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“You’re much more fun than your brother.”
A twisted smile lurked across an ugly face.
“A lot prettier, too.”
Of all the times for Hiyori to get stage fright and freeze.
This had never happened to him before.
The stage fright. And the older man.
Except this wasn’t a stage. It was an alleyway behind the restaurant.
There was no audience here. No spotlight. Only shadows winning out against the light of the neon signs from the next street over.
Hiyori inched away from the man. But there would be no exiting stage left.
Finally, his voice found him.
“Surely a loyal employee of the Tomoe Foundation shouldn’t comment on such things,” he said with a smile that could sway the world.
Maybe that smile had gotten him into this mess.
He wanted to be loved more than anything.
But not like this.
“Funny you say that. With the trouble that the Foundation’s been facing, it would seem your father is looking at downsizing his staff.” The man reached out. His hand snatched Hiyori’s wrist with a grip that was too tight. He was trembling as he said, “So I look at this as job security. Or maybe a retirement fund is a better term.”
Hiyori narrowed his eyes.
“Someone this shortsighted and delusional should’ve been fired long ago,” he said.
He was ready for retaliation. But not laughter.
And very suddenly, it became apparent that something wasn’t right.
He blinked. But his vision kept blurring.
His head, in a rush, felt very heavy. His knees nearly buckled.
The alley, in that moment, became more of a fishbowl.
“What did you do?” Hiyori asked, but his voice felt disconnected from the rest of him. Distant, almost.
“They told me you were the stupid one of the two Tomoe brothers.” The man smiled again.
Despite the incredible weight of all his limbs, Hiyori tried to dislodge the man’s grip on his wrist.
He did not succeed.
The man’s other hand reached for Hiyori’s throat, and there was nothing that could be done about it.
“This will be so much easier for you if you don’t try to fight back,” the man whispered.
And he squeezed.
The air slipped from Hiyori’s lungs.
Time stopped.
Neon lights bled into darkness.
But in the shadows, there was movement.
When a snake strikes, it’s nearly too fast to even see.
Hiyori saw it all in slow motion.
Silently, an arm shot out, and the man was wrenched backwards with a horrible choking sound.
The man stumbled, and he turned, off-balance.
Ibara was there. Staring him down.
Like prey.
Hiyori blinked.
Ibara?
The man lunged at Ibara, but Ibara was quick enough to dodge the punch. With the man being so much bigger, though, he had the reach, and his second punch caught Ibara in the mouth.
But maybe Ibara had wanted that.
Their movements were so fast, frantic and messy, but Hiyori watched everything with wide eyes as his world tipped sideways.
Ibara had grabbed the man’s arm with that second punch, pulling him closer. Getting him in range. Even when the man hit Ibara again and knocked his glasses off, and there was frustrated grunting and the scuffling of dress shoes against concrete, Ibara wrenched the man’s arm behind his body and leveraged his weight in such a way that when he kicked at the back of the man’s knee, the man collapsed to the ground.
The man rolled, whirling back, and Hiyori saw the flash of silver— the blade of a knife.
He gasped, wanting to yell a warning, but his voice was nowhere to be found.
Ibara sidestepped the arc of the blade as it came slashing at him, and he kicked the man’s hand. Very hard, it seemed.
There was a pained shout, and the knife clattered away. And then Ibara was on top of the man, who yelled and cursed and spat.
The man was so much bigger. But Ibara was so much faster.
And. Something.
What was the word…
Hiyori stared at the way he moved.
It was all so intentional. A flawless performance.
Ah.
Well-practiced.
That was it.
Hiyori watched as Ibara managed to get the man onto his stomach, twisting the man’s arm in a way that it shouldn’t bend, and he got his own arm around the man’s neck.
There was a lot of struggling. The neon lights danced around the shadows and lit the scene.
Ibara’s face was serious. Concentrated. Focused on a singular outcome.
Despite the intense blowback as the man kicked and elbowed and tried to wrench himself free, Ibara was latched on tight.
Fangs sunk in deep.
Constricting with unshakable force.
The man stopped struggling. And he went limp.
With a loud exhale, Ibara sat back, and he wiped at his mouth with his sleeve.
“Your Highness.”
Hiyori kept staring at the man, laying there face down and motionless on the ground.
He’d worked for Hiyori’s father for years. He’d been specially invited to the dinner for the foundation that night.
“Tomoe-san.”
The other members of Eden had been there to bolster the Tomoe Foundation’s image of success. It’d been a favor, really.
Hiyori had introduced them to everyone, and they’d all been so nice and pleasant. Even Jun-kun had smiled and bowed.
There was no way Hiyori would’ve suspected anything about this man. This disgusting, old, ugly pathetic man who was crumbled and defeated.
Hiyori wondered what plans the man had in store for him.
A retirement fund… meant money… meant kidnapping. Ransoms. Maybe even trafficking. That sort of thing happened to people like him.
“Hiyori.”
Hiyori blinked.
Ibara was looking at him.
“Are you okay?”
“… You’re bleeding.”
“Are you okay?”
“I… Yes, I’m perfectly fine, thanks to—“
“I’m very sorry for asking anything of you in this situation, Your Highness, but I need you to do me a favor.”
“What is it?”
“At the end of the alleyway here, you’ll find my phone propped up on the ground next to the wall. It’s currently recording. I suspected there might be trouble, so I took it upon myself to provide evidence, should it be needed. If you could retrieve my phone so that I can call the police and start working on handling this situation, I would deeply appreciate it.”
Hiyori was about to say something, but the thought died before it could get past his lips.
He watched blood drip from Ibara’s nose.
Wordlessly, he turned, and then he wavered.
“Your Highness?”
“Um.” Hiyori turned back to Ibara. The neon lights shifted in the dark. “I think I might’ve been drugged.”
“Can you walk? Please don’t push yourself right now.”
“I can go get your phone, at least,” Hiyori told him, huffing.
He still used the wall to guide him in keeping his sense of gravity, though.
He found Ibara’s phone easily enough. He stopped the recording and carried it back to its owner.
Hiyori had trained professional bodyguards to protect him.
But they hadn’t been there.
It was Ibara who had saved him.
It was the same, years ago, wasn’t it. Ibara had just appeared out of nowhere in his car when Hiyori had been on the brink of letting the darkness swallow him whole. When Hiyori and Nagisa-kun had been facing the death of finé, Ibara had come along and offered them a new life. In a paradise he was creating called Eden.
These thoughts and memories swirled around him while he walked.
He nearly stumbled.
He reached Ibara.
“Thank you,” Ibara said as Hiyori handed his phone over. He pulled up his contacts, hunched over and squinting at the screen.
He was holding his phone inches from his face. It illuminated everything. His lip was split open. And his nose was still bleeding.
He was ignoring it.
Hiyori took off his jacket and bunched it up into a ball, and he crouched down in front of Ibara, and he pressed his jacket to Ibara’s face.
“Your Highness—“
“Your nose is still bleeding.”
Ibara’s voice was muffled beneath the fabric. “I know, but time is very much of the essence here! Please—“
“Let me take care of you!” Hiyori snapped, surprising himself. Ibara was frozen in front of him. Getting blood all over Hiyori’s jacket and ruining it. Hiyori took a slow breath, feeling his chest expand.
“You saved me.”
“Your Highness… Of course I did.”
Hiyori sat back on his heels.
Ibara held the jacket to his face on his own.
“He had a knife… and you got hurt…”
“I’m not hurt, and everything will be fine. But we need to contact people. We’re going to have to talk to the police, our lawyers, and I need to make sure the narrative of the inevitable stories that pour into the media regarding this awful incident are accurate and don’t damage your reputation or career.”
“My career?”
“Nobody can know you’re high right now. Even if it’s against your will.” Ibara pulled the jacket from his face and spat blood into the street. Hiyori made a face, but Ibara ignored him and continued, “You’ll need to contact your family doctor to come do an examination. We can’t risk a public hospital visit.”
“What about you?”
Ibara looked up at him. “Me?”
“You— you’re bleeding, you were just in a fight, you got hit, I saw! Your nose could be broken!”
“My nose isn’t broken.”
“How would you know!”
“Because I’ve broken my nose before. Now, please, I have to make some calls— and I’d rather you stand back. Your assailant should be unconscious until authorities arrive, but I don’t want to take any risks.”
Ibara still had a knee pressed into the man’s back.
Hiyori tried to stand up, failed, and ended up sitting again on the dirty ground with his back pressed against a brick wall.
“I need to get my own people back here so you and I can avoid a sudden and unwanted photo shoot when the police arrive. And I need to make sure to contact an ambulance as well—“
“You said you aren’t hurt.”
“Not for me. Unfortunately, I dislocated your assailant’s shoulder. He should be fine, otherwise, though.”
“Why is that unfortunate?”
Ibara looked over at Hiyori again, jacket still pressed to his face, and he said, “This man tried to abduct you. I would’ve preferred a harsher punishment than a mere shoulder dislocation. Alas, I simply couldn’t risk causing more serious harm. The law in this country is very strict about violence. Anything beyond absolute necessity as self defense would get me arrested, and that’d be the end of the idol Saegusa Ibara.” He shrugged and added, “At least we can be confident that this fucking piece of shit will go to prison. The fact that he attempted to use a weapon will guarantee that.”
“Wow, Ibara,” Hiyori laughed a little.
“… I apologize. That was a bit too candid, wasn’t it?”
“I don’t know,” Hiyori smiled, his head swimming. “I think I’m charmed by you instead.”
“Forgive me for saying this, Your Highness, but I think that may be the drugs talking.”
“No, no! This is surely what clarity feels like!” Hiyori laughed again.
Nothing felt real anymore.
Ibara ignored him. Seemed to have found the numbers he was squinting at his phone for. He spoke very quickly to whoever was on the line, but his voice was almost quiet. Serious. The tone he used when ordering people around a sensitive issue.
When he was finished with his calls to his people, and the police, and the medics, and whoever else, he finally put his attention back on Hiyori.
“We can go together to give our reports to the police. There won’t be any avoiding that, I’m afraid. And with your current condition…”
Hiyori grinned at him. “Please stay by my side for the rest of the night, Producer-san.”
Ibara pulled Hiyori’s jacket away from his face and frowned. “It may be wise for you to say as little as possible when we’re speaking to the police.”
“You’re the one with blood smeared all over your face,” Hiyori responded. And a thought struck him. Laughter nearly bubbled up his throat. He pushed himself up from where he was leaning against the wall, and he half-crawled over to Ibara. And then he took his phone, and he turned on the light, and he grabbed his jacket to start trying to properly wipe the blood away.
Ibara was frozen once again under Hiyori’s touch.
Wasn’t that funny. Ibara could subdue a man much larger than him at the height of a terrifying moment, but he couldn’t handle something as simple as this.
Maybe it wasn’t so simple.
He was still bleeding.
Hiyori pressed his thumb against the cut on Ibara’s lip and sighed.
“Look at you. Always watching over us. Maybe you’re not the snake. Perhaps more of a guardian angel?” Hiyori smiled.
Ibara blinked at him. His eyes were wide.
“Oh…” Hiyori said, “Your glasses are gone. That’s why you couldn’t read your phone. I’ll find them for you.”
“Your Highness—“
"At least let me do that much for my savior. Okay?"
Hiyori could hear the distant wail of sirens.
"You can barely walk right now. Please, just… come sit next to me until my people arrive."
"Fine, fine," Hiyori sighed, and he made his way back over to Ibara and returned his phone.
They sat together in the dark. The neon lights stretched and blinked across Hiyori's vision.
"Ibara."
"Hm?"
"How did you know?"
"Know what?"
"That I'd need you."
Silence, for a beat. The distant sound of people talking. Laughing a few streets over. The sirens grew closer.
"I just knew," Ibara finally answered.
Hiyori smiled. Because that made sense. Really, it was the only answer.
Ibara glanced over at Hiyori, keeping the jacket pressed against his face. And Hiyori grinned back at him. Wrapped both his arms around Ibara's waist and leaned into him. Let his head rest against Ibara's bony shoulder.
"You'll really stay with me all night? Until all this is over?"
This time, Ibara's answer was immediate.
"Of course I will."
Hiyori smiled against his warm neck. He was so tense against Hiyori's lips.
"Will you stay with us forever?"
He could feel Ibara's Adam's apple bobbing in his throat.
"... If I can help it, Your Highness," Ibara said, shifting under Hiyori's weight, "Of course I will."