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"Alright," Sanemi said. He threw back the last two shots Genya had lined up for him, tossed his car keys onto the counter, and swiveled out of his stool. "I'm gonna go hit that."
Genya pocketed the keys as his brother bulldozed his way across the bar. The corner table where Sanemi stopped was occupied by some guys who had been chatting over burgers and beer for the better part of the past two hours. Three of them were regulars, though Genya didn't know them by name. Sometimes they came in lugging books and backpacks; they must have been students at the nearby university.
They must have been good friends, too. Genya couldn't recall ever seeing one without the others.
The fourth guy at their table had a ponytail and looked a little older. Genya had never seen him before.
He glanced over twice, once before and once after mixing a rum and coke for a girl who'd been unsubtly checking out Sanemi while he loitered at the bar. The first time he looked, Genya saw Sanemi looming over the guy with a ponytail, saying something with his usual sneer on his face and accompanying every few words with some unmistakably crude hand gestures.
The second time Genya looked, Sanemi and the ponytail guy were gone.
Sanemi didn't always drop in on Genya at work, and when he did, he wasn't always looking to pick up. But he never went home alone when he didn't want to, so there must have been some considerable appeal to his crass and straightforward technique.
Though Sanemi certainly wouldn't appreciate his saying so, Genya thought that was pretty cool.
He had another half hour left in his shift, and he knew he wouldn't be seeing Sanemi again that night. That meant he would have to drive Sanemi's car back to Sanemi's house, because the bar's parking lot was a sort of dodgy place to leave a car—even a shitty old coupe—overnight. Genya patted his back pocket to make sure he'd actually brought his wallet and driver's license. He didn't always, seeing as he lived in a shoebox studio apartment just a couple blocks from the bar.
Of course, driving without a license would hardly be the worst thing he ever did. But still. He and Sanemi were both trying to give the whole upstanding citizen thing a fair shot.
He did have his license that night, and half an hour later, when Mitsuri came to take over for him at the bar, he grabbed his jacket and stepped outside to look for Sanemi's car. He'd just spotted the beat-up Mazda, parked haphazardly across two spaces, when someone grabbed his arm.
In retrospect, it was just a light touch. A perfectly reasonable way to get someone's attention. Genya was willing to admit he may have overreacted when he jerked his arm back and elbowed the owner of the offending hand in the face.
Whatever his elbow struck, with a gruesome crack, sent a jolt of pain shooting through his arm. He spun around and found one of the three regulars from that corner table—the cute one, the one whose name Genya had always wanted to know—beaming up at him.
He seemed alarmingly unbothered and didn't look to be in any pain at all, though one of his two friends had yelled something unintelligible and ducked behind an SUV.
"Did I just elbow you in the face?" Genya asked.
"You did a bit," the guy admitted, smiling sheepishly, like he was the one who should be sorry.
"It's fine." This came from the third member of their group, the one with the loudest voice and prettiest face. "Monjirou's skull is hard as a rock."
Then, as though to demonstrate, he punched his friend right in the head.
"See?"
Genya stared.
The unsettlingly pretty one seemed to take his silence as confusion and wound back his arm to throw another punch. Genya grabbed his wrist before he could land a second blow.
"Cut that shit out," he snapped. "I get it, fuck. You put up with this?"
This last part, he directed at the other kid, who was somehow still smiling like he hadn't just taken two hits to the head.
"Inosuke is a friend," he said, as though that explained everything. "I'm Tanjirou, and that's Zenitsu back there. Are you Genya? I think we just met your brother."
Genya blinked again. This was new. Sanemi found a hookup, and Genya took care of his car. That was routine. The hookup's drinking buddies had never accosted Genya in the parking lot before.
"He really hit it off with Giyuu, which is great. Giyuu isn't so good at meeting new people, you know? He's not a bad guy, but he hasn't had much practice making friends. I don't think he knows how to handle someone like your brother. Oh, but that's a good thing! He can't live and die in his comfort zone, right?"
Tanjirou was rambling, the way people did when they were drunk, but he seemed reasonably lucid and there was no telltale flush of alcohol in his cheeks. Maybe he was sober? Maybe he was just like this?
Fuck. That was very cute.
"Anyway, we wanted to ask—"
"Your brother fucked off with our designated driver and said you could give us a ride," Inosuke said. "So, can we go? It's late, I'm freezing my tits off, and we all have morning finals tomorrow."
Genya considered pointing out that at least one of those problems could have been addressed right away if Inosuke wore his shirt like a normal person, instead of unbuttoned to the navel, but Inosuke was a little shit, and Genya didn't much feel like helping him out.
"You don't have to," Tanjirou said. "It's too troublesome, isn't it? We can get a cab."
"No, I insist we get a cab!" Zenitsu shouted from his hiding place. He seemed to be the only one who had serious reservations about getting into a car with a stranger who'd just assaulted his friend, which probably made him the most rational person around.
Genya wasn't the nicest guy. He didn't go out of his way to help little old ladies cross the street, and he was pretty sure he wouldn't stop if he passed a hitchhiker on the side of the road. But Tanjirou practically glowed when he spoke, and that glow had dimmed a little when he offered Genya an easy way out.
"It's fine," Genya said. "I'll drive."
The glow returned, in full force.
Tanjirou asked to have Zenitsu dropped off first, and Genya was all in favor of that. Zenitsu shook like he was about to piss himself every time he so much as glanced at Genya through the rearview mirror, and Genya really couldn't have anyone pissing in Sanemi's car.
Inosuke was next. He'd passed out in the backseat and started snoring aggressively almost as soon as he clambered into the car, so it fell to Tanjirou to direct Genya to the right address. Not much direction was needed, in the end, because Genya recognized the address. It turned out Inosuke rented a room from this one DJ who Sanemi knew.
"What a small world," Tanjirou said, dreamily.
In the twenty-odd minutes it took to drop off Zenitsu and Inosuke, Tanjirou had hardly stopped talking. Genya learned that they were college students after all. He learned that all three of them lived near the university, but not together. They were seniors now, and they'd met as freshmen. They had shared an apartment for a few months at the start of their sophomore year, until something or the other happened with an unattended bag of microwave popcorn and they'd subsequently had to seek alternative housing arrangements.
"Something or the other?" Genya asked.
Tanjirou brought up his hands, wiggled his fingers, and made some fwooshy sounds that more or less answered the question.
After they hauled a still-snoring Inosuke into the living room of Tengen's house—
"Oh, you can just leave him on the floor," Tanjirou said. "He says it helps with hangovers."
Genya didn't think that was medically sound, but shrugged and dropped Inosuke on a rug.
—Tanjirou followed Genya back out to the car. He slid into the passenger seat, turned to Genya, and smiled. Genya drummed his fingers against the steering wheel and waited for Tanjirou to recite his own address.
Then he waited some more.
And some more.
"Oi." He looked at Tanjirou. He'd done that more than he cared to admit, even before that night. Tanjirou and his friends weren't just remarkable for the frequency of their visits to the bar where Genya worked. They had an obvious, easy sort of friendship that Genya couldn't help but notice and… envy, maybe. Plus, there was the whole Tanjirou is ludicrously cute thing that Genya was doing his level best to not think too hard about. "Where do you live?"
Tanjirou continued smiling. He didn't speak. He didn't even blink.
Genya frowned. "Are you asleep?"
Tanjirou shook his head.
"Are you drunk?"
Tanjirou nodded.
"Are you extremely drunk?"
Tanjirou nodded again.
Ah. He was one of those types, then. Mitsuri was the same way. She dragged Genya and Sanemi along to house parties every so often, so Genya had seen her get absolutely blitzed a few times. Every one of those times, she showed almost no signs of being remotely buzzed until she'd made sure all her drinking companions had gotten home or at least found a vaguely horizontal place to crash for the night. It was only afterwards that she would get giggly and weird.
Tanjirou wasn't giggling, but he was still smiling like the sun and offering no hint as to where he might live. Genya couldn't take much more of that. He was starting to think that Tanjirou was not only cute, but eminently kissable as well, and that was downright unacceptable.
"Let me see your phone."
Tanjirou dug into his pocket and passed over his cell without hesitation. "Are you giving me your number?"
It had been so quiet, with just the two of them in the car and Tanjirou saying nothing, that Genya almost jumped when Tanjirou rediscovered his voice. "No. I'm looking for your address. Password?"
"Then, can I have your number?" Tanjirou asked.
"What?" The phone unlocked without a passcode when Genya flicked his thumb across the screen. That wasn't secure; it also wasn't surprising. Tanjirou did seem like the overly trustworthy type who wouldn't think to lock his phone. "You don't need my number."
"But can I have it?"
"Why?"
"I want to be able to contact you."
Genya looked up while Tanjirou's maps app loaded. He frowned again. His brow furrowed, and his scar itched. Something about Tanjirou's plain earnestness thoroughly baffled him.
"Why?"
"Genya," Tanjirou said.
It was the first time, since the parking lot, that he'd said Genya's name. Genya liked it maybe a little too much.
Tanjirou tilted his head to the side and smiled again. "Just give me your phone number."
This time, it wasn't a question.
"You know you're weird, right?" Genya said, even as he thumbed open Tanjirou's contacts list and added himself as a new entry. "You and your friends. You're all kind of weird."
"But you kind of like us."
This, too, was not a question.
Genya did eventually find an address Tanjirou had saved in his phone as Home. Unfortunately, that address was a good five hundred miles away, and Tanjirou had reverted to his smiley but silent state. He was either unwilling or unable to provide any answers about his actual current address, even after extensive (and increasingly impatient) questioning by Genya.
Briefly, Genya considered texting someone on Tanjirou's contacts list, but Tanjirou had, literally, hundreds of contacts in there, and it was well past a socially acceptable hour to be texting strangers at random, in the hopes that one would know where Tanjirou lived.
Genya also considered leaving Tanjirou at Tengen's house, but he discarded that idea even more quickly than his first. Sanemi had told him that Tengen had a bunch of live-in girlfriends—actually, he'd called Tengen a bigamist—and Genya wasn't sure how well the girlfriends knew Inosuke's friends. He didn't want some lady who didn't recognize Tanjirou mistaking him for a narcoleptic burglar and calling the cops upon discovering him in her house.
At a loss for any better ideas, Genya returned Tanjirou's phone and drove them to Sanemi's house. Sanemi never brought his hookups home, so the place was sure to be deserted. And, seeing as this whole ordeal was basically Sanemi's fault, Genya figured he could cope with an unannounced guest.
Tanjirou followed him out of the car, into Sanemi's house, and straight to the guest room without asking any questions. Genya left him there and circled back to the kitchen to fill two glasses at the tap. When he returned, he found Tanjirou standing at the foot of the bed, looking for all the world like he'd never seen a bed before. Genya set the cups on the nightstand and turned to Tanjirou, arms crossed.
"You're way too trusting," he said. "I could be dangerous."
Tanjirou laughed. For all his smiling throughout the night, it was his first laugh. It was as bright and as warm as his smiles, and Genya liked it a lot. But Tanjirou kept on laughing. He just laughed and laughed, until Genya started to feel a little offended.
"I could!" he protested, gesturing to his face and hair and his whole black-on-black-on-black ensemble. "No one knows you're here. I could be a serial killer."
"No," Tanjirou said, wiping mirth from his eyes. "You're Genya."
Genya wasn't totally sure how to argue with that. He stared at Tanjirou for a moment longer, then shook his head and pointed at the bed. "Go to sleep."
Genya slept on the couch, and he was up by six. After juvie, he'd never gotten back into the habit of sleeping more than a few hours a night, even in his own bed.
He was in the kitchen, scrambling eggs, when Sanemi slammed through the front door. Sanemi grunted a half-hearted greeting before he barreled past Genya, which meant he was in a good mood. Genya put on a pot of coffee as the shower started to run.
Sanemi came back out just as the coffee finished dripping. He grabbed the pot, flipped back the lid, and chugged down a good half of the scalding liquid before Genya could offer him a cup. He did eventually grab a mug from the dish rack, which he filled and traded to Genya for a plate of eggs and toast. They ate in the kitchen, standing up, and they didn't talk until a distinctive, muffled thump—which sounded an awful lot like a Tanjirou-sized person falling out of bed—came from the guest room.
Sanemi snorted. "Good night?"
"What? No." Genya shook his head, for good measure. "It's not like that."
"Why the hell not? What'd you do, tuck him in and sleep on the couch?"
Genya looked up from his plate and didn't answer right away. Based on his expression and his tone of voice, Sanemi was not hoping to hear: Well, yeah.
But Genya's silence seemed to be answer enough. Sanemi groaned and tossed his plate into the sink, none too gently. "Genya, I didn't fuck a cop so that you could not get laid."
"Hah?"
"Fuck's sake," Sanemi muttered. "He wasn't even a good cop. Did you at least get the kid's number?"
"Who—"
"The kid! The dopey looking one with the big eyes who keeps checking you out every time I see him at the bar."
"Tanjirou? He doesn't do that."
"Oh, no, he's right. I do."
Genya spun. He'd had his back to the bedroom doors, and Tanjirou had crept out as silently as he'd approached Genya last night. Fortunately, this time, he'd had the good sense not to come within elbowing range. He stood just past the kitchen, holding both of the glasses Genya had left him, with an embarrassed-but-not-really grin on his face.
"Good morning," he added, when all Genya did was stare. "Aspirin?"
"Medicine cabinet," Sanemi said. He stole Genya's mug and downed the rest of his coffee before shoving himself away from the kitchen counter and marching towards his own room. "I'm going the fuck to sleep."
All of a sudden, Genya was alone. Sanemi slammed the door to his room shut, and Tanjirou—after setting his emptied glasses on the kitchen table—retreated into the bathroom to, presumably, help himself to a fistful of ibuprofen. Genya blinked into the empty living room and tried to make sense of whatever the hell just happened.
He tried, and he failed, so he turned to the sink and did the dishes.
A few minutes later, Tanjirou reemegered while Genya was scribbling a grocery list on the notepad on the fridge. Sanemi would never remember to stock up on necessities without a reminder. Even then, it was fifty-fifty whether or not he would actually heed the reminder. Genya was going to have to ask to move back in once his own lease ran up, even though Sanemi's place was farther from the bar and the library where he worked.
"May I?" Tanjirou asked, pointing at the coffee pot as he made his way into the kitchen.
Genya watched him out of the corner of his eye. Sober Tanjirou was proving to be just as unpredictable as his drunken counterpart. "Sure."
"Thanks, Genya. I'm a morning person, really, but coffee helps. I never drank it much before I started college, but I worked at the coffee shop on campus when I was a freshman, so I got in the habit then."
Sober Tanjirou was just as chatty, too. Which meant he was, regrettably, just as cute.
Once he'd filled the coffeemaker with water and grounds and slotted the pot back in place, he glanced at Genya. "Is it okay?"
"I said it's fine," Genya said. He waved broadly. "Help yourself to whatever."
Tanjirou shook his head. "No, I meant, is it okay that I've been checking you out?"
Genya pressed down hard enough to snap the tip of the pencil in his hand. He fixed his gaze, full of surprise and disbelief, on his ugly handwriting to keep himself from turning and staring at Tanjirou. "How can you say shit like that with a straight face?"
"You think I look straight?"
At that, Genya did turn around. Was that… a joke? Was Tanjirou making fun of him? Tanjirou was smiling, but there wasn't, as far as Genya could tell, anything malicious about it.
"If it's okay," Tanjirou continued, "is it also okay for me to ask you out?"
Genya was starting to feel like he was drunk. They were speaking the same language, yet he didn't understand Tanjirou at all.
"Because you're very tall and good-looking, and I think it's kind of cute that you tried to convince me you were a serial killer even after you brought me water before putting me to bed, so I'd like to go out with you," Tanjirou said, as though he heard Genya's why before Genya could even think to ask. "Maybe we could get some coffee?"
Instinctively, Genya glanced at the coffeemaker that was still dripping as they spoke.
Tanjirou laughed. "You're right, maybe not coffee. Dinner, then. If you're interested?"
"I'm—" Extremely interested. "—a bad person."
Tanjirou cocked his head to the side.
"I'm a criminal," Genya clarified.
"That's okay," Tanjirou said. "I'm pre-law."
"What the fuck," Genya whispered. One of them was being completely irrational here, and Tanjirou smiled so calmly that he had Genya half-convinced it was Tanjirou who was making perfect sense. "What does that mean? You're gonna date me and defend me in court when I fuck up again?"
"Oh, no, I couldn't do that. I'm going to be a prosecutor." Tanjirou took two steps closer, which brought him right up to Genya. The kitchen wasn't all that big to begin with, and Genya, with the refrigerator at his back, had nowhere to go. "But when I'm a lawyer, I'll know all the laws, so I can help make sure you don't break any of them in the future."
"You'll know all the laws," Genya echoed, incredulous.
Tanjirou nodded, as earnest about this as he'd been about everything else.
Genya couldn't keep it together for even one second longer. He slapped a hand over his face and laughed. His eyes crinkled, and his shoulders shook against the fridge behind him. The laugh reached all the way to down his gut. He couldn't remember the last time he'd laughed like this.
This time, when Tanjirou touched his arm, Genya didn't flinch. He lowered his hand when Tanjirou tugged on his wrist, and he was sure he turned an incriminating shade of red when Tanjirou said, urgently, "Genya, Genya."
"What?"
"I love your laugh."
"Yeah, uh. Me too. Yours, I mean. Fuck. I like your laugh, too."
"Enough to let me take you to dinner?"
Genya sobered, even though just looking at Tanjirou's smile made him want to crack one of his own. "Are you seriously not scared of me?"
"Not even a little."
"And you want to go on a date with me?"
"Dates. Multiple dates."
Tanjirou was glowing again, and Genya had to look away. The heat in his cheeks was creeping towards his neck. "Don't you have finals today?"
"I—shit, what time is it?"
Genya snorted. There was something oddly reassuring about hearing Tanjirou swear, like he was just some normal guy, instead of an impossible, incomprehensible, and utterly unattainable creature.
"I'll drive you back," Genya offered.
Tanjirou nodded as he grabbed himself a cup with one hand and checked the time on his phone with the other. Genya took the cup from him and replaced it with a travel mug, which he filled with coffee and—
"Milk?"
"A little," Tanjirou said.
—a little milk. He'd just screwed on the lid and turned to fetch Sanemi's keys from the coffee table when Tanjirou caught his wrist again and spun him back around. Tanjirou held out his phone and the thermos Genya had filled for him, and Genya took both unthinkingly, which left him with no hands free when Tanjirou cupped his face, tugged him down, and kissed him on the mouth.
"Sorry," Tanjirou said, smiling against Genya's lips and sounding thoroughly unrepentant. "I've wanted to do that for about six months."
Genya flushed. "We're not gonna make it to your final if you keep saying things like that."
"Then, afterwards?" Tanjirou sank down a little. He'd had to stretch up on his toes to reach Genya's mouth. "Afterwards, can I say more of the nice things I've been thinking about you?"
"If… if you want."
Tanjirou smiled and smoothed his thumbs over Genya's cheeks, as though he were something marvelous to behold. "I really, really do."
And somehow, Genya believed him.