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“You come here often?”
The words interrupt Kento’s gin-laced and spiraling thoughts. They’re fitting enough for the shiny, uptown bar he’s sitting in, where an unseen pianist tickles the ivories with gentle jazz melodies; but they do not fit in his head, where numbers and calculations swirl long past regular business hours.
Because it would be rude not to, Kento looks up from his gimlet and forces the hint of a smile. It’s a little easier when he’s been drinking, but he’s out of practice. His clients prefer sternness: men of action, not emotion. The man now looming at his table, however, would probably prefer the latter.
Kento has seen him on several occasions in this very bar, has even exchanged the occasional nod or lingering gaze interrupted by self-awareness and embarrassment, but they’ve never spoken, or shared a drink, or been within less than a few feet of each other. Each time he’s seen him, Kento has been too drunk to think with his brain or any other part of his body.
He’s handsome, Kento’s always thought that; even in his run-of-the-mill black suit and tie, and his cute little lapel pin, which he’s now close enough to realize is a sunflower. Interesting.
“You’re a lawyer,” Kento says, skipping past the man’s opening question.
“That’s right,” he says before his eyes trail over to the empty space beside Kento. It’s a silent request for an invitation to join him, but Kento’s not ready to take the bait yet. He doesn’t want to be left dangling on a hook.
Instead, he settles more into the booth, more confident than he feels, acting more sober than he is. “What kind of question is ‘do you come here often’?”
The lawyer smiles and huffs out a laugh, then stuffs his hands in his trouser pockets. It’s endearing how self-conscious a move it is. It ages him a little— Kento’s peers have little time for self-awareness.
“It’s a poor one which I already know the answer to.” His little half-smile isn’t fading. “Admittedly, I froze at the last moment. It was the only thing that came to mind.”
Kento pinches the delicate stem of his coup glass, spinning it gently between his fingers. “What would you have rather asked me?”
The effervescent, ever-present tinkle of the piano fills a surprisingly long pause between them. There are possibly a lot of things this man wants to ask him. Kento thinks he’d like to hear them all, word for word, whispered in his ear, or against his lips.
“Can I buy you a drink?” the lawyer finally asks, his dark eyes roaming, but not straying too far.
Kento’s forced smile twitches more into the realm of sincerity.
“That’s not much better,” he says, “it’s equally cliché. I hope you’re a better lawyer than you are a pick-up artist.”
Even in the dim mood lighting of the bar Kento can see the man’s cheeks flush with a bit of color.
“I’d like to think I’m a better lawyer by leaps and bounds, yes.”
“I’m relieved to hear that,” Kento replies. He gestures subtly with his eyes to the empty space in the booth to his right. “I’ll take a gimlet, if the offer still stands.” He shudders slightly at his own brazenness, but there’s something in the way the lawyer carries himself which screams feel free to rid me of this awkward social burden. Not that he’s much better at this, but three gimlets make for convincing liars.
Not twenty minutes before, he’d been sandwiched between two colleagues in this booth clearly meant for a more intimate two-person seating, but it had been busy on their arrival. The twenty to forty business crowd was all too eager to drink their misery away on a Friday night.
Now, he has the freedom to move, but he doesn’t. It had been something akin to torture to be pressed against his colleagues, but he doesn’t mind when it’s the heat of the lawyer next to him or, more to the point, the way they press against each other from hips to knees. In such a trendy, hip place, it will go unnoticed— even by their waitress, who hovers nearby, as the lawyer orders for both of them.
No one’s ever ordered a drink for him before, not like this… not with intent, rather than pacification.
Kento tries not to stare at the short exchange, or the constricting of the lawyer’s throat as he speaks, but it’s a losing battle. The guy’s more comfortable ordering their drinks than offering one. His jaw is less tense as he does so, his mouth forming words like he’s done it a hundred times before.
A whiskey sour for myself, and a gimlet for my friend.
The cocktail waitress looks like she wants to say something along the lines of your friend, indeed, but knows better.
Kento doesn’t spend much time looking at her to judge her opinion. It’s hard to keep his eyes off his lawyer friend. It’s as if he’s a magnet and the man is true north, always pulling for his attention now that they’re in such close proximity.
Something in the back of his head suggests he should find out the guy’s name; but not knowing it is equally appealing, spurred on by the courage on loan to him by his three gimlets, and the fourth on the way. If he was sober, he’d remind himself that every loan must be repaid, but he’s just drunk enough to ignore otherwise sage advice.
“I hope this doesn’t make me sound creepy, but you looked pretty miserable until your friends left.”
Snorting gently, Kento successfully pulls his gaze away for a moment to stare down into his empty glass.
“They were work colleagues.”
“Not friends?”
Kento shakes his head, if not a little sadly. It’s been a while since he’s had anyone in his life he considers a friend.
“Not friends. I don’t… I was just fulfilling a work obligation.”
The waitress returns with their drinks, and quickly at that. Kento can’t help but wonder if he’s somehow been sucked into a time loop of staring at the handsome lawyer and his lopsided grin. There’s no way a bar this busy got their drinks done that fast.
“For you,” she says, placing the whiskey sour in front of the lawyer, before she sets Kento’s gimlet in front of him. “And for your friend.”
Kento is helpless to stop the flush that creeps up on his face, down his neck, and even to his ears.
“How subtle,” he murmurs once the waitress walks away.
The lawyer just laughs at that, loud and full-throated. It’s the kind of laugh that would’ve drawn attention if they weren’t in a busy bar on a Friday night. As it is, the crowd is starting to drown out the music.
“What about you?” Kento asks once the man’s laughter stops shredding his brain into oxytocin-soaked pieces. “I thought lawyers were the personification of on the clock drinking.”
“Did that already,” he replies before taking a sip of his whiskey. “This is not a business haunt of mine. I live a few blocks away. I don’t bring my work here.”
It makes sense. He sees the lawyer there often enough. It’s clearly a place he favors. It makes Kento jealous, in a way. He doesn’t have a haunt— a place of his own. He has, somehow, become a place to be haunted instead.
“I work in the area. At the Watanabe building.”
There’s a subtle weight on Kento’s thigh, gentle enough to brush off as a casual, accidental, touch, if one wanted to.
Oops, I thought that was my thigh.
Kento sips at his drink, wills the pressure on his thigh to be greater, subtly flexing muscle under the lawyer’s hand.
It works, and beautifully. The grip on his leg becomes firmer, full of obvious intent. Fingers sweep down, applying pressure on his inner thigh.
“I know the place. Yeah. Been there a few times— clients and all.”
Lips parting, eyelids fluttering, Kento pretends that anything the lawyer says is more interesting to him than the warm hand on his thigh. He sits quietly, zeroing in on it; spreading his legs just enough, allowing it to slip lower— sliding, feeling.
A warm tickle of breath caresses the cuff of Kento’s overheating ear.
The lawyer whispers, “Have I mentioned I live around here?”
Kento’s throat fills with something he can’t swallow down. It’s like there’s a fist in his lungs and a scared animal in his brain, telling him to run.
It’s what he’s supposed to do, right? Play hard to get. Not be so easy.
“You always go around looking for younger guys to bring home?”
There’s a huff of air against Kento’s burning cheek. He reaches out, grabs his drink by its delicate stem, shoves the lip of the glass between his parted lips and fills his mouth with the remainder of the gimlet before he can say anything stupider, or more accusatory.
“Actually,” the lawyer says after a few long, drawn-out heartbeats of silence, “It’s quite the opposite.”
Gin and lime cordial push down the aching lump in Kento’s throat. The hand splayed out on Kento’s inner thigh digs fingertips into his flesh. Heat pools in Kento’s groin, threatening the arousal he’s fought to keep in control.
It takes a healthy minute for the lawyer's words to sail the gin-soaked plains of Kento’s brain, but eventually the sentiment lands on stable ground, and Kento laughs and coughs simultaneously. He pulls back to stare at the man next to him in a completely different light.
“You want me to fuck you.” It’s not a question.
The lawyers mouth twitches and oh how his dark eyes suddenly glow.
“What’s your name?” Kento asks, no longer intrigued by the mystery of anonymity. There’s about to be a whole other matter to unravel.
“Higuruma Hiromi.”
For a moment longer they stare at each other, like deer caught in each other’s headlights. Then Kento leans in close, his lips hovering near Hiromi’s ear. He can feel the heat radiating off his face, off his hand.
“Pay the tab, Hiromi-san.”
“Yeah.”