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hatterstan-shameblog · 2 years

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Freedom’s Just Another Word For Nothing Left To Lose: All Of The Times Aguni Stayed (And The One Time He Left)

Pairing: Takeru (Hatter)/Aguni

Rating: PG-13

Warnings: alcohol, language, mentions of violence, internalized homophobia, allusions to sex work

Notes: The second installment of this story—Takeru and Aguni are a few years older, their relationship just as strong. When Takeru asks Aguni for help regarding his new job opportunity, Aguni agrees...for better or worse.

(Ch. 1)

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Chapter Two: The Boxer by Simon and Garfunkel

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It’s summer. Sticky, hot, and sweaty—the rickety fan in Aguni’s apartment oscillates at a snail’s speed, breeze barely cutting through the swampy heatwave that has beset Tokyo for the better part of a week.

They’re having soba tonight—courtesy of Takeru’s mother, who always finds a way to send food along every time her son crosses town to visit him. She worries, apparently. Aguni pretends not to feel sentimental.

“Boss offered me a job.”

Takeru is shirtless and shiny, sweat slicking a sheen along his skinny collarbone and taut stomach. Chopsticks swirl noodles into cool broth—he's always so violent about it, not caring about the little drops that splatter over the sides of the bowl and land on the scuffed little table in front of them.

“Oh?” Aguni asks, albeit despondently—it’s impossible to think when the evening air is so thickly miserable. He slops another shot of cheap sake into his coffee mug and grimaces as it burns his throat on the way down.

“Yeah,” Takeru says, putting down his eating utensils in favor of a smoldering cigarette— how he can still smoke when the weather is like this escapes Aguni, adding to the heat with each steamy exhale floats from his lips, “Aren’t you gonna ask me about it?”

The radio loses its signal, music going scratchy and fuzzy as the old antenna tries to pick it back up again. Aguni smacks the top of his tapedeck in the hopes it’ll help.

It doesn’t.

“I don’t gotta ask, “Aguni grumbles. He reaches forward to twist at the dial, “You’ll tell me anyways, whether I wanna know or not.”

“But don’t you wanna know? Doesn’t the thought of me having a fabulously lucrative and exciting new opportunity have you on the edge of your seat?”

“Well, I’m sitting on the floor, so…”

“Mori!” Takeru groans, “Come on, man, this is big for me.”

He has to change to another station—something low and jazz, singer crooning over brass and a thrum-drum beat—and flops back to lie flat on the floor.

“Alright,” Aguni concedes, sighing as he stares up at the cheap chipped lamp swinging from the ceiling, “Lay it on me.”

The sound of the bottle scraping across the table, and Takeru takes a hearty, audible gulp of alcohol. Then, Aguni smells smoke—he’s taken up his cigarette again, sucking in and blowing out a puff of nicotine before sighing a satiated hum.

“Tell me, Mori,” he says, “Are you familiar with host clubs?”

Aguni turns his head to look at Takeru, who slouches cross-legged and loose-limbed against the wall. Skinny legs, skinny arms—like the remnants of his cigarette, which sticks out from his teeth and burns orange dangerously close to his smirk-quirked lips.

“Those places are weird,” Aguni says with a frown, “Buncha pretty boys making overpriced cocktails and flirting with ugly women for money.”

“Exactly,” Takeru takes the stub of cigarette out of his mouth and looks at it with a victorious little smile, “And you, my friend, are looking at the newest pretty boy at the boss’ club.”

“Wait,” Aguni says, “You serious?”

Takeru stubs out the last smolder of his cigarette. Immediately, he takes another from the smashed-up carton on the table and lights it.

“As a heart attack. Mom’s tailoring my suit as we speak,” He blows a smoke ring into the air—a new favorite trick, which took three days and an ungodly number of cigarettes to accomplish. “Don’t call her unless you wanna hear about the thread count. It’s obscene.”

“And lemme guess,” Aguni snorts, “your dad’s got three hat choices already lined up, too?”

“Four, actually. But I already told him that it’s against dress code,” Takeru shakes his head, letting his luscious, dark hair sweep along his shoulders, “It’d be a crime to cover any of this up.”

Somehow, Aguni doubts that Takeru’s parents took the news of his career change particularly well—from the moment he graduated high school, his father had been none-too-subtly encouraging his son to start apprenticing at the shop. But Takeru had pushed it off, excuses and empty promises tumbling from his lips so easily it’s a wonder he hadn’t become a politician.

“Anyways—forget about them,” Takeru says, “because I’ve got a favor to ask you.”

“No.”

Aguni sits up, head dizzy from the heat and the alcohol. He starts gathering the used dishes from the table and stacking them together as Takeru watches on.

“You don’t even know what it is yet!”

“You waited to ask me,” Aguni says, standing up with a grumbling sigh. He carries the dirty dishes across the room to the sink, “If it was something that didn’t totally suck, you wouldn’t have waited.”

It takes a moment for the water to travel through the creaking pipes that run through the building, but what comes out of the faucet is clear and clean and pleasantly cool to the touch. Aguni lets it run over his hands before plugging the drain and letting the basin start to fill.

“It doesn’t suck at all! And what’s more,” Takeru says, “Is that, if you help me, you get to have some of this.”

The sound of glass hitting the table grabs Aguni’s attention, and he abandons his chore to see just what his friend had to tempt him with.

“Bombay Sapphire Gin,” Takeru announces proudly, gesturing dramatically towards the blue bottle with a flourish of his wrist, “Premium stuff. Hell of a lot better than the shit we usually drink.”

Aguni rolls his eyes.

“You’re not gonna change my mind that easy. Besides, I don’t even like gin.”

He returns to his dishes, water at a respectable level for washing. He grabs the faded floral rag from the sideboard and begins to wipe out the first bowl in his stack.

“Come on, man,” Takeru whines behind his back, “I need help. Your help. This isn’t something I can ask just anybody for.”

A half hint of breeze flits through the window, and Aguni sighs.

“Fine,” he says, flopping the dishrag over the faucet to drip dry, “You can ask me. But just because you ask doesn’t mean I’m gonna say yes, so don’t get too excited.”

While Aguni dries his hands on his pants, he waits for Takeru to respond. He’s no doubt got some kind of sharp-tongued jab ready to cut Aguni’s patience in half. Takeru’s always had a quick wit, especially when it’s most annoying.

But what he gets is silence, and when Aguni turns around to face his friend with arms crossed around his chest, he’s surprised to see the man straight-faced and staring at the bottle on the table. He lets his cigarette burn, ash collecting on the end and threatening to fall to the floor.

“I was hoping you’d let me practice on you.”

“Practice what?”

A heartbeat passes.

“Flirting. I mean, I know how to hit on a girl, but” He scrunches his lips up towards his nose, “I feel like it’s different with a guy. Boss said we cater to all types, so I wanna be ready for it, I guess.”

He ashes his cigarette and takes a deep inhale. It’s one of the few times Aguni has ever seen him act nervous, and it’s sobering to witness Takeru be anything but self-assured.

But it also makes him sad. Maybe sad isn’t the right word, but there’s a certain heaviness that drapes around his shoulders at the thought of his friend being so bothered. It’s just flirting, after all—something that has always come oh-so-easily to Takeru, something that he almost couldn’t help but do whenever a pretty girl crossed his path.

But, with a man… It’s not as if Takeru hadn’t been hit on by men before. It never seemed to upset him before, waving off their hopeful affection with an easy smile and a laugh so charming even the most heartbroken of suitors couldn’t help but join in. Something about Takeru not wanting to be romantic with a man makes Aguni’s stomach turn in a way he doesn’t much want to acknowledge.

“Okay.”

Takeru looks up at him with wide eyes. Almost as if he’s surprised, as if he hadn’t expected Aguni to agree so easily.

“Okay,” Aguni repeats, “I’ll do it.”

Perhaps it’s a bad idea. It probably is a bad idea, but Aguni joins Takeru back at the table, anyways. They’re friends. Friends help each other out—even if it’s weird.

But Takeru’s mood has completely changed—he seems excited now, and he drags the messenger bag he used to transport their dinner out from the corner and begins rummaging through its contents.

“You’re gonna have to play along a little bit,” he says, pulling out a plastic container from the bag and tossing it onto the table, “Like, pretend we’re somewhere less depressing, and that I’m in an impeccably-tailored red suit that shows off all my best assets.”

Another bottle joins the gin, and then another—how much stuff did he manage to fit inside that bag? It’s a wonder that Aguni ddin’t notice it before.

“Also, when I ask you what you want to drink, you’re going to order a Singapore Sling. It’s my signature cocktail.”

“It looks complicated.”

“It is. But everything will come pre-measured in little bottles when I do it for real at the club, so I won’t mess up too badly,” Takeru says smugly, “Besides, the top-earner does a gin drink, and I want him to know I’m coming for his spot.”

Takeru sets a glass on the table—Aguni immediately recognizes it as one from his parent’s home, the smiling blue Doraemon decal on it chipping from years of loving use.

“You’re gonna get your ass kicked,” Aguni snorts. He watches as Takeru cracks the tab on the pineapple and tips it over the rim of the glass. Cloudy, pale yellow liquid glugs into the bottom, the stifling air around them taking on a sharply fruity scent.

“Maybe,” Takeru says, putting the juice down in favor of gin, “But all I gotta do is show up with you and he’ll back off. You’re scary as fuck.”

Aguni frowns as Takeru uncorks the alcohol.

“If telling a guy he’s scary is your idea of flirting,” Aguni says, “you’re gonna get fired and you’re gonna get your ass kicked. At the same time.”

“Why does your mind always go to violence, Mori?”

The gin is strong. Takeru pours an entirely-too-generous amount into Aguni’s glass, and Aguni grimaces at the idea of ingesting that much pine-tree flavor.

“It’s the only thing I’ve ever been good at.”

Aguni means it to sound flip, but the sentiment hits hard as Takeru tips a small bottle of something violently pink into his beverage—grenadine, if he had to guess, although he’s hardly an expert on these things. It reminds him of the cherry syrup they put on shaved ice at summer festivals.

“I will admit you are a particularly gifted fighter,” Takeru says. He snatches a spoon from his bag and stirs the drink, its color swirling into a bright orange-coral. “But that’s hardly the best thing about you.”

Spoon plucked from the liquid and left to dry sticky against the tabletop, Takeru lifts the glass and places it in front of Aguni.

There’s no doubt it’s going to taste terrible. There’s also no doubt that Aguni will finish every last drop.

“Look,” Aguni huffs. He’s feeling antsy and he doesn’t know why. “If you’re gonna practice pick-up lines on me, fine, but I don’t wanna hear some half-assed speech about how I’m smart or, or decent or whatever. Just throw me some compliments at me like you would any other client and I’ll let you know if they suck or not.”

He knows he ought to calm down, but something about this whole situation makes Aguni’s bones itch. Feelings that don’t need to be bubbling up are boiling over, and he gulps down half of that horrible drink in one go in an attempt to slow the racing of his mind.

God, it’s strong. The pineapple juice barely cuts the sickening burn of the gin, and whatever that pinky syrup was gives the beverage a sickly-sweet taste.

Takeru’s expression is unusually unreadable. He’s staring right at Aguni, but it’s almost as he’s trying to look through him—as if he could pierce his gaze past the layers of Aguni’s skin and find the troubles of his soul just from a single look.

The radio goes static again. Neither man moves to adjust it. Aguni sips his drink again and hates every second of it.

“You have kind eyes.”

Something inside Aguni begins to relax.

“You have kind eyes,” Takeru repeats. He blinks, then smiles softly with half of his mouth. “I won’t bother telling you that they’re beautiful—you don’t seem like the kind of guy who’d care about that kind of thing, anyways—but when I look at your eyes, I feel safe. Comfortable, even.”

Everything feels a little blurry. Aguni tries to blink it away, but something keeps getting in the way of his focus. Ah, right. The alcohol. He takes another sip.

“Not bad,” He mumbles, “Keep going.”

“Would you be offended if I come a little closer? At the club, I’ll be sitting next to the clients, so—”

“Yeah, uh,” Aguni says. He scooches himself a little to the right and gestures towards the floor next to him dispassionately, “Knock yourself out.”

Takeru nods his head in thanks, then drags himself across the faded rug to sit next to Aguni. Almost touching, but not quite—they’ve been this close before, closer even, but something about this feels different. Aguni drinks again.

With is legs crossed and body turned to face his friend, Takeru leans his elbow on the table and rests his chin on his hand.

“Do you still hate gin?”

“It’s,” Aguni nearly chokes on his words, “It’s pretty terrible.”

Takeru flutters his eyelashes. Like butterfly wings, the way they brush against his cheeks and float back up a smidge slower than usual. The very tip of his tongue wets along the seam of his mouth.

“But you didn’t use the word hate,” he teases. He looks looks Aguni up and down. His lips part. “Does that mean I’m winning you over?”

“Hmph,” Aguni grunts. He tries to blink away the vague fuzziness that’s glazing over his vision, but it doesn’t budge. He’s drunk, or damn near close to it. The heat, the cheap sake from before, the heavy-handed pour of gin in his glass that keeps getting less offensive with every sip he takes—it’s all compounding, sending his head to swim and his senses to loosen.

And Takeru. He’s so close. Aguni can see the fine sheen of sweat on his skin, the way his cheeks are flushed. The short-trimmed mustache and beard he started growing last year and has finally come in, after months of Aguni’s teasing.

He’s beautiful.

He’s beautiful, and it’s hardly the first time Aguni’s noticed.

“Oh, what’s this? Don’t tell me you’re shy!”

Aguni tries not to look at him, really he does, but the glisten of his pomegranate lips keeps drawing him back in. Heart like a fish thrashing on line, he can’t stop thinking about what it would be like to kiss Takeru.

It would be wrong. Wrong and good. That’s his best friend. His family. The only person who ever gave a damn about him beyond what his hands could break and his arms could carry.

“You don’t have to be shy, darling. Not around me.”

The pet name stabs ice in Aguni’s gut.

Takeru chuckles. He moves a little, and his knee brushes up against the outside of Aguni’s thigh. Accidentally-on-purpose, it makes Aguni jolt a little. Aguni drains the rest of his drink and hopes the alcohol burns away the spark he feels in his belly.

“I’m going to tell you a secret,” Takeru says lowly, halfway to a whisper. “Promise not to tell anyone?”

“Sure,” Aguni mumbles.

Takeru leans in, lips just centimeters from Aguni’s ear. Aguni can feel every one of his slow, even breaths against his skin, and Aguni is dizzy enough that he could tip right over onto the floor.

“I don’t mind that you’re shy,” Takeru whispers, “In fact, I like it.”

Aguni squeezes his eyes shut. Wrong and good, wrong and good—those two words, those two feelings, colliding and clashing against the walls of his skull with every shaky inhale sucked into his lungs. This is all made-up. This is real. Aguni wants to touch him Aguni wants to run away.

“I like everything about you,” Takeru, that bastard—he doesn’t stop, he’s never once known when to stop. “And there’s nothing you can do to change my mind.”

Aguni turns to look Takeru in the eye. They’re so close, noses almost touching. A heartbeat and a year passes. Then another. And another.

And Aguni kisses him.

Violently, at first. Violence is his first language, practically fluent in it before he knew how to tie his shoes. One hand snapping around the nape of Takeru’s neck to pull him close while the other cuts fingernail half-moons into his palms from the pressure of his too-tight fist.

But, then, something softer. Their mouths fit together. Wrong and good. Or maybe just good, the warmth and the gentleness of skin pressing together. The rasp of stubble against his upper lip and chin.

Aguni rips himself away. Back to violence, back to rage. There’s hardly any room but he backs himself up against the wall, heart hammering and mind racing. Nausea lurches in his stomach, and Aguni scrambles over to the sink, breathing sharply through his nose as he leans over the basin of unfinished dishes.

He can’t look at Takeru. Not now, maybe not ever again. Takeru had trusted him, and he, he took advantage—tears begin to burn at Aguni’s eyes.

Takeru must be disgusted. He’s probably packing up his silly little Doraemon glass and all those weird little bottles and getting ready to run out the door. Aguni could hardly blame him if he did. What he did was wrong, it was wrong and it was disgusting and it’s going to ruin their entire friendship—

“Hey.”

The sound of Takeru’s voice has Aguni gripping the countertop with all his might. He’s crying. The room is too small and the air is too hot and there is not a single thing in the entire world that could make any of this better.

“Mori, come on. Seriously. You didn’t do anything wrong, okay?”

But he did. Wrong and bad, wrong and bad.

A hand on his shoulder makes him flinch.

“Don’t,” Aguni croaks.

The touch doesn’t leave.

“It’s just a kiss,” Takeru says. How can he sound so calm at a time like this? “You’re drunk, I’m drunk. Shit happens. You know me, you know I would’ve shattered your fucking jaw if I felt threatened or whatever.”

“I shouldn’t have—”

“I wanted you to.”

Aguni’s heart drops. He whips around to face Takeru, tears and shame be damned.

Takeru looks uncommonly sheepish. He stares at Aguni’s shoulder, not quite willing to meet his eyes, and runs a hand through his long hair.

“Look, man, I,” Takeru gulps, “I wasn’t gonna, like, force the issue or anything but…I’ve never been with a guy. And I don’t know what the hell’s gonna happen with my life or this line of work or anything, so I…fuck, it’s stupid, but I knew I’d be safe with you. I knew I wouldn’t regret it. Because it’s you, y’know?”

Takeru—God, Aguni could punch him. He could grab him by the throat until his eyes pop out. He could kiss him again, throw him onto the scuffed-up floor and take whatever the man was willing to give.

“I gotta,” Aguni gasps. He feels caged, like a tiger pacing back and forth, teeth bared and ready to pounce. “I need. I need to go—”

“Don’t.”

Takeru grabs him by the wrist. Tightly. He can probably feel the rush and roar of his blood, the wild thrumming of his pulse as it spasms in time with his overbeating heart.

“Stay,” Takeru says. “I’ll go. I’ll, uh—I’ll get us something from the vending machine down the street. Something to sober us up. I’ll take the long way, so you have plenty of time to…whatever you need. Finish the dishes. Get a shower or something, I don’t know.”

Aguni barely registers what’s being said. The hand on his wrist is burning. He wants it gone. He never wants Takeru to let go. He wants to be alone, he wants to never be alone again.

“And, when I come back,” Takeru says, “It’ll be like this never happened. Nothing weird, just, just you and me. Like it’s always been. Like it’s always gonna be.”

Takeru lets go.

All Aguni can do is nod. Just once, a bob of his head, and then back to standing stock-still and panicked in the middle of his shitty one-room apartment. Tears have stopped slipping past his eyelids, the salt from the ones that had escaped onto his cheeks all dried up and itchy on his skin.

As promised, Takeru leaves. He doesn’t take his bag with him.

Aguni can’t decide if that’s a good thing or not.

He takes a shower. Squishes himself into the pathetically small little room and turns the water as hot as it’ll go. His hands shake as he scrubs and scrubs and scrubs until the burn on his skin outweighs the shame in his face. As if he could cleanse himself of the night, of the embarrassment, of the confusion and the damnable want that still lingers at the base of his brainstem.

By the time he emerges, Takeru still isn’t back. Aguni wonders if he’s not coming back at all. He clears the table of the mixology equipment, giving the Doraemon glass a perfunctory rinse before tucking everything quietly back into the other man’s bag where Aguni doesn’t have to look at it.

When he kicks the radio—the damn thing was on the whole time, apparently—it’s back to jazz. Something smooth and sad, the perfect accompaniment to washing dishes and the sour wander of his mind.

Will Takeru come back? He said that he would. He left his stuff behind. But maybe Aguni has him disgusted enough to abandon everything and make a run for it. And if he comes back, will it really not be awkward, like he said? How could it not be, after everything that happened?

Rain pelts the window above the sink.

The hadn’t been expecting a downpour—even the music station Aguni had on was interrupted by an emergency weather report, the crackling voice over the airwaves warning of flash flooding in certain parts of the city. Not anywhere near his place, but Aguni still worries.

He doesn’t have to worry for long.

He hears Takeru stomping up the stairs, his voice calling out “Mori!” in a sing-song echo that his neighbors will most likely be complaining about to him tomorrow morning.

Aguni opens the door.

“Mori,” Takeru repeats—and the man is drenched, from the top of his head to the flip flops on his feet, excess rainwater falling off him in near sheets as he swans his way into the apartment and leaves a series of rainwater puddles on the floor with each step he takes, “You’re not gonna believe what happened to me!”

He tosses something towards him, and Aguni is barely quick enough to catch it. A white plastic bag sporting raindrops on its shiny surface. It feels cold to the touch. When Aguni tears it open, he smiles a little—Takeru had gotten him a popsicle. It’s grape. His favorite.

Takeru himself has already opened his own frozen treat and chomps a bite into the pink, strawberry ice.

Aguni almost can’t believe it, how normal everything is. How Takeru has waltzed right back in and is pretending like nothing happened.

Good.

That’s good.

…Right?

Aguni can’t think about the disappointment swirling in his stomach right now. It’s too raw. Too real. Too fragile.

So he opens the cabinet on the far right wall, grabs one of his ugliest spare towels, and hands it to the sopping man sitting on the floor. He makes sure their fingertips don’t touch. He makes sure not to get too close when he sits next to him.

“Oh, yeah?” Aguni says, trying to sound nonplussed, “Tell me about it.”

Most of all, though, Aguni makes sure not to let Takeru know just how badly he wants to kiss him again.

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...That was a lot.

Chapter 3 will feature a time jump, once again straying from the bounds of canon for my own personal gain. The rating is likely to go up, so please be careful for future installments!

And, as always, thanks for stopping by to give this a read!

#writings and such #alice in borderland #danma takeru #hatter #aguni morizono #hatter/aguni #i looked up like 5 different singapore sling recipes and theyre all kinda different so i just......guessed #aguni's LEARNING things about himself (whether he wants to or not)#takeru after one of the most tense and dramatic moments of his young romantic life: anyways i got us popsicles #and yes the cat family is fine they live in one of those climate-controlled pet condos and got home before the rain started

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