Undertow (Antique Bakery, Tachibana/Ono)
Title: Undertow
Antique Bakery - Ono/Tachibana
Author: Yowaki (aka devikun)
Recipient: Prestidigitator (aka miang)
Rating: NC-17
Words: 7000 (approx)
Warnings: The following fic is: a) overly long! b) quite flawed c) angsty d) not that true to the prompt e) all of the above
Summary: Tachibana is trying to fight the undercurrents in his life, but in which direction should he go?
Prompt: If you know the canon, you know that they (Tachibana & Ono) never get together despite Ono's high school crush, and by the end it seems like Tachibana's getting a little jealous about the attentions others place on his head baker. Ono claims he's over it. I don't believe him. :D Somehow, shortly post-series, make it happen for them.
Notes: Heaped thanks on top of the mountains of respect and gooey caramel love for the ones who beta'd for me (you know who you are) new_kate and hibem. Any remaining mistakes or flaws herein are entirely mine, unlike the Antique Bakery characters, who remain the property of the brilliant Yoshinaga Fumi-sensei.
Undertow
It was their fifth date. They’d had sex - great sex - on two of the four dates prior to this one. He enjoyed her company. She was intelligent, witty and very, very lovely. Of course, when it happened over coffee after a show he thought she’d like - and the coffee wasn’t as good as the shop’s but it was passable - he couldn’t really say that he was surprised. She looked down at her cup and fell silent and she suddenly had that air about her. His lips thinned into the line of an expectant smile, but it probably wasn’t reaching his eyes. He already knew what she was going to say.
I’m sorry. This isn’t going to work. You’re too...
It wasn’t about the sex; he knew enough to know that. Nor was it about him being an unfeeling bastard, or a workaholic, or any of those things women normally broke up with men over. He supposed he should be grateful it was only their fifth date, rather than their fiftieth. He nodded and smiled as if it didn’t hurt, and it didn’t really, and saw her home. He stood on the steps outside her condo and wished her well, smoothly deflecting any awkward promises about them remaining friends and by the time she was ready to leave, she was smiling again and kissing him gently on the cheek. He could smell her perfume as he inhaled, and as he walked away from her building, he was glad she hadn’t been a customer. It would have troubled her to have to sacrifice her loyalty to the store just to avoid seeing him, and he would have hated to lose the custom.
He didn’t call a cab. It was too early to go home anyway, so he just kept walking, hunching into his coat against the chill in the night air. The city around him, unsleeping and certainly uncaring, went about its business, and he ignored it right back in favour of his thoughts which were, he supposed, probably taking a slightly morbid turn.
The next time he bothered to look up, he found himself standing on a vaguely familiar street and it was such a sudden, odd sensation that he thought maybe he was lost. It wasn’t that hard to do in Tokyo, get lost in an area you knew. Off the main roads everything looked almost exactly the same. Alleys were never signed, and the bars and people and lights had a way of looking like all the other bars and people and lights in the city, blending together until he could have been anywhere.
A couple of guys walked past him, arm in arm, laughing. One of them, he noticed, had his tongue in the other guy's ear.
Now, he knew why the street looked familiar. And there was the very same place, in all its understated glory. Funny how he remembered it so clearly now that he saw it, even though he’d only been there once. He started walking again, and meant to keep walking. He meant to, but somehow his feet stopped at the door and then he was pushing it open and going inside.
The place was fairly crowded, lively; maybe that was why half way across to the bar, whatever tension he’d been feeling seemed to ease. No-one was staring at him; in fact not many people were even looking at him. He obviously wasn’t as out of place as he felt - overdressed for a night out clubbing, but not for this place, with its polished mahogany bar and clean, modern fittings. Not too nice for the smartly dressed, slightly affluent, fashion-conscious patrons either. In fact, by the way the few who did look at him as he passed, their eyes direct and dark and speculative, he apparently fit right in.
It occurred to him then to wonder what it was he was doing.
"Welcome. What will it- Oh, hello."
The same bartender. He nodded and slid onto a stool at the end, away from a gaggle of what he could only assume were regulars, some of who were also looking at him. He ignored them.
"Hello," he said, to be polite. "How are you?"
"Very well, thank you. What will you have?"
He didn't even have to think about it. Which probably ought to have been a sign. "A whiskey, neat, with water."
The Master - what was his name again? Toda? - gave him a look, almost a once over, and then reached for the top shelf.
"You look different," he observed mildly, placing a heavy tumbler smartly on a coaster on the bar top in front of him, pouring the drink with hardly any unnecessary flourish and adding a touch of water from a standing pitcher all in one fluid motion.
"I shaved," he guessed. "My last girlfriend didn’t like the stubble." His ex-girlfriend, he should have said. They never did seem to like the stubble.
Toda smiled faintly; although whether it was to the reference or just to be polite, he couldn’t be sure. "No. When I met you, you looked the same. But..."
He reached for his wallet, flipped it open and slid out a crisp ten thousand yen note, and pushed it across the bar. "You have a good memory," he said, realising the Master was right, and lifted the glass to his lips. It was good whiskey, very good. He sighed again, drinking more deeply the second time.
Toda set the bottle down and took up the note. "And Yuey is..."
"Huh?" He blinked up over the rim of the glass, his lips stinging a little from the alcohol, and for a second he had no idea who the bartender was talking about. "Oh. That guy? Don’t know."
"You’re...here on your own?"
"Just leave the bottle," he sighed in reply.
Toda blinked, the note still in his hand. "I’ll get your change. This is too much."
"That’s alright," Keiichiro Tachibana said, smiling to himself at the irony of it all, and reached for the bottle to pour another couple of fingers into his glass. "So am I."
+++++++
He was almost half way through the bottle before he felt someone brush up against him. He would have been surprised that it wasn’t sooner, but that would have probably been flattering himself, and it wasn’t so much a subtle touch as it was a brief, well-aimed bump. As he set his empty glass down on the bar top, he found himself thinking he would never have used such crass tactics on a woman, although possibly he would have thought about it.
"Oh, excuse me," came the pleasant apology. "It’s gotten so crowded in here..."
"That’s alright," he dismissed, perversely pleased that his words were not slurring at all. "Would you like a drink?"
"I... Are you sure?"
"Sure?" he repeated, bemused. Maybe the guy really had bumped him accidentally. He glanced up, following the line of a well-pressed jacket and the crisp dress shirt underneath - Dior or Yves Saint Laurent, he thought, although he couldn’t see the embellishment - up to what someone like Ono might have considered a handsome face, with features hovering on the edge of forty maybe, and hazel eyes framed by slightly wavy, shoulder length black hair. Not Japanese, or at least not completely, but a native speaker none the less. His suit wasn't cheap, and he had the look of a company man about him, so he was probably a manager or a director perhaps, not fresh out of university by any means, but younger than most of the people around him. Well-versed at living two lives, Tachibana guessed, although he was certainly no judge of these things; one the perfect career man - and who knew, maybe he even had a family - and the other, the one he wore inside little out-of-the-way boutique bars in the gay district of Shinjuku...
"Well," the stranger clarified, his mouth quirking into an apologetic half-smile as he glanced once at the bottle on the bar in front of Tachibana’s glass. "You and your Highland Park looked a little exclusive."
Tachibana tried to smile back, shrugging without denying it and signalled to Toda, who hadn’t visited him again since he'd left the bottle but who had, he somehow thought, been keeping on eye on him ever since. "Another glass please, Master," he called, and waited. The guy sat down on the vacated bar seat next to him.
"Thanks," he said, warmly. Tachibana slid the glass Toda placed in front of him across, and poured a generous amount of whiskey into it.
"Cheers," he said, and wondered distantly whether he was supposed to ask the guy’s name.
"Cheers," returned the guy, saluting mildly with his glass and then taking a sip. Tachibana didn’t bother to watch, but he heard the dull clink as the drink was set down again, the faint chime of ice shifting in the glass under the noise around them, and felt more than saw the man lean slightly over.
Tachibana breathed in, held it, and there was a moment of silence, as if the whole room was watching. But that couldn’t be, of course. What did anyone else care?
"Let me know if this is too fast for you," the guy said, his voice dropping just a tone lower, his hand on the bar next to Tachibana’s, close but not quite touching. "But I know better ways to help you forget than Single Malt."
Tachibana breathed out again, slowly and softly.
"Really," he said flatly, strangely calm now that the moment had come. "But what I want is to remember."
The bar master’s gaze followed them when they made a move to leave a few moments later. Tachibana thought Toda looked concerned, and just a little disappointed, and wondered whether he’d worn that same expression the night Ono had been led away.
+++++++++
"You’ve never done this before, have you."
It wasn’t a question, and he supposed it was obvious. Not that he was resisting, per se; he just didn’t know what to put where. The guy seemed not to mind.
"I don’t actually like men," he said, already knowing how ridiculous it sounded, how ridiculous it was. His heart was hammering, a high staccato pulse in his throat that surely this guy could feel under his mouth. It was weird, having someone’s fingers in his hair, someone’s weight half on him, someone’s lips and tongue against his skin when he wasn’t even sure whether he wanted them there or not himself.
"Then why did you let me bring you here?"
Although it was less strange now than it had been before, when he’d been pressed up against the wall next to the door about two seconds after he’d closed it, as if the guy was afraid was going to run. He’d considered it when he felt a knee pushing between his legs and the guy’s mouth brushing carefully against his for the first time, but he had made himself stand still and take it, not frozen so much as waiting. He had let himself be pushed back towards the bed, down onto it, let himself be trapped by warm, sold weight, and still he waited.
And nothing happened, except that he guy's hands were warm and sure and what did that mean, he wondered? He should have been panicking, fighting, running, and there was a part of him almost appalled that he wasn't. What was he doing here? What was this going to prove, anyway?
"I was dumped tonight," he breathed shakily, and tried not to think about the fingers plucking at the buttons on his shirt.
"You liked her so much then?" the guy asked into the hollow behind his ear, before his teeth tugged on the lobe and another button slipped free. Tachibana shivered. "You’re doing this to punish her?"
Why couldn’t he stop asking questions? Wasn’t this sort of thing supposed to be a quick, impersonal... thing, and then the parties involved just moved on? Why couldn’t he just get on with it? Why did he want to know what had happened, or why Tachibana was here? Why didn’t he just...do whatever people like him did, jerk off his clothes, spread his legs, and-
God. What was he doing?
"No," he gasped as the teeth unclamped from his earlobe and nipped further down his throat, a momentarily sharp promise of more. "It wasn’t her fault." It was his fault; it was always his fault, for being too something but he didn’t know what that was, and he didn’t know how to stop.
"Then you’re punishing yourself."
Was he? Maybe he was. He didn’t know that either. "Can’t you just-" he breathed, his hands clenching convulsively into the bedspread underneath him - cheap, tacky chintz his grandmother would have been appalled to see. He wanted to laugh at that, and swallowed a shuddering breath that tasted a little of hysteria. She probably would have been more horrified at the décor in the room than the fact the he was about to let another man fuck him. "Can’t you just get on with it?"
"Is that what you want? I mean, really?"
Tachibana blinked, and the guy was suddenly above him, hovering, his face soft in the shadows, his hair tousled. He hadn’t expected a stranger to really care one way or another but it was suddenly obvious this stranger did. Even with an erection pressing against Tachibana’s hip.
"I- No. Yes," he stammered, unable to look right at him and hating that he somehow felt weak and stupid and confused when he’d decided to do this, to know, to find out. "I’m- I’m here aren’t I?"
"You think it works like that?"
The question took him aback. "Doesn’t it?"
The guy frowned and sighed. "Not generally, no," he said, and Tachibana jumped and then froze as one of his hands landed with startling accuracy right on his crotch. "I want to have sex with you, or I wouldn’t have asked you to come here. But I’d like to be sure you want to have sex with me too."
"Oh," Tachibana answered faintly. He wasn’t even hard, not really.
"Look," the guy started, and his hand left its place and rose to brush Tachibana’s hair back away from his face in a gesture that almost could have been tender. "It’s been a long day for me. I’m going to have a shower. That will give you time to decide whether you really want to still be here when I get out."
He rose with a brief, platonic pat to Tachibana’s knee and was as good as his word, disappearing immediately into the bathroom and shutting the door firmly and gently behind him. Tachibana lay on the bed, sprawled out on the cheap chintz, half undressed, and stared at it for a good thirty seconds, until he could hear the water running.
"How do you ever get laid, with that kind of honest attitude?" he demanded of the door, but it deigned not to reply.
++++++++
"Hey! Ono! We’ve got another order for the Caracas Gateaux. Is that okay?"
There was nothing wrong with the way his genius pastry chef turned and looked at him from where he was working at the bench when Tachibana stuck his head through the kitchen door, only there was. Tachibana frowned to himself, and not for the first time that day. Ono looked the way he normally did, of course, at ease in his kitchen and in control of everything that was happening, and he seemed to be handling the workload even with Kanda Eiji gone now. But there was something a little off with him today. He hadn’t directly met Tachibana's gaze all afternoon, and once or twice, Tachibana had caught him staring, as if he had something to say. When he had opened his mouth though, nothing out of the ordinary had come out of it, despite expectation. It was starting to put Tachibana on edge.
"Another?" Ono echoed, smiling. "Well, that one's certainly popular. I think it might be the Cointreau rather than rum in the génoise, don't you?"
"How would I know?" Tachibana demanded and then realised that had come out less civil than he'd actually meant it. "Sorry. Sorry," he sighed as he ran a hand through his hair. He was just hung over, that's all that was wrong. Between directing the new part-timer, watching Chikage, making coffee, taking orders and serving customers, it had already been a long, horrid day. He'd raised his voice twice before remembering he had a crashing headache, and his smile felt like it was sticky-taped on. He just wanted to go home and sleep and possibly never get out of bed again, and yet here he was, taking it out on Ono.
"It's alright. I know," Ono told him, as if he was already forgiving him everything. "You don't like sweet things. But I trust your observations."
Tachibana hadn't thought he could feel any worse today, but apparently he'd been mistaken. "Look, Ono..."
"Yes?"
"Is there... I mean, is everything okay?"
Ono smiled at him, a little bemused. "Why wouldn't it be?"
"Well, I just... You aren't having any, you know, relationship problems or anything, are you?"
Ono blinked. "Well, I'm not in a relationship right now, Tachibana, so I can't see how I'd be having any problems."
"You're not? Oh, but I thought you... Never mind. Anyway, just as long as everything's alright."
"And what about you?"
The sudden seriousness of the question threw him for a moment, and he realised he was staring, and that Ono had that look on his face again, like he was about to say something. Tachibana knew, somehow, that this time it would be what he'd so obviously been thinking.
"Waka!"
The call was merely a 2-second warning, before Chikage burst through the door behind him, jostling him forward into the kitchen proper and almost into the island bench in front of him.
"Waka," Chikage repeated warningly, grabbing his shoulders and pulling him back upright again.
"Chikage, you know not to come barrelling through that door," Tachibana started to chide, trying not to admit to the surge of irritation at the interruption as he shrugged Chikage's hands off him. "It swings both ways, remem- What's the matter?"
Chikage was looking at him strangely, his mouth hanging open as he stared.
"I-" Chikage began, blinking, and Tachibana corrected himself. Kage wasn’t looking at him strangely; at least he wasn’t looking at his face. His gaze was slightly lower, and it made Tachibana reach up before he even realised what he was doing.
"What?" he repeated. "Do I have something on me?" He wiped at the side of his neck and then looked at his hand, but there was nothing.
"Err," Kage said, blinking. "How did you get that bruise..."
"What?" Tachibana said again, and the hair at his nape stood up in a way he really didn't like. "Where?"
Chikage blinked again, and reached out. Warm, gentle fingers brushed the soft skin in the hollow below Tachibana’s ear. Tachibana jumped.
"Ha! What? Huh. Maybe I fell asleep on something last night," he said, brushing Chikage's hand away, but the reply sounded rushed and stupid and Chikage was still staring at him oddly. "What was it you came running in here about?"
Chikage dropped his hand, his expression blanking out for a second. "...I forget."
Tachibana wanted to go home; he really wanted to go home. "Well, you know what to do, don't you?" he told him, trying not to snap. It wasn’t Chikage’s fault; none of this was. "Go back to where you were until you remember." He tried to smile as well, as he ushered Chikage back outside, but the best he could do was leave him there, looking oddly lost in the middle of the shop trying to remember what he had forgotten as Tachibana turned away and walked - he did not run - to the bathroom.
Once there, he closed the door and put himself in front of the mirror, straining to turn his head in the necessary direction. It was hard to see, but Chikage never lied. He had a hickey.
Fuck. What was he-
"Tachibana?"
Tachibana jumped again, this time guiltily. He hadn't even heard the door open.
"Is everything alright?"
He turned away from the mirror with a fixed smile, and hoped it looked convincing. Ono was standing just inside the closed bathroom door a few feet away, in his flour-dusted chef’s whites, and Tachibana didn’t know quite what to do for a second.
"Uh, yeah, sure," he fumbled, wondering how hard it would be to get past Ono in the relatively confined space of the bathroom. "I was just, uh..."
"It's not that bad," Ono assured, nodding towards the bite mark, but somehow his words didn't really make Tachibana feel any better. "Really. It's nothing to be ashamed of. I should know, right?" His faintly understanding smile had an odd, sad edge to it, and there was something really wrong with that word - ashamed - in this context. The way Ono said it, it almost sounded like...
"It's not that I'm-," Tachibana started, and then realised that there was no way he was going to continue that sentence out loud. "Maybe I should just call it a day," he said instead. "Sorry, Ono. You can take care of things until close, right?" He made to step around him.
"Wait. Tachibana." Tachibana stopped, froze more like. Ono's hand was on his arm, holding him before he could escape, unthreatening and warm, his slender fingers pressing lightly into his bicep.
"Are you really alright? Last night..." His voice was warm as well, with concern. Tachibana's heart stumbled in his chest, fuelling the illogical desire to run that seemed to have come up from nowhere, or could have been there forever.
"It's nothing," he tried. "I broke up with Kaeko last night. No big deal. It's really not-."
"Tachibana," Ono interrupted softly, and his hand squeezed gently. "I know."
"...What?" A strange chill went streaking up Tachibana's spine. Ono knew? Knew what? And then suddenly he realised, and before he could stop himself he was trying to pull back, away out of reach. It was a small washroom, though; he had nowhere to go, and he only drew Ono with him. "You were there," he heard himself say.
Ono stared at him for a long moment, unreadable until his expression shifted into something Tachibana could only name as confusion. "Not until later," he admitted. "I only found out because Toda thought you'd finally come out. He didn't realise it was something I wouldn't have known..."
"He-" Tachibana didn't know what to deal with first - what Ono must have thought, finding out he'd been there and that he'd let himself be picked up by some stranger, or whether that bartender's had any right to an opinion on his sexuality.
"If you were trying to keep it a secret from me..." Ono began, and then something else washed across his features, something sharp and introverted. "All day, I've been trying not to take this personally, but I just can't seem to understand. There's dozens of bars in that district. If you didn't want me to know, why go to that one? After all this time- You've always said you were straight. I believed you."
"I -" What could he say to that? How could he make someone like Ono understand when he barely understood himself? "Ono, I..."
"It doesn't make any sense. Were you ashamed? Or were you somehow trying to hurt me?"
"No!" That wasn't- He hadn't done it to hurt Ono. "Of course not!"
"Then how did you think I'd take it?" Ono demanded, his voice rising, thin with an emotion Tachibana was sure he didn't want to be the reason for, not again. "It's not like I've ever made any effort to hide what I think about you."
"Ono, I'm not-" Tachibana didn't like this conversation, and he really, honestly wasn't equipped to be having it right now. He felt frayed, inside and out, as if something important was unravelling and he didn't know how to stop it and it couldn't be in front of Ono. He had to get out of this room, had to put some more space between them. "And anyway, you're not interested in me anymore remember?" He was trying for levity, but even he could hear the tone of hurt accusation in his voice. "You've said as much often enough. Not that it matters, because I don't like... I mean, I'm not..."
"Tachibana."
His words, died, because even while he'd been speaking, Ono had been drawing closer, and somehow didn't have any way out, he knew it, and he thought if he just kept talking, it would keep Ono away but it wasn't; it wasn't working.
"What?" he breathed, afraid to ask, and he could barely hear himself over the panicked thud of his beating heart.
"Tell the truth."
Tachibana stared, his mouth hanging open and his brain catching on only when he felt Ono's breath gust across his face. By then it was much too late, and the hand still gripping his arm pulled him forward against the downward slant of Ono's mouth on his.
For a moment, he was too stunned to move. And then the press of Ono's lips gently pushed his apart, and Ono's slick, hot tongue flickered past his teeth and brushed softly against the roof of his mouth.
And Tachibana held his breath, and waited.
But the feeling didn't come; that jolt of animal panic, of blind, senseless terror and almost-loathing he always seemed to feel when someone - no, when other men, even Chikage sometimes - got too close, touched him too intimately. Ono was kissing him, really kissing him; shifting to press him back against the sink as first the increasing pressure of his mouth and then the weight of his body came to bear on Tachibana's senses. And the knee-jerk reaction fear didn't come. Instead what he felt was the silky softness and the heat beyond the pressure of Ono's mouth, the way the other man trembled against him, panting tiny, shaky breaths into him as he kissed him, pressed into him. And then Tachibana felt something else - Ono hard, very hard against him, moving in small, careful thrusts against his own growing erection.
Ono wanted him, he realised. Tachibana might have hurt him, once, long ago, rejected him, but Ono still wanted him. Something in him seemed to give way with a strange, silent sigh.
Like relief.
"Tachibana?"
Ono was lifting his head, and his fingers on Tachibana's skin were soft and hot, caressing, burning where they touched and Tachibana felt drugged and strangely weak. He almost couldn't seem to breathe. His heart was hammering in his ribcage but he somehow no longer wanted to run. In fact, he wasn't even sure he could walk.
"Tachibana... I..."
Tachibana tightened his hold; he wasn't sure when he had reached up either, but his fingers were clenched in Ono's jacket and he knew if he let him go, something else would go with him, understanding perhaps, or release finally from this stupid, nameless fear. It was ruining him, a rod for his back that he couldn't see but had never been able to jettison and he couldn't, really couldn't keep this up anymore. It had to stop.
"I can't remember," he confessed, blurting it out and the words seemed desperate to escape despite the way his throat still tried to close over them. "What he did to me, Ono. I can't remember."
Ono tensed against him and breathed in sharply like something had just hit him, but Tachibana barrelled on, because if he didn't get it out right now, he might not get it out at all.
"And I thought, maybe if I let someone else do what I think he did, I would." He laughed, not because it was funny, but because it was pointless. He should have known. "How messed up is that?"
"Tachibana," Ono said again, his voice shaking a little even while his hands were as steady, as solid as stone. "I..."
"Last night, if it had been you..." Tachibana continued, but then realised that wasn't what he was trying to get at and stopped, then tried again. "Back then, that day, those weren't the words I wanted to say to you, but they just came out. What if last night I-"
What if last night, instead of feeling nothing, he'd found what he was looking for? And if what he remembered was worse than not remembering at all? The fact was, he had wanted to remember; last night, he knew what he was doing. He had been asking for it, inviting it, whatever it was, desperate for some kind of relief from not knowing, one way or another. All his life, the truth had been a big, black hole lurking somewhere in his peripheral, the shadowy space beneath his bed where monsters lived, an unseen current dragging at his feet and sweeping his legs out from under him again and again. He wasn't stupid, had never been stupid; he'd understood, even then. The way the adults around him had treated him, the sad, worried looks on their faces, the private discussions his parents had had with the psychologists and the police and the social workers. The way other people looked at him when they found out; he knew what they thought. It was understandable; he thought so too. But they weren't the ones waking up in the middle of night from nightmares they couldn't remember, or wondering whether all the things they'd ever done in their lives weren't somehow tainted, coloured, by this one thing, this one frightening unknown.
If he'd found what he was looking for last night, and it had been Ono there in that hotel room with him, Ono and the shield of his demonic charm to which Tachibana seemed to be the only bane. Those words he'd never meant to say to him so long ago, what if he had said them again? Or worse? Not even Tachibana was cruel enough to reject Ono twice for the same thing, a thing that had never been his fault in the first place.
"Nothing happened," he admitted finally, shame and frustration heating his face and seizing up his throat. "I went with that guy, but we didn't do anything, and I didn't remember anything. I really didn't do it to hurt you. I'm sorry. I just-"
He broke off, breathing in with the sudden sway of Ono's body back towards him and then he was being kissed again, and it was worse this time because now he knew how it felt, how very not frightening it was, and that almost frightened him more. He didn't know what to do. Ono was kissing him the way Tachibana might have kissed a woman, slow and lingeringly; so gentle in fact that it almost irritated him. He wasn't a girl, and yet he couldn't seem to do anything other than stand there and let himself be kissed, let his breath escape his parted lips under the clinging caress of Ono's and feel gooseflesh raise under the tips of the man's fingers trailing across his cheek and jaw.
And then Ono shifted, backing off a fraction like he was trying to catch his breath. His hands as they smoothed down Tachibana's neck to his shoulders trembled, his breath shaking out past his lips and Tachibana couldn't seem to look anywhere else. Ono's mouth was pink and flushed, wet and lewd looking and he felt like he was balancing between two forces; one that made him want to pull away and the other that drew him forward.
"You've got nothing to be sorry for," Ono said roughly, his forehead bumping Tachibana's as he took a deep, steadying breath. "Instead, it's me who should apologise. I thought you- And then taking advantage of you when- I'm sorry. I just wanted to- I don't know why I can't leave you alone, even after- I'm sorry." He swayed again, away this time, took a step back, his grip loosening, his hands falling, his expression collapsing and something about this whole sorry scene felt like a crushing weight on Tachibana's chest, like drowning. He reached out just as Ono made to turn away, not giving himself time to think. Thinking hadn't done him any good anyway, before now.
His hand closed around Ono's wrist and Ono stopped. Tachibana did not let him go. For a second they stood there, silent, trapped, and to Tachibana it felt like that undercurrent in his life was no longer dragging him away from land, but pushing him towards it.
"Tachi-" Ono's voice failed on his name. He looked stricken, panicked, but his voice was controlled, strained. "Don't. Not unless you mean it."
Tachibana wanted to laugh, but that would have sounded just as hysterical as last night, for completely different reasons. The bathroom was a lot less tacky than the hotel room had been. "I've got no idea what I mean," he admitted hoarsely. "But who's the idiot now? You always quit so easily..."
"God." Ono swallowed visibly, and the irony that now he was the one that was trying to run did not escape Tachibana. "You're so cruel."
"I know," Tachibana agreed.
"Do you?" Ono asked, serious. "Do you have any idea at all how much I want you? How much I want to fuck you?" He said it deliberately, harshly, staring straight at Tachibana and he was doing it to scare him, to make him run again. "I thought I was over you, but last night, when I thought about you with some stranger, I realised I probably wasn't. So don't play with me, Tachibana, because it's not right and it's not fair and I... can't, I just..."
"Ono," Tachibana breathed, because Ono didn't get it; Tachibana wasn't running. Not anymore. No matter how much he wanted to. "I'm not playing."
Ono stood, took one breath, two, and then turned.
Tachibana fell back against the sink again, and there'd be bruises tomorrow but the pain helped him focus on what was real - Ono crushed against him; his hands knotted tight in his hair; his tongue spiking into his mouth; his hips pushing at Tachibana's before he thrust up against him; the bulge in his pants hard against the ache between Tachibana's legs; the jolt of sensation that tore unexpectedly up Tachibana's spine and left him in an involuntary moan. He struggled out of the kiss, trying to breathe and Ono's mouth fell to his throat, closing over the bite mark Chikage had noticed before and sucking mercilessly until Tachibana moaned again and shifted against the press of Ono's body, insensibly seeking more contact.
"Don't respond to me like that," Ono panted against his neck. "Or I'll take you up against the sink. Against the mirror, so you can see what your face looks like when I'm in you..."
Tachibana was panting too; he wasn't sure it wasn't because he was terrified, but the mental imagery accompanying that threat was detailed enough for him to be able to guess exactly what he'd look like.
"O- okay," he gasped, and then gasped again when Ono's hand slid down and pressed against his erection.
"Don't be an idiot," Ono chided him raggedly and lifted his head to look at him. His eyes were fever bright, his mouth ruddy, his skin flushed, but he was smiling a gentle, fond smile that made him look like the Ono Tachibana had come to know. "When I make love to you, it'll be in a bed, spread out and naked so I can taste you, kiss you..."
Tachibana wasn't sure that sounded any safer, but the kisses Ono was speaking of were drugging, and he couldn't think.
"Okay," he said again after the fourth or fifth kiss, and Ono laughed softly.
"I think I like this agreeable side of you, Tachibana. How long's it likely to last?"
Tachibana paused and blinked. Below, Ono's hand was opening his pants with effortless ease. "Who knows?" he hedged, and then shivered as Ono's hand slid onto his skin. "Ah. Not that long, maybe."
"Mmm," Ono sighed. "The tie to my apron is right by your left hand." And then he started to stroke.
Tachibana felt like the floor, as opposed to his knees, turned to jelly, and his fingers fumbled for what seemed like forever before Ono's apron unravelled and slipped to the floor. By then he had to really concentrate on what he was doing while Ono stood, leaning into him and stroking him and kissing him distractingly and it was probably revenge; Ono was a good man, sweet with a core of steel, but he probably wasn't above getting some back. Tachibana's only consolation was that he was just as affected, certainly just as hard when Tachibana finally managed to get his chef's pants open, and there was probably some kind of major Health and Hygiene covenant they were breaking here but he was beyond caring. Ono was hot in his hand, his skin incredibly thin and impossibly soft and the helpless groan he gave when Tachibana started to stroke him, trying to get a feel for a cock that wasn't his own, sent a shudder reeling down Tachibana's spine.
"Oh, Tachibana," Ono moaned, as Tachibana fell into a kind of awkward rhythm. He leaned closer, bringing their moving hands and their pricks into electrifying contact. "God. Let me..."
Tachibana was about to protest - he could do it, he wasn't completely clueless here - when Ono's grip shifted, sliding around them both and the sensation of being pressed up tight against another man, the unevenly fitting grip around both their lengths and the way Ono's fingers splayed across their heads as he pressed them together, smearing and mixing their precome, was alien and frightening and utterly incredible. His hands ended up clutching at Ono's shoulders, and Ono's name sounded in his voice, deep and hoarse and shockingly needy, a stranger's voice. Ono groaned again, his free hand braced on the sink next to him as he leaned in for another one of those kisses that swamped Tachibana until he couldn't tell which way was up.
"Oh. Oh, fu-" Tachibana panted against Ono's mouth, only just recognising that he was thrusting into Ono's fist, that Ono was thrusting against him in time, simulated sex, and he was close, so close, without even having to think about it. "Ono..."
"Shh..." Ono whispered, and kissed him, then kissed him again, as if he couldn't stop. "It's alright, I've got you. You're safe."
Tachibana bit back a breath; it sounded embarrassingly like a sob, but this whole thing was embarrassing, and terrifying, and wonderful and it was much too late to stop now even if it hadn't been. "More," he heard himself beg and Ono gasped, a raw, desperate sound, and clutched at him tigher and then he shuddered, his head falling forward to rest against Tachibana's. Tachibana sensed more than felt the pulse of his orgasm start and then Ono was coming with his hand sliding slickly around their cocks, his fingers encircling the head, his come spurting helplessly over his hand and Tachibana's prick as he groaned his name. It was too much, too shocking and exactly right all at the same time and suddenly Tachibana was pulled under with it, an impossible swell of sensation too big to fight or stop.
When he opened his eyes again, they were more or less the same as they'd been when he'd closed them, except messier and draped on a hand basin that possibly wasn't designed to bear their weight and would cost him a small fortune to fix if it came away from the wall. He shifted a little, and his gaze met Ono's and he had no idea what the other man saw there, but after a moment Ono smiled, his gentle, self-depreciating familiar smile.
"Well," he sighed. "At least we're already in the bathroom."
Tachibana choked back a laugh as the tension broke, still feeling like he was edging hysteria despite the endorphins now swimming in his system. "Shit," he breathed. "Ugh." Ono was unsticking himself, reaching past Tachibana for a handtowel. His face was turned away, but he was still very close. Tachibana could feel his body heat, even through what remained of their clothes. He thought about what Ono had said, earlier, about them naked, together, in bed, and he found the idea a lot less confrontational now than he might have before. Which was probably just as well considering Ono was now gently cleaning him off with almost imperceptibly shaking hands.
Tachibana frowned and caught his fingers and the towel gripped in them to stop him. Ono looked up.
"I didn't want to say those words to you, that day," he repeated finally, seriously, as Ono stared at him.
"What did you want to say?" he whispered, and he looked half afraid, half hopeful. It almost hurt Tachibana to see it.
"I don't remember."
"And what is it you want to say now?"
"I-" Tachibana stopped. He didn't know and it probably showed on his face, but Ono waited anyway. "I don't know," he mumbled, feeling ridiculous suddenly. His cheeks felt like they were as red as beets. "But maybe if you hang around, I'll be able to work it out."
"Hmmm." Ono appeared to be considering this. How anyone could look that thoughtful and be putting his cock back in his pants, Tachibana had no idea, but Ono was managing it. "Well," he sighed as he finished adjusting himself and tossed the towel into the wastebasket, and then stepped forward to put Tachibana away with a naughty little smile that almost - almost - made Tachibana sick with panic all over again. "I suppose I could. You'd have to make it worth my while though..."
"What?!" Tachibana cried, momentarily forgetting himself and what they'd just been doing. "I already pay for your Prada shoes, you know! And your Gucci man bags. And that hideous alligator skin jacket I know you bought last month!"
But Ono only chuckled as he zipped Tachibana up and leaned in for a quick, almost friendly kiss.
"Well, if you won't keep me, I guess I'll just have to keep you," he decided. "That's alright with you, isn't it?"
Tachibana blinked, defeated in mid-tirade. "Well, I guess."
"Good," Ono smiled, and patted him once on the ass like he really was Ono's property. "Chi will be happy to hear it."
"Chi will be happy," Tachibana muttered, glaring at Ono's unbelievably smug, satisfied smile before he realised what he had just said. "What? Wait! What do you mean, Chi will be happy?"
But by then the door was already open and Ono was gone.
"Ono! Now just hang on a minute!" Tachibana hurriedly tucked himself back into order and started running after him. "What was that supposed to mean? And don't make me ask Chikage because he'll only try and avoid the question and he's terrible at lying. Ono!"
And as he chased Ono back into the kitchen it didn't escape him; running after something made a nice change, for once, from running away.
Antique Bakery - Ono/Tachibana
Author: Yowaki (aka devikun)
Recipient: Prestidigitator (aka miang)
Rating: NC-17
Words: 7000 (approx)
Warnings: The following fic is: a) overly long! b) quite flawed c) angsty d) not that true to the prompt e) all of the above
Summary: Tachibana is trying to fight the undercurrents in his life, but in which direction should he go?
Prompt: If you know the canon, you know that they (Tachibana & Ono) never get together despite Ono's high school crush, and by the end it seems like Tachibana's getting a little jealous about the attentions others place on his head baker. Ono claims he's over it. I don't believe him. :D Somehow, shortly post-series, make it happen for them.
Notes: Heaped thanks on top of the mountains of respect and gooey caramel love for the ones who beta'd for me (you know who you are) new_kate and hibem. Any remaining mistakes or flaws herein are entirely mine, unlike the Antique Bakery characters, who remain the property of the brilliant Yoshinaga Fumi-sensei.
Undertow
It was their fifth date. They’d had sex - great sex - on two of the four dates prior to this one. He enjoyed her company. She was intelligent, witty and very, very lovely. Of course, when it happened over coffee after a show he thought she’d like - and the coffee wasn’t as good as the shop’s but it was passable - he couldn’t really say that he was surprised. She looked down at her cup and fell silent and she suddenly had that air about her. His lips thinned into the line of an expectant smile, but it probably wasn’t reaching his eyes. He already knew what she was going to say.
I’m sorry. This isn’t going to work. You’re too...
It wasn’t about the sex; he knew enough to know that. Nor was it about him being an unfeeling bastard, or a workaholic, or any of those things women normally broke up with men over. He supposed he should be grateful it was only their fifth date, rather than their fiftieth. He nodded and smiled as if it didn’t hurt, and it didn’t really, and saw her home. He stood on the steps outside her condo and wished her well, smoothly deflecting any awkward promises about them remaining friends and by the time she was ready to leave, she was smiling again and kissing him gently on the cheek. He could smell her perfume as he inhaled, and as he walked away from her building, he was glad she hadn’t been a customer. It would have troubled her to have to sacrifice her loyalty to the store just to avoid seeing him, and he would have hated to lose the custom.
He didn’t call a cab. It was too early to go home anyway, so he just kept walking, hunching into his coat against the chill in the night air. The city around him, unsleeping and certainly uncaring, went about its business, and he ignored it right back in favour of his thoughts which were, he supposed, probably taking a slightly morbid turn.
The next time he bothered to look up, he found himself standing on a vaguely familiar street and it was such a sudden, odd sensation that he thought maybe he was lost. It wasn’t that hard to do in Tokyo, get lost in an area you knew. Off the main roads everything looked almost exactly the same. Alleys were never signed, and the bars and people and lights had a way of looking like all the other bars and people and lights in the city, blending together until he could have been anywhere.
A couple of guys walked past him, arm in arm, laughing. One of them, he noticed, had his tongue in the other guy's ear.
Now, he knew why the street looked familiar. And there was the very same place, in all its understated glory. Funny how he remembered it so clearly now that he saw it, even though he’d only been there once. He started walking again, and meant to keep walking. He meant to, but somehow his feet stopped at the door and then he was pushing it open and going inside.
The place was fairly crowded, lively; maybe that was why half way across to the bar, whatever tension he’d been feeling seemed to ease. No-one was staring at him; in fact not many people were even looking at him. He obviously wasn’t as out of place as he felt - overdressed for a night out clubbing, but not for this place, with its polished mahogany bar and clean, modern fittings. Not too nice for the smartly dressed, slightly affluent, fashion-conscious patrons either. In fact, by the way the few who did look at him as he passed, their eyes direct and dark and speculative, he apparently fit right in.
It occurred to him then to wonder what it was he was doing.
"Welcome. What will it- Oh, hello."
The same bartender. He nodded and slid onto a stool at the end, away from a gaggle of what he could only assume were regulars, some of who were also looking at him. He ignored them.
"Hello," he said, to be polite. "How are you?"
"Very well, thank you. What will you have?"
He didn't even have to think about it. Which probably ought to have been a sign. "A whiskey, neat, with water."
The Master - what was his name again? Toda? - gave him a look, almost a once over, and then reached for the top shelf.
"You look different," he observed mildly, placing a heavy tumbler smartly on a coaster on the bar top in front of him, pouring the drink with hardly any unnecessary flourish and adding a touch of water from a standing pitcher all in one fluid motion.
"I shaved," he guessed. "My last girlfriend didn’t like the stubble." His ex-girlfriend, he should have said. They never did seem to like the stubble.
Toda smiled faintly; although whether it was to the reference or just to be polite, he couldn’t be sure. "No. When I met you, you looked the same. But..."
He reached for his wallet, flipped it open and slid out a crisp ten thousand yen note, and pushed it across the bar. "You have a good memory," he said, realising the Master was right, and lifted the glass to his lips. It was good whiskey, very good. He sighed again, drinking more deeply the second time.
Toda set the bottle down and took up the note. "And Yuey is..."
"Huh?" He blinked up over the rim of the glass, his lips stinging a little from the alcohol, and for a second he had no idea who the bartender was talking about. "Oh. That guy? Don’t know."
"You’re...here on your own?"
"Just leave the bottle," he sighed in reply.
Toda blinked, the note still in his hand. "I’ll get your change. This is too much."
"That’s alright," Keiichiro Tachibana said, smiling to himself at the irony of it all, and reached for the bottle to pour another couple of fingers into his glass. "So am I."
+++++++
He was almost half way through the bottle before he felt someone brush up against him. He would have been surprised that it wasn’t sooner, but that would have probably been flattering himself, and it wasn’t so much a subtle touch as it was a brief, well-aimed bump. As he set his empty glass down on the bar top, he found himself thinking he would never have used such crass tactics on a woman, although possibly he would have thought about it.
"Oh, excuse me," came the pleasant apology. "It’s gotten so crowded in here..."
"That’s alright," he dismissed, perversely pleased that his words were not slurring at all. "Would you like a drink?"
"I... Are you sure?"
"Sure?" he repeated, bemused. Maybe the guy really had bumped him accidentally. He glanced up, following the line of a well-pressed jacket and the crisp dress shirt underneath - Dior or Yves Saint Laurent, he thought, although he couldn’t see the embellishment - up to what someone like Ono might have considered a handsome face, with features hovering on the edge of forty maybe, and hazel eyes framed by slightly wavy, shoulder length black hair. Not Japanese, or at least not completely, but a native speaker none the less. His suit wasn't cheap, and he had the look of a company man about him, so he was probably a manager or a director perhaps, not fresh out of university by any means, but younger than most of the people around him. Well-versed at living two lives, Tachibana guessed, although he was certainly no judge of these things; one the perfect career man - and who knew, maybe he even had a family - and the other, the one he wore inside little out-of-the-way boutique bars in the gay district of Shinjuku...
"Well," the stranger clarified, his mouth quirking into an apologetic half-smile as he glanced once at the bottle on the bar in front of Tachibana’s glass. "You and your Highland Park looked a little exclusive."
Tachibana tried to smile back, shrugging without denying it and signalled to Toda, who hadn’t visited him again since he'd left the bottle but who had, he somehow thought, been keeping on eye on him ever since. "Another glass please, Master," he called, and waited. The guy sat down on the vacated bar seat next to him.
"Thanks," he said, warmly. Tachibana slid the glass Toda placed in front of him across, and poured a generous amount of whiskey into it.
"Cheers," he said, and wondered distantly whether he was supposed to ask the guy’s name.
"Cheers," returned the guy, saluting mildly with his glass and then taking a sip. Tachibana didn’t bother to watch, but he heard the dull clink as the drink was set down again, the faint chime of ice shifting in the glass under the noise around them, and felt more than saw the man lean slightly over.
Tachibana breathed in, held it, and there was a moment of silence, as if the whole room was watching. But that couldn’t be, of course. What did anyone else care?
"Let me know if this is too fast for you," the guy said, his voice dropping just a tone lower, his hand on the bar next to Tachibana’s, close but not quite touching. "But I know better ways to help you forget than Single Malt."
Tachibana breathed out again, slowly and softly.
"Really," he said flatly, strangely calm now that the moment had come. "But what I want is to remember."
The bar master’s gaze followed them when they made a move to leave a few moments later. Tachibana thought Toda looked concerned, and just a little disappointed, and wondered whether he’d worn that same expression the night Ono had been led away.
+++++++++
"You’ve never done this before, have you."
It wasn’t a question, and he supposed it was obvious. Not that he was resisting, per se; he just didn’t know what to put where. The guy seemed not to mind.
"I don’t actually like men," he said, already knowing how ridiculous it sounded, how ridiculous it was. His heart was hammering, a high staccato pulse in his throat that surely this guy could feel under his mouth. It was weird, having someone’s fingers in his hair, someone’s weight half on him, someone’s lips and tongue against his skin when he wasn’t even sure whether he wanted them there or not himself.
"Then why did you let me bring you here?"
Although it was less strange now than it had been before, when he’d been pressed up against the wall next to the door about two seconds after he’d closed it, as if the guy was afraid was going to run. He’d considered it when he felt a knee pushing between his legs and the guy’s mouth brushing carefully against his for the first time, but he had made himself stand still and take it, not frozen so much as waiting. He had let himself be pushed back towards the bed, down onto it, let himself be trapped by warm, sold weight, and still he waited.
And nothing happened, except that he guy's hands were warm and sure and what did that mean, he wondered? He should have been panicking, fighting, running, and there was a part of him almost appalled that he wasn't. What was he doing here? What was this going to prove, anyway?
"I was dumped tonight," he breathed shakily, and tried not to think about the fingers plucking at the buttons on his shirt.
"You liked her so much then?" the guy asked into the hollow behind his ear, before his teeth tugged on the lobe and another button slipped free. Tachibana shivered. "You’re doing this to punish her?"
Why couldn’t he stop asking questions? Wasn’t this sort of thing supposed to be a quick, impersonal... thing, and then the parties involved just moved on? Why couldn’t he just get on with it? Why did he want to know what had happened, or why Tachibana was here? Why didn’t he just...do whatever people like him did, jerk off his clothes, spread his legs, and-
God. What was he doing?
"No," he gasped as the teeth unclamped from his earlobe and nipped further down his throat, a momentarily sharp promise of more. "It wasn’t her fault." It was his fault; it was always his fault, for being too something but he didn’t know what that was, and he didn’t know how to stop.
"Then you’re punishing yourself."
Was he? Maybe he was. He didn’t know that either. "Can’t you just-" he breathed, his hands clenching convulsively into the bedspread underneath him - cheap, tacky chintz his grandmother would have been appalled to see. He wanted to laugh at that, and swallowed a shuddering breath that tasted a little of hysteria. She probably would have been more horrified at the décor in the room than the fact the he was about to let another man fuck him. "Can’t you just get on with it?"
"Is that what you want? I mean, really?"
Tachibana blinked, and the guy was suddenly above him, hovering, his face soft in the shadows, his hair tousled. He hadn’t expected a stranger to really care one way or another but it was suddenly obvious this stranger did. Even with an erection pressing against Tachibana’s hip.
"I- No. Yes," he stammered, unable to look right at him and hating that he somehow felt weak and stupid and confused when he’d decided to do this, to know, to find out. "I’m- I’m here aren’t I?"
"You think it works like that?"
The question took him aback. "Doesn’t it?"
The guy frowned and sighed. "Not generally, no," he said, and Tachibana jumped and then froze as one of his hands landed with startling accuracy right on his crotch. "I want to have sex with you, or I wouldn’t have asked you to come here. But I’d like to be sure you want to have sex with me too."
"Oh," Tachibana answered faintly. He wasn’t even hard, not really.
"Look," the guy started, and his hand left its place and rose to brush Tachibana’s hair back away from his face in a gesture that almost could have been tender. "It’s been a long day for me. I’m going to have a shower. That will give you time to decide whether you really want to still be here when I get out."
He rose with a brief, platonic pat to Tachibana’s knee and was as good as his word, disappearing immediately into the bathroom and shutting the door firmly and gently behind him. Tachibana lay on the bed, sprawled out on the cheap chintz, half undressed, and stared at it for a good thirty seconds, until he could hear the water running.
"How do you ever get laid, with that kind of honest attitude?" he demanded of the door, but it deigned not to reply.
++++++++
"Hey! Ono! We’ve got another order for the Caracas Gateaux. Is that okay?"
There was nothing wrong with the way his genius pastry chef turned and looked at him from where he was working at the bench when Tachibana stuck his head through the kitchen door, only there was. Tachibana frowned to himself, and not for the first time that day. Ono looked the way he normally did, of course, at ease in his kitchen and in control of everything that was happening, and he seemed to be handling the workload even with Kanda Eiji gone now. But there was something a little off with him today. He hadn’t directly met Tachibana's gaze all afternoon, and once or twice, Tachibana had caught him staring, as if he had something to say. When he had opened his mouth though, nothing out of the ordinary had come out of it, despite expectation. It was starting to put Tachibana on edge.
"Another?" Ono echoed, smiling. "Well, that one's certainly popular. I think it might be the Cointreau rather than rum in the génoise, don't you?"
"How would I know?" Tachibana demanded and then realised that had come out less civil than he'd actually meant it. "Sorry. Sorry," he sighed as he ran a hand through his hair. He was just hung over, that's all that was wrong. Between directing the new part-timer, watching Chikage, making coffee, taking orders and serving customers, it had already been a long, horrid day. He'd raised his voice twice before remembering he had a crashing headache, and his smile felt like it was sticky-taped on. He just wanted to go home and sleep and possibly never get out of bed again, and yet here he was, taking it out on Ono.
"It's alright. I know," Ono told him, as if he was already forgiving him everything. "You don't like sweet things. But I trust your observations."
Tachibana hadn't thought he could feel any worse today, but apparently he'd been mistaken. "Look, Ono..."
"Yes?"
"Is there... I mean, is everything okay?"
Ono smiled at him, a little bemused. "Why wouldn't it be?"
"Well, I just... You aren't having any, you know, relationship problems or anything, are you?"
Ono blinked. "Well, I'm not in a relationship right now, Tachibana, so I can't see how I'd be having any problems."
"You're not? Oh, but I thought you... Never mind. Anyway, just as long as everything's alright."
"And what about you?"
The sudden seriousness of the question threw him for a moment, and he realised he was staring, and that Ono had that look on his face again, like he was about to say something. Tachibana knew, somehow, that this time it would be what he'd so obviously been thinking.
"Waka!"
The call was merely a 2-second warning, before Chikage burst through the door behind him, jostling him forward into the kitchen proper and almost into the island bench in front of him.
"Waka," Chikage repeated warningly, grabbing his shoulders and pulling him back upright again.
"Chikage, you know not to come barrelling through that door," Tachibana started to chide, trying not to admit to the surge of irritation at the interruption as he shrugged Chikage's hands off him. "It swings both ways, remem- What's the matter?"
Chikage was looking at him strangely, his mouth hanging open as he stared.
"I-" Chikage began, blinking, and Tachibana corrected himself. Kage wasn’t looking at him strangely; at least he wasn’t looking at his face. His gaze was slightly lower, and it made Tachibana reach up before he even realised what he was doing.
"What?" he repeated. "Do I have something on me?" He wiped at the side of his neck and then looked at his hand, but there was nothing.
"Err," Kage said, blinking. "How did you get that bruise..."
"What?" Tachibana said again, and the hair at his nape stood up in a way he really didn't like. "Where?"
Chikage blinked again, and reached out. Warm, gentle fingers brushed the soft skin in the hollow below Tachibana’s ear. Tachibana jumped.
"Ha! What? Huh. Maybe I fell asleep on something last night," he said, brushing Chikage's hand away, but the reply sounded rushed and stupid and Chikage was still staring at him oddly. "What was it you came running in here about?"
Chikage dropped his hand, his expression blanking out for a second. "...I forget."
Tachibana wanted to go home; he really wanted to go home. "Well, you know what to do, don't you?" he told him, trying not to snap. It wasn’t Chikage’s fault; none of this was. "Go back to where you were until you remember." He tried to smile as well, as he ushered Chikage back outside, but the best he could do was leave him there, looking oddly lost in the middle of the shop trying to remember what he had forgotten as Tachibana turned away and walked - he did not run - to the bathroom.
Once there, he closed the door and put himself in front of the mirror, straining to turn his head in the necessary direction. It was hard to see, but Chikage never lied. He had a hickey.
Fuck. What was he-
"Tachibana?"
Tachibana jumped again, this time guiltily. He hadn't even heard the door open.
"Is everything alright?"
He turned away from the mirror with a fixed smile, and hoped it looked convincing. Ono was standing just inside the closed bathroom door a few feet away, in his flour-dusted chef’s whites, and Tachibana didn’t know quite what to do for a second.
"Uh, yeah, sure," he fumbled, wondering how hard it would be to get past Ono in the relatively confined space of the bathroom. "I was just, uh..."
"It's not that bad," Ono assured, nodding towards the bite mark, but somehow his words didn't really make Tachibana feel any better. "Really. It's nothing to be ashamed of. I should know, right?" His faintly understanding smile had an odd, sad edge to it, and there was something really wrong with that word - ashamed - in this context. The way Ono said it, it almost sounded like...
"It's not that I'm-," Tachibana started, and then realised that there was no way he was going to continue that sentence out loud. "Maybe I should just call it a day," he said instead. "Sorry, Ono. You can take care of things until close, right?" He made to step around him.
"Wait. Tachibana." Tachibana stopped, froze more like. Ono's hand was on his arm, holding him before he could escape, unthreatening and warm, his slender fingers pressing lightly into his bicep.
"Are you really alright? Last night..." His voice was warm as well, with concern. Tachibana's heart stumbled in his chest, fuelling the illogical desire to run that seemed to have come up from nowhere, or could have been there forever.
"It's nothing," he tried. "I broke up with Kaeko last night. No big deal. It's really not-."
"Tachibana," Ono interrupted softly, and his hand squeezed gently. "I know."
"...What?" A strange chill went streaking up Tachibana's spine. Ono knew? Knew what? And then suddenly he realised, and before he could stop himself he was trying to pull back, away out of reach. It was a small washroom, though; he had nowhere to go, and he only drew Ono with him. "You were there," he heard himself say.
Ono stared at him for a long moment, unreadable until his expression shifted into something Tachibana could only name as confusion. "Not until later," he admitted. "I only found out because Toda thought you'd finally come out. He didn't realise it was something I wouldn't have known..."
"He-" Tachibana didn't know what to deal with first - what Ono must have thought, finding out he'd been there and that he'd let himself be picked up by some stranger, or whether that bartender's had any right to an opinion on his sexuality.
"If you were trying to keep it a secret from me..." Ono began, and then something else washed across his features, something sharp and introverted. "All day, I've been trying not to take this personally, but I just can't seem to understand. There's dozens of bars in that district. If you didn't want me to know, why go to that one? After all this time- You've always said you were straight. I believed you."
"I -" What could he say to that? How could he make someone like Ono understand when he barely understood himself? "Ono, I..."
"It doesn't make any sense. Were you ashamed? Or were you somehow trying to hurt me?"
"No!" That wasn't- He hadn't done it to hurt Ono. "Of course not!"
"Then how did you think I'd take it?" Ono demanded, his voice rising, thin with an emotion Tachibana was sure he didn't want to be the reason for, not again. "It's not like I've ever made any effort to hide what I think about you."
"Ono, I'm not-" Tachibana didn't like this conversation, and he really, honestly wasn't equipped to be having it right now. He felt frayed, inside and out, as if something important was unravelling and he didn't know how to stop it and it couldn't be in front of Ono. He had to get out of this room, had to put some more space between them. "And anyway, you're not interested in me anymore remember?" He was trying for levity, but even he could hear the tone of hurt accusation in his voice. "You've said as much often enough. Not that it matters, because I don't like... I mean, I'm not..."
"Tachibana."
His words, died, because even while he'd been speaking, Ono had been drawing closer, and somehow didn't have any way out, he knew it, and he thought if he just kept talking, it would keep Ono away but it wasn't; it wasn't working.
"What?" he breathed, afraid to ask, and he could barely hear himself over the panicked thud of his beating heart.
"Tell the truth."
Tachibana stared, his mouth hanging open and his brain catching on only when he felt Ono's breath gust across his face. By then it was much too late, and the hand still gripping his arm pulled him forward against the downward slant of Ono's mouth on his.
For a moment, he was too stunned to move. And then the press of Ono's lips gently pushed his apart, and Ono's slick, hot tongue flickered past his teeth and brushed softly against the roof of his mouth.
And Tachibana held his breath, and waited.
But the feeling didn't come; that jolt of animal panic, of blind, senseless terror and almost-loathing he always seemed to feel when someone - no, when other men, even Chikage sometimes - got too close, touched him too intimately. Ono was kissing him, really kissing him; shifting to press him back against the sink as first the increasing pressure of his mouth and then the weight of his body came to bear on Tachibana's senses. And the knee-jerk reaction fear didn't come. Instead what he felt was the silky softness and the heat beyond the pressure of Ono's mouth, the way the other man trembled against him, panting tiny, shaky breaths into him as he kissed him, pressed into him. And then Tachibana felt something else - Ono hard, very hard against him, moving in small, careful thrusts against his own growing erection.
Ono wanted him, he realised. Tachibana might have hurt him, once, long ago, rejected him, but Ono still wanted him. Something in him seemed to give way with a strange, silent sigh.
Like relief.
"Tachibana?"
Ono was lifting his head, and his fingers on Tachibana's skin were soft and hot, caressing, burning where they touched and Tachibana felt drugged and strangely weak. He almost couldn't seem to breathe. His heart was hammering in his ribcage but he somehow no longer wanted to run. In fact, he wasn't even sure he could walk.
"Tachibana... I..."
Tachibana tightened his hold; he wasn't sure when he had reached up either, but his fingers were clenched in Ono's jacket and he knew if he let him go, something else would go with him, understanding perhaps, or release finally from this stupid, nameless fear. It was ruining him, a rod for his back that he couldn't see but had never been able to jettison and he couldn't, really couldn't keep this up anymore. It had to stop.
"I can't remember," he confessed, blurting it out and the words seemed desperate to escape despite the way his throat still tried to close over them. "What he did to me, Ono. I can't remember."
Ono tensed against him and breathed in sharply like something had just hit him, but Tachibana barrelled on, because if he didn't get it out right now, he might not get it out at all.
"And I thought, maybe if I let someone else do what I think he did, I would." He laughed, not because it was funny, but because it was pointless. He should have known. "How messed up is that?"
"Tachibana," Ono said again, his voice shaking a little even while his hands were as steady, as solid as stone. "I..."
"Last night, if it had been you..." Tachibana continued, but then realised that wasn't what he was trying to get at and stopped, then tried again. "Back then, that day, those weren't the words I wanted to say to you, but they just came out. What if last night I-"
What if last night, instead of feeling nothing, he'd found what he was looking for? And if what he remembered was worse than not remembering at all? The fact was, he had wanted to remember; last night, he knew what he was doing. He had been asking for it, inviting it, whatever it was, desperate for some kind of relief from not knowing, one way or another. All his life, the truth had been a big, black hole lurking somewhere in his peripheral, the shadowy space beneath his bed where monsters lived, an unseen current dragging at his feet and sweeping his legs out from under him again and again. He wasn't stupid, had never been stupid; he'd understood, even then. The way the adults around him had treated him, the sad, worried looks on their faces, the private discussions his parents had had with the psychologists and the police and the social workers. The way other people looked at him when they found out; he knew what they thought. It was understandable; he thought so too. But they weren't the ones waking up in the middle of night from nightmares they couldn't remember, or wondering whether all the things they'd ever done in their lives weren't somehow tainted, coloured, by this one thing, this one frightening unknown.
If he'd found what he was looking for last night, and it had been Ono there in that hotel room with him, Ono and the shield of his demonic charm to which Tachibana seemed to be the only bane. Those words he'd never meant to say to him so long ago, what if he had said them again? Or worse? Not even Tachibana was cruel enough to reject Ono twice for the same thing, a thing that had never been his fault in the first place.
"Nothing happened," he admitted finally, shame and frustration heating his face and seizing up his throat. "I went with that guy, but we didn't do anything, and I didn't remember anything. I really didn't do it to hurt you. I'm sorry. I just-"
He broke off, breathing in with the sudden sway of Ono's body back towards him and then he was being kissed again, and it was worse this time because now he knew how it felt, how very not frightening it was, and that almost frightened him more. He didn't know what to do. Ono was kissing him the way Tachibana might have kissed a woman, slow and lingeringly; so gentle in fact that it almost irritated him. He wasn't a girl, and yet he couldn't seem to do anything other than stand there and let himself be kissed, let his breath escape his parted lips under the clinging caress of Ono's and feel gooseflesh raise under the tips of the man's fingers trailing across his cheek and jaw.
And then Ono shifted, backing off a fraction like he was trying to catch his breath. His hands as they smoothed down Tachibana's neck to his shoulders trembled, his breath shaking out past his lips and Tachibana couldn't seem to look anywhere else. Ono's mouth was pink and flushed, wet and lewd looking and he felt like he was balancing between two forces; one that made him want to pull away and the other that drew him forward.
"You've got nothing to be sorry for," Ono said roughly, his forehead bumping Tachibana's as he took a deep, steadying breath. "Instead, it's me who should apologise. I thought you- And then taking advantage of you when- I'm sorry. I just wanted to- I don't know why I can't leave you alone, even after- I'm sorry." He swayed again, away this time, took a step back, his grip loosening, his hands falling, his expression collapsing and something about this whole sorry scene felt like a crushing weight on Tachibana's chest, like drowning. He reached out just as Ono made to turn away, not giving himself time to think. Thinking hadn't done him any good anyway, before now.
His hand closed around Ono's wrist and Ono stopped. Tachibana did not let him go. For a second they stood there, silent, trapped, and to Tachibana it felt like that undercurrent in his life was no longer dragging him away from land, but pushing him towards it.
"Tachi-" Ono's voice failed on his name. He looked stricken, panicked, but his voice was controlled, strained. "Don't. Not unless you mean it."
Tachibana wanted to laugh, but that would have sounded just as hysterical as last night, for completely different reasons. The bathroom was a lot less tacky than the hotel room had been. "I've got no idea what I mean," he admitted hoarsely. "But who's the idiot now? You always quit so easily..."
"God." Ono swallowed visibly, and the irony that now he was the one that was trying to run did not escape Tachibana. "You're so cruel."
"I know," Tachibana agreed.
"Do you?" Ono asked, serious. "Do you have any idea at all how much I want you? How much I want to fuck you?" He said it deliberately, harshly, staring straight at Tachibana and he was doing it to scare him, to make him run again. "I thought I was over you, but last night, when I thought about you with some stranger, I realised I probably wasn't. So don't play with me, Tachibana, because it's not right and it's not fair and I... can't, I just..."
"Ono," Tachibana breathed, because Ono didn't get it; Tachibana wasn't running. Not anymore. No matter how much he wanted to. "I'm not playing."
Ono stood, took one breath, two, and then turned.
Tachibana fell back against the sink again, and there'd be bruises tomorrow but the pain helped him focus on what was real - Ono crushed against him; his hands knotted tight in his hair; his tongue spiking into his mouth; his hips pushing at Tachibana's before he thrust up against him; the bulge in his pants hard against the ache between Tachibana's legs; the jolt of sensation that tore unexpectedly up Tachibana's spine and left him in an involuntary moan. He struggled out of the kiss, trying to breathe and Ono's mouth fell to his throat, closing over the bite mark Chikage had noticed before and sucking mercilessly until Tachibana moaned again and shifted against the press of Ono's body, insensibly seeking more contact.
"Don't respond to me like that," Ono panted against his neck. "Or I'll take you up against the sink. Against the mirror, so you can see what your face looks like when I'm in you..."
Tachibana was panting too; he wasn't sure it wasn't because he was terrified, but the mental imagery accompanying that threat was detailed enough for him to be able to guess exactly what he'd look like.
"O- okay," he gasped, and then gasped again when Ono's hand slid down and pressed against his erection.
"Don't be an idiot," Ono chided him raggedly and lifted his head to look at him. His eyes were fever bright, his mouth ruddy, his skin flushed, but he was smiling a gentle, fond smile that made him look like the Ono Tachibana had come to know. "When I make love to you, it'll be in a bed, spread out and naked so I can taste you, kiss you..."
Tachibana wasn't sure that sounded any safer, but the kisses Ono was speaking of were drugging, and he couldn't think.
"Okay," he said again after the fourth or fifth kiss, and Ono laughed softly.
"I think I like this agreeable side of you, Tachibana. How long's it likely to last?"
Tachibana paused and blinked. Below, Ono's hand was opening his pants with effortless ease. "Who knows?" he hedged, and then shivered as Ono's hand slid onto his skin. "Ah. Not that long, maybe."
"Mmm," Ono sighed. "The tie to my apron is right by your left hand." And then he started to stroke.
Tachibana felt like the floor, as opposed to his knees, turned to jelly, and his fingers fumbled for what seemed like forever before Ono's apron unravelled and slipped to the floor. By then he had to really concentrate on what he was doing while Ono stood, leaning into him and stroking him and kissing him distractingly and it was probably revenge; Ono was a good man, sweet with a core of steel, but he probably wasn't above getting some back. Tachibana's only consolation was that he was just as affected, certainly just as hard when Tachibana finally managed to get his chef's pants open, and there was probably some kind of major Health and Hygiene covenant they were breaking here but he was beyond caring. Ono was hot in his hand, his skin incredibly thin and impossibly soft and the helpless groan he gave when Tachibana started to stroke him, trying to get a feel for a cock that wasn't his own, sent a shudder reeling down Tachibana's spine.
"Oh, Tachibana," Ono moaned, as Tachibana fell into a kind of awkward rhythm. He leaned closer, bringing their moving hands and their pricks into electrifying contact. "God. Let me..."
Tachibana was about to protest - he could do it, he wasn't completely clueless here - when Ono's grip shifted, sliding around them both and the sensation of being pressed up tight against another man, the unevenly fitting grip around both their lengths and the way Ono's fingers splayed across their heads as he pressed them together, smearing and mixing their precome, was alien and frightening and utterly incredible. His hands ended up clutching at Ono's shoulders, and Ono's name sounded in his voice, deep and hoarse and shockingly needy, a stranger's voice. Ono groaned again, his free hand braced on the sink next to him as he leaned in for another one of those kisses that swamped Tachibana until he couldn't tell which way was up.
"Oh. Oh, fu-" Tachibana panted against Ono's mouth, only just recognising that he was thrusting into Ono's fist, that Ono was thrusting against him in time, simulated sex, and he was close, so close, without even having to think about it. "Ono..."
"Shh..." Ono whispered, and kissed him, then kissed him again, as if he couldn't stop. "It's alright, I've got you. You're safe."
Tachibana bit back a breath; it sounded embarrassingly like a sob, but this whole thing was embarrassing, and terrifying, and wonderful and it was much too late to stop now even if it hadn't been. "More," he heard himself beg and Ono gasped, a raw, desperate sound, and clutched at him tigher and then he shuddered, his head falling forward to rest against Tachibana's. Tachibana sensed more than felt the pulse of his orgasm start and then Ono was coming with his hand sliding slickly around their cocks, his fingers encircling the head, his come spurting helplessly over his hand and Tachibana's prick as he groaned his name. It was too much, too shocking and exactly right all at the same time and suddenly Tachibana was pulled under with it, an impossible swell of sensation too big to fight or stop.
When he opened his eyes again, they were more or less the same as they'd been when he'd closed them, except messier and draped on a hand basin that possibly wasn't designed to bear their weight and would cost him a small fortune to fix if it came away from the wall. He shifted a little, and his gaze met Ono's and he had no idea what the other man saw there, but after a moment Ono smiled, his gentle, self-depreciating familiar smile.
"Well," he sighed. "At least we're already in the bathroom."
Tachibana choked back a laugh as the tension broke, still feeling like he was edging hysteria despite the endorphins now swimming in his system. "Shit," he breathed. "Ugh." Ono was unsticking himself, reaching past Tachibana for a handtowel. His face was turned away, but he was still very close. Tachibana could feel his body heat, even through what remained of their clothes. He thought about what Ono had said, earlier, about them naked, together, in bed, and he found the idea a lot less confrontational now than he might have before. Which was probably just as well considering Ono was now gently cleaning him off with almost imperceptibly shaking hands.
Tachibana frowned and caught his fingers and the towel gripped in them to stop him. Ono looked up.
"I didn't want to say those words to you, that day," he repeated finally, seriously, as Ono stared at him.
"What did you want to say?" he whispered, and he looked half afraid, half hopeful. It almost hurt Tachibana to see it.
"I don't remember."
"And what is it you want to say now?"
"I-" Tachibana stopped. He didn't know and it probably showed on his face, but Ono waited anyway. "I don't know," he mumbled, feeling ridiculous suddenly. His cheeks felt like they were as red as beets. "But maybe if you hang around, I'll be able to work it out."
"Hmmm." Ono appeared to be considering this. How anyone could look that thoughtful and be putting his cock back in his pants, Tachibana had no idea, but Ono was managing it. "Well," he sighed as he finished adjusting himself and tossed the towel into the wastebasket, and then stepped forward to put Tachibana away with a naughty little smile that almost - almost - made Tachibana sick with panic all over again. "I suppose I could. You'd have to make it worth my while though..."
"What?!" Tachibana cried, momentarily forgetting himself and what they'd just been doing. "I already pay for your Prada shoes, you know! And your Gucci man bags. And that hideous alligator skin jacket I know you bought last month!"
But Ono only chuckled as he zipped Tachibana up and leaned in for a quick, almost friendly kiss.
"Well, if you won't keep me, I guess I'll just have to keep you," he decided. "That's alright with you, isn't it?"
Tachibana blinked, defeated in mid-tirade. "Well, I guess."
"Good," Ono smiled, and patted him once on the ass like he really was Ono's property. "Chi will be happy to hear it."
"Chi will be happy," Tachibana muttered, glaring at Ono's unbelievably smug, satisfied smile before he realised what he had just said. "What? Wait! What do you mean, Chi will be happy?"
But by then the door was already open and Ono was gone.
"Ono! Now just hang on a minute!" Tachibana hurriedly tucked himself back into order and started running after him. "What was that supposed to mean? And don't make me ask Chikage because he'll only try and avoid the question and he's terrible at lying. Ono!"
And as he chased Ono back into the kitchen it didn't escape him; running after something made a nice change, for once, from running away.