.”

You suck in a breath sharply, shoulders tense, mouth tightening. Nanami knows he’s gone too far. He sees the flicker of hurt in your expression before you smooth it away.

“Do it, then,” you say coldly. “Walk out. It’s not like anyone’s forcing you to stay.”

You are, he wants to say. Because you are, whether intentionally or not. Nanami finds himself drawn to you, like a moth circling a very bright flame. If he was a sunflower, he thinks you’d be the sun. Nanami doesn’t say any of that. He steps towards you, walking around the table until he’s right in front of you. “Don’t—”

“Or what?” You smile, sharp-edged and bitter. “You’ll finally stop pretending to care?”

Nanami’s hands curl into fists. “Stop it.”

“Stop what?” you demand, turning away from him and bracing your hands on the desk. The papers underneath your hands crumple. “Stop trying to make sure my company doesn’t go fucking bankrupt, or stop—”

“I’m trying to help you—”

“No,” you say, breathless with rage. “You know asking for help means I can’t handle everything myself, and—”

“You’re so stubborn,” he says, finally. His heart hammers against his ribs. “You’re impossible to work with right now.”

“I am under pressure!” you yell, whipping around to face him. “You think I’m being difficult on purpose?”

Nanami stares at you, breathing hard. His hands brace against the table to keep from shaking. “Then what the hell is this?”

Your hands are trembling. Your eyes shine with something dangerously close to tears, but you don’t let them fall. “My parents are pressuring me to get married. And on top of that, I’m trying to close a deal with my ex’s company because of my stupid board of directors—never mind the fact that the Zen’ins engage in borderline illegal practices—and I have to sit across their representative and pretend I don’t know Zeni’in Naoya once tried to steal intellectual property from me. And the only person I trusted to be able to help me out has been treating me like a fucking liability.”

Nanami’s breath catches. “I’m not—”

“Then do something, Nanami,” and you sound pleading when you say it, and Nanami’s chest tightens.

You’re an anomaly in Nanami’s perfectly-structured, perfectly-planned out life. He has known this for a while, only he never acknowledged it until now. The thing is, Nanami thrives on order; on logic; on neat, clean lines and predictable outcomes. He works best when things make sense, when he can anticipate every possible outcome and adjust accordingly. He’s built his life around that certainty—disciplined and unwavering.

But there’s you.

You, who he can’t predict. You, who challenges him in every conversation, who barreled into his life with no premonition. You, whose moods shift so easily—stern one moment, playful the next, always just a little out of reach. You, a hurricane in the body of a woman. You, you, you.

You are the only thing in his life that doesn’t fit into a box. And yet, somehow, you’re the only thing he doesn’t want to let go of. You barreled straight through his rib cage and settled deep down inside his unsuspecting heart, and he does not think he could pry you away, now.

Nanami breathes hard. His pulse is a frantic, erratic thing beneath his skin. It echoes in his ears as he stares at you—eyes flashing, chest rising and falling.

You’re close—close enough that he can see the tremor of your hands where they’re braced against the desk. Your mouth is parted and your breath is unsteady. There’s a flush creeping up your neck, and your eyes—God, your eyes—burn into him like they’re trying to carve him open from the inside out.

Nanami should step back. He knows this. He should take a deep breath and turn away before one of you says something you can’t take back. But his feet feel rooted to the ground. You look at him—really look at him—and whatever thread of control he’s holding onto snaps clean in two.

His hand moves before he can stop it, fingers brushing along the line of your jaw. Your breath hitches. You don’t pull away. He tilts your chin up, his thumb resting just beneath your lower lip, and your mouth opens slightly beneath his touch. His palm is warm, and then his hand slides to the back of your neck.

And then you’re moving—closing the distance between you without hesitation. Your mouth crashes against his, rough and desperate, and Nanami’s hand tightens at the nape of your neck as he kisses you back, hard.

It’s messy. Too fast, and too much. Your teeth catch against his bottom lip, and he exhales harshly, his other hand sliding down to your waist and yanking you forward until there’s no space left between you. Your fingers curl into the front of his shirt; you tug him down to you. His lips part against yours, and you deepen the kiss, all gasping breaths and frantic movements.

Nanami’s head spins. His hand slides beneath your blouse, finding the bare skin at the small of your back, and you shudder. You press closer, and he feels the quick, uneven flutter of your heart where your chest is pressed against his.

You break away first, just barely. Your breath ghosts against his mouth, shallow and ragged, before you lean in and kiss him again—slower this time, softer, but still aching with urgency. Nanami’s hand slips into your hair, his thumb pressing gently behind your ear as your lips part beneath his. You sigh into him.

Nanami knows he should stop. He knows he should pull back before this spirals out of control. But you breathe his name against his mouth, quiet and pleading, and Nanami’s resolve shatters.

He kisses you deeper.

Nanami doesn’t think—he’s past the point of rational thought. His hands slide down the curve of your waist, settling at your hips as he walks you backward, step by step, until the edge of the table presses against the back of your thighs. You’re breathless, flushed, lips swollen from his mouth. He watches your chest rise and fall, watches the slight tremor in your hands where they curl into his shirt.

His hands are on your thighs, lifting you effortlessly onto the polished surface. Papers scatter beneath you, forgotten, as his mouth trails down the column of your throat. His lips are soft, his breath hot against your skin, and you gasp when his teeth scrape lightly over the sensitive spot under your jaw. His hands are firm at your hips, sliding beneath the hem of your skirt as he coaxes your legs apart.

Your hands find his shoulders, clinging. He drops to his knees in front of you. His gaze lifts to yours, golden in the low light of the room. His hands slide down your thighs, spreading them wider, and his mouth curves slightly when he sees the way your breath shudders.

“May I?” he asks, a little bit hoarse.

You nod. “Yes,” you breathe out.

That’s all he needs. His mouth presses to the inside of your knee, trailing hot, open-mouthed kisses along the soft skin of your inner thigh. Your head tips back when his lips brush higher, his breath hot against the lace between your legs. He pulls your underwear aside with a tug.

“Look at you,” he murmurs, thumb brushing along your inner thigh. His breath hitches as he watches your slick shine between your folds, already glistening with arousal. His thumb traces the line of your slit, parting you with a slow, teasing drag. “So wet for me already.”

His eyes flick up to meet yours. “Did you need this that badly?”

You open your mouth to answer, but you shudder when his thumb presses against your clit, rubbing a slow, lazy circle. A broken sound escapes you, hips twitching towards his hand. Nanami hums in approval, and says, “I’ll take that as a yes.”

The first stroke of his tongue is slow, like he’s savouring the taste of you. Your thighs twitch, but his hands find purchase beneath them, anchoring you firmly against the table as his mouth works against you. His tongue flicks over your clit, and your hands fly to his hair, fingers tangling in the strands. He groans low in his throat, the sound vibrating against you as his lips close around you and suck.

“Oh, my God—Nanami—”

He hums against you, pleased. His tongue slides down, dragging through your folds before pressing back up to your clit. He’s focused, the same way he is with everything else—this time, though, his only goal is to make you feel good. His fingers flex against your thighs. Your hips jerk, but he presses you down with a firm hand. His mouth leaves you for half a second, just enough time for him to say, “Stay still.”

Then, he’s back on you, tongue sliding over you in slow, wet strokes. His lips close around your clit again, sucking softly before flicking his tongue over it until you’re gasping. Your thighs threaten to close around his head, but his hands keep you pinned open.

“Nanami—Nanami, I’m—”

His mouth seals over your folds, tongue curling against you just right. Your back arches, a broken moan slipping from your lips. You sag against the table, breathless. Nanami presses one last kiss to your thigh before standing. His mouth glistens.

“Come here,” he tells you, and this time, he’s the one who sounds pleading.

He kisses you, hard and hungry, and makes sure you taste yourself on his tongue.

Nanami’s breath is ragged when he pulls back. His hands slide down your sides, steady even as his chest rises and falls in quick, shallow breaths. He undoes his belt with one sharp pull, the metallic jingle ringing in the quiet room. The sound makes his cock twitch, already painfully hard from how wrecked you look beneath him—forehead beaded with sweat, lips swollen, legs still trembling from the way he just made you come.

He draws himself out, cock slapping against his abdomen. He wraps a hand around the base, and strokes himself once, slow. His cock is thick and flushed, the head glistening with precome. His jaw tightens. He’s already so close, but he wants to take his time. He wants to savour this—savour you.

“Are you on the pill?” he manages to ask.

You nod, desperate and frantic. “Yes, yes—fuck, please—”

“Bend over,” he says, voice low.

You hesitate for a second, blinking up at him through heavy-lidded eyes. But his hands are already on you, guiding you up and turning you until you’re facing the table. His palm slides down the curve of your back, pressing your forward until your chest is flush against the cool wood. His hand lingers at the nape of your neck, fingers threading through your hair as he leans over you.

“You’ll let me have you like this, won’t you?” His mouth brushes against the shell of your ear. “Spread your legs for me.”

You do, and Nanami’s breath stutters. His hands slide down to your hips, thumbs pressing into the soft flesh there as he pulls you open. His gaze drops to where you’re still slick from his mouth, the sight making his cock ache.

“Fuck,” he curses under his breath.

He lines himself up, dragging the flushed tip of his cock through your folds, coating himself with your arousal. He rubs the head against your entrance, teasing—but he’s barely hanging on himself. His cock throbs, and his grip on your hips tightens.

“Nanami—” you gasp out.

He sinks into you in one slow thrust. The stretch makes him moan, the tight heat of you wrapping around him inch by inch. His forehead drops against the back of your shoulder. He bottoms out, his hips pressing flush against you. “God,” he breathes, voice strained. His fingers curl against your skin, hard enough to bruise. “You’re so—”

He pulls back, almost all the way out, and then thrusts back in. You shudder beneath him. Nanami groans low in his throat. The sound vibrates against your skin as he sets a steady pace, hips rolling into you with each thrust. Each drag of his cock against your walls makes him see white behind his eyes.

“So tight,” he mutters, more to himself than you. His hand slides up your spine, spreading his fingers between your shoulder blades to press you down. His other hand grips your hip hard, holding you still. His cock stretches you open so perfectly that he can barely think straight.

He watches the way you take him—how you flutter around him each time he pulls back, how your legs shake when he thrusts deeper, how your eyes close and your lips part with pretty moans just for him to hear. He wants to see more. He slides a hand down to your front, his fingers finding your clit. He rubs quick circles, and the way you clench around him makes him hiss through his teeth.

“Nanami—” Your voice is wrecked, gasping, breaking.

“I know,” he says through gritted teeth. His thrusts quicken. His chest presses to your back as he leans over you. His mouth finds the side of your neck, and he sucks hard. “Let me—”

You come with a sharp cry, and the way you tighten around him makes his rhythm falter. His cock throbs as he fucks you through your orgasm, dragging out every last tremor. Your walls flutter around him, slick and hot and perfect. Nanami groans against your skin. His thrusts grow shallow and uneven, his breath ragged.

He comes with a low, guttural sound, hips pressed deep as he spills inside you. His hand stays on your hip. He presses his mouth to the back of your neck, groaning.

His breath is still ragged as he carefully pulls out, the feeling of his cum slipping out of you making his chest tighten. He slides a hand down your back, smoothing your hair away from your face as he leans over you.

“Stay there,” he murmurs, his mouth brushing against your shoulder. His voice is soft now, almost tender. “Let me take care of you.”

He tucks himself away, smoothing down his shirt before his hands return to you—lifting you gently from the table and letting you lean into his arms. “Nanami,” you say.

“Yes?”

“We’ve ruined all the contract papers.”

The office feels too quiet the next day.

Nanami sits at his desk, but his mind isn’t on the stack of reports in front of him. His pen hovers over the paper, unmoving. His thoughts drift back to last night. To you.

The way you looked beneath him, flushed with heat and trembling. The way your breath caught in your throat when he touched you. The sound of his name falling from your lips, breathless and perfect. Nanami exhales, trying to clear his mind. He pinches the bridge of his nose, but the memory clings stubbornly to the edges of his mind. His hands curl into fists. He should not be thinking about this—about you.

But it’s impossible not to. Especially when you’re right there.

He hears your voice before he sees you. He hears you let out a quiet laugh from across the room, the sound tugging at his attention like a thread pulled tight. His eyes lift automatically and he finds you standing at your desk, flipping through a folder with that little crease between your brows you always get when you’re focused.

You glance up, your gaze meeting his. Neither of you move, until you give him a small, polite smile and look away.

Nanami grits his teeth. His pen presses hard against the paper as he looks down, trying to will his pulse back to normal. Pathetic, he thinks.

He should be able to handle this. He’s an adult. A professional. He has handled far more serious situations with more composure than this. Every time you walk past his desk, his gaze follows you. Every time you speak, his attention hooks onto your voice like it’s a lifeline. His fingers itch to touch you—to brush a hand along your arm, to tip your chin up and steal a kiss.

It’s getting unbearable.

It’s not just the memories of last night that haunt him—it’s the aftermath. Because you’re acting… normal, and that’s the problem. You greet him the same way you always have. Your smile is the same. Meanwhile, Nanami is fighting for his life every time you walk within ten feet of him.

This morning, you’d handed him a report with your fingers brushing over his. “Morning, Nanami,” you’d said, bright and sweet.

His hand had twitched. “Morning.”

You’d walked off while he sat there, wondering how a simple touch could make him feel like his entire nervous system was short-circuiting.

But the worst part is that he’s not subtle about it. Not at all. It’s a problem.

Like when you walked into the office this afternoon, holding a cup of coffee, looking pretty in your blouse and trousers. Nanami had glanced up for half a second—and in that half-second, he’d managed to knock his pen holder off his desk.

“Are you okay?” you’d asked, setting down your coffee and crouching to help him.

Nanami had stared at the mess on the floor. “Fine.”

You’d smiled at him, amused. He’d looked away quickly, feeling heat creep up his neck.

Or earlier today, when you had stopped at his desk to ask about a meeting. “Did you get the email from Gojo?” you’d asked, leaning slightly over his desk.

Nanami had blinked at you, his mind immediately spiraling back to last night—the feeling of your body beneath his hands, the way you had gasped when he—

“Nanami?”

“Hm?”

“The email?”

“Yes. Yes, I saw it.”

“You sure?”

“Positive.”

You’d looked at him for a long moment, eyes narrowing slightly. Then you’d shrugged and walked away. Nanami had exhaled once you were out of sight, rubbing a hand over his face. He’s being so obvious, and that’s unacceptable.

“Nanami, could you grab those papers from my desk?” you ask that evening, glancing over your shoulder as you pack up your bag.

“Of course,” he replies, already standing. His legs carry him towards your desk before he can think better of it.

Your desk is neat, everything in its place—except for the book. It’s placed on the edge, slightly worn from use. He recognises it instantly. It’s the one he bought you at the flea market weeks ago, when you’d read out a few sentences in an attempt to “woo” him. He hadn’t expected you to actually read it.

Curiosity tugs at him. His hand drifts towards the book. The spine gives under his touch, loose—like it’s been held too many times, thumbed through on quiet nights. It falls open easily. There’s a dog-ear marking a specific page. Nanami reads the passage beneath the crease:

‘It hit him all at once, like the sun breaking through the clouds. That the way his chest ached every time he saw her smile was not fear of confusion—it was love. Had always been love. And how foolish he’d been, not to have known it sooner.’

Nanami Kento freezes. His fingers press lightly against the paper. He thinks of the way you smile at him; of the soft, half-lidded look you give him when you’re tired; of the way you always seem to find him first in a crowded room. He thinks of the warmth in your laugh, and the way you lean towards him when you talk, like you don’t even realise you’re doing it.

How had he not known?

His heartbeat stumbles. His gaze lifts to you, across the room.

You’re still packing up, tucking a notebook into your bag. Your brows crease slightly in concentration, the corners of your mouth tugging down. You push a loose strand of hair behind your ear. Nanami swears he forgets how to breathe.

Had you known before he had? Is that why you marked this passage and left it there for him to find? Or had you dog-eared it for yourself—because you had some sort of silly, idiotic hope that it was true?

You look up. Your eyes catch his. You smile—small and soft, easy as breathing. Nanami’s throat tightens. His chest aches in that quiet, unbearable way that’s starting to feel familiar. He sets the book down. You zip up your bag and turn around to the door. His gaze follows you without thinking.

Oh, he thinks, heart pounding. How foolish of me.

It hits him that night, when he’s in bed and thinking about you. You’d said that Zen’in Naoya had stolen your intellectual property once. His eyes widen, and he sits up straight, reaching for his phone that’s charging on his nightstand. He dials in your number.

You pick up after two rings. “...Hello?”

You sound sleepy. When he looks at the time, it’s almost midnight. “Sorry. Did I wake you?”

“Yes, but—” he hears you yawn— “it’s fine. I should savour the occasion, actually. It’s rare that you call me first.”

“Yes, well.” Nanami’s cheeks burn. “I wanted to ask you something.”

“Go on.”

“That night— The night we—” Nanami feels his entire face heat up. “The night we argued,” he settles on. “You mentioned that Zen’in Naoya stole your intellectual property.”

There’s a pause on the other end of the line. He hears you shift, the rustling of sheets punctuating the silence. “That was a long time ago,” you say quietly.

“What happened?” he asks.

“It’s… complicated.”

“I have time,” he says, settling back against the headboard. His hand presses over his mouth, his thumb resting just below his jaw.

“It was when I was still with Naoya,” you say carefully, like you’re trying not to give away too much. “I was working on a pitch for an international partnership. It was something I’d been preparing for months. And I—I made the mistake of showing it to him.

“He said he just wanted to look it over. But then he brought it to his family as his own work. Word-for-word. Even the phrasing in the executive summary was identical.”

“And no one said anything?” Nanami questions.

“People noticed,” you reply. “But it’s the Zen’in family. No one wanted to stir the pot, you know?”

“What happened with the pitch?”

“It tanked. Naoya didn’t bother to prepare for the follow-up meetings. He couldn’t answer half the questions that came up. It was humiliating—for both of us—but I was the one who took the fall. No one was going to take my side over Naoya’s. His uncle’s practically running the whole board. It was easier to let me look incompetent.”

Nanami feels his teeth press together. His free hand curls into a fist against his knee. “You should’ve told me.”

You huff out a laugh. “I didn’t know you at the time, Nanami. All this happened while I was working for the Zen’ins—before my dad retired and handed me his company.”

The Zen’ins hadn’t been circling your company. No, it had been Salt-and-Pepper who brought them in. The timing had been suspicious. The Zen’ins’ reputation is tainted—financial mismanagement, aggressive acquisition tactics, borderline illegal practices. The last thing you needed was to be tethered to a sinking ship.

But Salt-and-Pepper had managed to convince over half of the board of directors. Wire-Rimmed Glasses had been on his side from the start. So had Charcoal Pants and Nepotism Baby, albeit reluctantly.

“This isn’t just a business deal. Right?” he asks you. He understands, now, why you’d made negotiations with Balding Man—Zen’in Industries’ representative—so difficult. You’d tried to drag it on for as long as you could, trying to stall the deal from going through.

You stay quiet on the other end. Nanami takes that as confirmation.

“Okay,” he says slowly. “Okay. We can figure this out.”

“What are you thinking, Nanami?”

Salt-and-Pepper’s financials. His holdings. Any private deals with Zen’in Industries or overlapping investments. Nanami has access to all of it—board records, meeting minutes, even expense reports. If there is a paper trail, he would find it.

“Do you think,” he says, “you can handle a meeting with Legal tomorrow?”

It happens quickly after that.

Past papers are uncovered. Shady deals surface. It’s almost too easy. Nanami knows how these things work—no paper trail is truly invisible, no backdoor negotiation is as airtight as it seems. People talk, especially when the money starts moving.

Nanami digs through your company’s internal records the next day, tracking down the original licensing agreements for the software framework. The timeline doesn’t add up. Zen’in Industries’ supposed “internal R&D” was completed two months before the initial product proposal had even been drafted. That’s not just suspicious—it’s impossible.

He finds the buried reports: Memos from Salt-and-Pepper’s office, quiet requests to “streamline” the internal approval process. He finds—perhaps most damning of all—a forwarded email chain from Wire-Rimmed Glasses to Balding Man.

Need to close this by Q3. Zen’in Industries’ team will take over full oversight post-merger.

The date on the email reads for two weeks before the first joint meeting had even been scheduled.

He goes to the Accounting department next, via the internal compliance office. Someone from accounting had flagged a discrepancy in the financial statements weeks ago, but it had quickly been buried. There were payments made to an offshore account—small enough to be overlooked at a glance, but steady and consistent. It was linked to a shell corporation in Singapore.

A shell corporation owned by Zen’in Industries.

Nanami doesn’t hesitate. He sends the information to your private office line under encryption. The paper trail is too neat. This wasn’t just about a merger. It was a quiet takeover.

Salt-and-Pepper had gotten sloppy. He had to convince the board to sign over proprietary assets through the collaboration over the new product. Let Zen’in gut the tech. Then quietly dissolve the partnership and walk away with the intellectual property rights. Your company would be left holding the framework—and the financial fallout.

Salt-and-Pepper would walk away with his cut.

You’re surprised to see him when he walks into your office. His tie is askew. His shirt is rumpled. He is not the usual, put-together man he is. How could he be, when your own board of directors was secretly conspiring against you?

“Nanami?” you ask, setting down your bag.

He slides a folder towards you without a word.

The next day, the partnership with Zen’in Industries is called off, and Salt-and-Pepper is stripped of his position. (Translation: He was fired.)

When Nanami Kento officially decides to ask you out—because he has, officially, let the fact that he’s in love with you sink in—it is supposed to be methodical. He had planned out the worst-case, most likely, and best case scenarios in his head, as he always does.

Best Case Scenario (Highly Unlikely): You say yes immediately, without even pausing. He takes you to that quaint French place he knows you like, and the waiter winks at him approvingly because you’re clearly out of his league. You’re charming (you always are), and he’s witty (for the first time in his life). At the end of the night, when he walks you to your door, you kiss him. It’s perfect. Birds are singing. Angels are weeping. The stock market hits a record high the next day.

Most Likely Scenario (Fortunate and Expected): You blink at him, and then laugh—a little nervous, a little delighted—and agree to go out with him. He takes you to a good restaurant. You order something a little too expensive, but he doesn’t complain. You’re charming (you always are), and he is… passable. He doesn’t embarrass himself. He even manages to make you laugh once or twice. Instead of kissing him at your doorstep, you punch his arm lightly and say goodbye. He fist-punches the air like a teenage boy when you close the door.

Worst-Case Scenario (God Forbid): You reject him. You say you only think of him as a friend and nothing more. He blacks out for approximately five seconds. You stop bringing him melonpan. He stops walking with you to the elevator. He will probably leave the company. Years later, he hears you’re married to someone who’s the complete opposite of him (probably a racecar driver). He dies alone.

(He’s accounting for margin of error, obviously.)

Nanami reviews his options with the same level of focus he usually reserves for quarterly reports and balance sheets. He weighs the pros and cons, considers timing, and factors in your general mood over the past two weeks. You’ve been in good spirits since Salt-and-Pepper’s departure. An excellent sign.

Still, when he finally stands outside your office, his heart is pounding hard enough to disrupt his thought process. Which is utterly ridiculous. He’s a grown man. A professional. He’s closed million-yen deals under pressure, right by your side. There is no reason he should be standing here, debating whether to knock.

The door swings open before he can decide. “Nanami?” you say, blinking at him.

His mouth opens. His mouth closes. He’s completely blank.

You tilt your head. “Are you okay?”

“Yes,” he says, except it sounds completely unconvincing. “I wanted to ask you something.”

You give him a curious look, stepping back to let him in. He follows you inside. His heart rabbits inside his rib cage. This is fine. He’s prepared for this.

“You look serious,” you say, sitting on the edge of your desk. “Is this about work?”

“No.” His hands are in his pockets. He takes a breath. He needs to rip the bandaid off. “Would you—” He stops. Closes his eyes. Starts again. “Would you like to have dinner with me? As a date.”

You don’t say anything—not right away. Instead, you snort.

Nanami’s eyes snap open.

You’re covering your mouth with your hand, but it’s not enough to muffle the sound of your increasingly uncontrollable laughter. Your shoulders are shaking with the full-body kind of laughter.

“Are you…” Nanami feels like his brain is short-circuiting. “Are you laughing?”

“Oh, my God,” you wheeze, tipping your head back. “You— You’re asking me out?”

“That is… generally how this works,” he says stiffly. His cheeks prickle with heat.

You dissolve into another fit of giggles. Nanami’s heart sinks. He’s about five seconds away from accepting defeat and leaving the country after changing his identity.

But then you slide off the desk and point an accusing finger at him, still laughing. “Nanami Kento,” you say, breathless, “do you have any idea how hard I’ve been trying to get you to notice me?”

“...What?”

You groan, wringing your hands together. “I have been trying to get you to notice me for months. You are literally the most oblivious person on the planet.”

Nanami opens his mouth, but nothing comes out. His brain is working overtime trying to process the implications of what you’ve just said.

You hold up a finger. “First of all—the book.”

“The book?” Nanami echoes, very intelligently.

“Yes, the book. The one you bought me at the flea market? You didn’t have to, so I figured you might feel the same way ‘cause you do a lot of the stuff I ask you to do, even though you don’t have to, and no one’s forcing you to. And the time you came over because I was drunk and I called you up and you made me tea and stayed until I fell asleep. And here I was, overthinking everything because I like you so much—too much, probably, and—”

Nanami steps forward, closing the distance between you in two long strides. Your eyes widen slightly as he places his hands on your waist, steady and warm. His thumb brushes the hem of your shirt.

“You,” he says, “talk too much.”

Your mouth opens—to protest, probably—but Nanami leans down and kisses you before you can say another word.

Your breath hitches, and then your hands curl into the front of his shirt. You melt into him. His lips are soft and sure, and the way you sigh into the kiss makes his heart stutter. He feels you smile against his mouth.

When he pulls back, you’re breathless, a little flustered. But your eyes are bright and happy, and that, Nanami thinks, is always good.

“Oh,” you murmur. “Was that the best case scenario?”

“Birds are singing,” he says. “Angels are weeping.”

“Stock market?”

“Remains to be seen.”

You grin and pull him down for another kiss.

Nanami’s apartment is quiet in the way he likes best. His bedroom is dark, save for the small pool of golden light from the lamp on the nightstand. His bed is warm, and so are you—curled beneath the blankets, your hair spilling over his pillow.

The book he bought you is sitting on the nightstand. There’s a new crease in the spine and a bookmark tucked partway through because he’s been reading it. He never used to care for fiction, but you’d smiled so brightly when he picked it up that now he finds himself reading it when he gets the time.

The mug of honey and ginger tea warms his hands. You blink sleepily when you see him, sitting up when he approaches the bed. Your hair is mussed, and you have a mark on your cheek where you’d turned into the pillow. His heart does that foolish, undignified thing where it stumbles in his chest.

“Tea,” he says, handing you the mug. “Drink.”

You smile when you take it. He sits down on the edge of the bed and watches you lift the mug to your lips. His hand finds your hair almost without thinking, fingers threading through it.

“We’re meeting my parents this weekend. You remember, right?” you ask, resting the mug on your knee.

“Are you turning into my secretary now?”

“No,” you say, and tilt your chin up defiantly at him. “Just so you know, I’m marrying you whether my parents approve or not.”

“Noted,” Nanami says.

“Good.”

“Why are you asking me?”

You shrug, a tad playful. “I don’t know. Thought you might’ve come to your senses.”

He makes a quiet sound—something like a laugh, though softer. “That would be difficult.” His thumb brushes the curve of your cheek. “I lost them a long time ago.”

You smile like that means something. Nanami leans back against the headboard, his arm resting across your shoulder as you tuck yourself into his side. The book is still sitting on the nightstand, waiting for him. He’ll pick it up later, after you’ve fallen asleep. For now, he lets himself breathe you in—warmth and honey and ginger.

“We have work tomorrow.” He tilts his head, and his lips brush against your hairline when he says it.

You laugh under your breath, your cheek pressed to his shoulder. “I am your work, Kento.”

Nanami smiles. He kisses your head again. His heart feels unbearably full.

Thus, he thinks, the courtship affairs of a common man have come to a very satisfying close.

a/n: as per usual, thank you to the inimitable @mahowaga for listening to me ramble about this fic & helping me out whenever i got stuck. this fic is pretty much dedicated to her. thank you for reading & i hope you have a wonderful day!

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