Archive of Our Own ^beta

Fridays are Kei’s favorite.

Though Fridays usually mean big events for his client, they are rather easy on him. He spends them catching up on his emails and schedule for the upcoming week, dropping his client — and with him, his responsibility — off with the chauffeur, before turning in for the night. He rids himself of the accumulated frustration and anger he builds that week in his apartment building’s gym, gets himself settled with a mind-numbing documentary, and falls asleep happily to catch up on all the rest he missed out on during his busy schedule.

Kei likes this routine. He values it immensely in the complex and fast-paced world he infiltrated years ago, this bizarre alternate reality of the rich and famous, floating above the real world mortals like him are tied to, and it’s a lifeline he’s built for himself.

This particular Friday though, things do not go quite as planned.

The careful balance Kei has crafted for his life, the very thing that he swears keeps him in this state of existence, is knocked down by a force he never thought he would ever have to deal with. It changes everything.

It all begins with a stain.

“Fuck! Oh no, no, no, I am so sorry, fuck, fuck, fuck, what are we going to do, this is a disaster it’s everywhere, oh fu—”

The bright, clear laugh of an angel rings through the spacious backstage lounge, interrupting the flow of panicked blabbering. Kei’s heartbeat picks up at the sound of it, but he pushes his glasses up and bends down deeper into his phone to hide it.

There’s nothing in this world that Kei would like to admit less than the little bundle of feelings that have accumulated in his chest over the past few months. He would, quite frankly, rather die. It’s not a crush, he tells himself. He doesn’t do crushes, or dating, or love, whatever the fuck that is supposed to be.

It’s — admiration. Maybe. Respect. A very objective observation of the obvious.

Yamaguchi Tadashi is not someone Tsukishima Kei is allowed to fall for.

There are worlds between them. And contracts, and public relations, and image coaches, and finances, and investments, and even more contracts, so seemly and rational as he is, Kei tucks his head lower between his inconspicuous black turtleneck and equally black cap, hides behind his screen, and observes from afar.

Across the room, Tadashi is talking down his stylist with a wide, warm smile on his lips.

“Yachi, please, don’t worry your pretty head about it. The shoot’s over already, I promise you it doesn’t matter what I look like now.”

He does his best to reassure her, gently shooing her hands away when she tries to fiddle with the now-ruined outfit — a bold black and white vinyl set, some high fashion stuff he was just photographed in for yet another glossy page magazine — and won’t take up her offers of digging into her emergency wardrobe to dress him for his way home.

“B-but,” she starts stammering, fiddling with her hands anxiously, “what about the paparazzi?”

Tadashi grins confidently. “The car’s only out back. I’ll be so fast, they won’t catch a glimpse of me!”

Yachi is at a loss for words. A few months ago, Kei would have had a similar reaction over the nation’s most popular idol insisting his staff doesn’t do things for him, but he has long been used to the nature of his client.

It’s futile discussing it with him.

Yamaguchi Tadashi — singer, dancer, model, and occasional actor, heartthrob of a whole generation, and trendsetting fashionista all at once — is the single most stubborn person Kei has ever had the pleasure to work with. There’s no wiggle room in his determination. It shows in every single one of his bouncy, energetic steps, the confidence in his light, gentle voice that demands yet another round of rehearsals because it still isn’t perfect, and all the way down to the persistence he treats his staff with.

Some might say he’s a diva. Textbook, even.

Kei disagrees.

He is no stranger to divas. In all his years in the industry, he has gone through them like single-use coffee cups, full to the brim with arrogance, not an ounce of respect for anyone but themselves, and a hearty sprinkle of questionable morals. Needless to say, Kei is more than picky with the stars he manages.

They never last long with him. Whether it’s his abrasive nature they complain about or his tendency to, well, actually do his job, they leave him and his agency in the span of weeks, sometimes days.

Not that Kei is complaining. He has never been very fond of taking the trash out himself.

But Tadashi— well. Tadashi is different.

Since the moment Tadashi’s agent contacted him with a job request because yet another manager took advantage of the idol’s good nature, the moment he agreed to the first meeting, the moment their eyes first met across the meeting room and Tadashi smiled at him in that way that rivaled the sun in brightness, Kei was done for. Ruined.

He knows now that there is not a single person in this world that could ever compare to the heart and passion and utter devotion this man has for his work and the people around him, and with the same magic he enchants millions around the globe, he invades Kei’s heart a little more every day, taking him apart piece by piece, until he’s not sure how much longer he can lie to himself.

Tadashi doesn’t know that, of course.

He is very blissfully unaware of the electricity that tingles through his manager’s skin every time they brush arms in passing, or the shortness of breath that seems to overcome him whenever he grins at him with those eyes that put the stars to shame, or the blood that rushes through his body at immeasurable speed when he says the stupid little nickname he came up with and just won’t drop.

He is so blissfully unaware that now, after successfully soothing Yachi’s conscience, sending her off as soon as she hurriedly patted his stage outfit dry to the best of her abilities, he trots over to the couch Kei is occupying and dramatically sinks down onto it, not without halfway draping himself over his shoulder and threatening to send him into cardiac arrest from how fast his heart is beating.

“Tsukki—” he whines. “I’m tired. And wet. And tired.”

It’s funny how his demeanor changes when it’s just the two of them.

Kei won’t let himself read into it too much, but when Tadashi lets himself slide down the couch with an elongated “ughhhhhh,” and his head hits the cushion right next to where his thigh is resting, his brain is screaming at him to think.

He does not think.

He shuts it all off, like a coward, manages to keep his breath steady, and not let his inner turmoil show as he glances down at him from behind his phone.

“I can tell,” he states.

The idol twists again, peering up at him with eyes that threaten to crumble his resolve right back down again.

“Tsukki.” Tadashi pouts. “Someone just dumped cold coffee onto me and my impeccable new Saint-Laurent set after I was up all day. And now I’ll have to skip getting my Friday-fries because of the stupid, stupid paparazzi. A little sympathy here, please?”

“My condolences.”

A small hand playfully punches his thigh, and Kei has to hold his breath at the contact. “So mean, Tsukki,” Tadashi complains, but it lacks all malice because he immediately starts laughing to himself. Kei is still trying not to freak out when he is already heaving himself off the couch again, getting his belongings together.

“Can you ask Chikara to pull the car up back, please? I don’t want to risk bad pictures today.”

Kei nods and is about to pull up his phone when he remembers—

Oh no.

He swallows thickly.

“It’s his day off, Yamaguchi.”

Tadashi’s shoulders sag. He’s not sure if he imagines it, but along with his posture, the stubborn little lick of hair flops down too, and it breaks Kei’s heart, just a little.

“Whyyyy,” Tadashi whines, “on a Friday. Why on a Friday?” He chugs the last of his water in frustration before throwing the bottle into the nearby trashcan and continuing his rant. “I’ll have to go home without fries and have the stupid press see me with this stupid stain and of course Gino’s doesn’t do delivery and if I call a taxi they will recognize me and it will be even more bad press and I can’t even get fries to make up for it all and—”

Kei tunes out. His mind is elsewhere already, racing through schedules and the meticulously organized notes on his phone, and he wants to hit himself when he remembers just how bad this is.

It’s Friday. Kei likes Fridays so much because normally, Tadashi is cheerful on Fridays, even more than usual. The reason for his cheerfulness is nothing less than the incredibly delicious and immensely unhealthy loaded fries that the corner store of his childhood neighborhood does —which he only allows himself to indulge in once a week.

Usually, Tadashi hops in Ennoshita’s car, gets fries, goes home.

Usually, Kei sends him off and goes after his own beloved Friday routine.

He already has his gym bag packed and a documentary downloaded on his phone so he can jump right into it as soon as he gets home, but the nagging ache in his chest is telling him that today, there will be a deviation from the plan.

Kei starts digging in his bag. His hand goes to the side pocket first and retrieves one of the sugary snacks he keeps around to avoid Tadashi’s occasional hanger fits, and then he digs some more. He digs and digs and digs until his fingers brush familiar fabric, and he pulls and—

“Tsukki, are you even listening to me?”

Tadashi stands halfway across the room in front of the big mirror, arms crossed in front of his torso in an awkward attempt to cover the dark stain, and he has a murderous look in his eyes. Kei gets up, goods in his hands, and lets him rant off.

“Look, I’m sorry, I know I’m complaining but I was just looking forward to it so much and—”

Kei effectively shuts him up by throwing his sweater over Tadashi’s head.

“Put that on and let’s go. I’ll take you to Gino’s, so stop whining.”

Tadashi catches the fabric out of reflex but doesn’t move otherwise, his body suddenly going stiff.

“What?” he asks, dumbly.

Kei cocks his head at the sweatshirts. “That. Put it on to cover the stain. It’s nothing fancy but it should do. My car is only around the corner, so—”

“You—” Tadashi starts, eyes wide in disbelief. “You want to drive me?”

Now that’s just rude.

“Yes. Is that really so hard to believe?” Kei asks back, and immediately, the shock falls off of Tadashi and he practically scrambles to shake his head.

“No, no, sorry, Tsukki. Thank you, I would be very happy if you did.”

Kei nods with a quiet “mhpf,” and watches as Tadashi carefully pulls the sweater on. He threads his head through warily to not mess up his make up, but as soon as it passes his neck, the fabric falls down with a heavy plop, reaching all the way down to his mid-thighs and effectively covering — well. Everything.

It absolutely dwarfs Tadashi’s already petite body, hanging off his shoulders and graciously exposing his collarbones, only leaving a hand’s width of skin between the hem of the sweater and the top of his high boots.

It does things to him.

See, Kei knows Tadashi is small. He barely reaches his shoulders most days despite wearing heels with almost everything, and he only takes up half the space in chairs that his own broad frame does. But this, seeing him practically drown in his clothes, his clothes — his brain short circuits.

It’s screaming at him. The very few rational synapses that are still connected to his nervous system scold him, sharply, because this is his goddamn client and also an incredibly famous and successful and overall unattainable superstar at least a hundred leagues above him and he should keep his eyes and hands to his goddamn self, but the much larger, much more animalistic brain cells in his head are stumbling over each other to signal mine, mine, mine, mine—

“I didn’t think you’d own something like this,” Tadashi quietly admits as he eyes himself in the mirror. He twists around, inspecting his new outfit with a surprisingly happy expression, before reaching up with delicate fingers to run them over the embroidered crescent moon on the chest that contrasts against the soft lilac fabric.

And Kei—

Kei is staring like a fucking idiot. Because of course he doesn’t usually wear stuff like this, he’s very much known for his all-black attire, no matter the where, or the when, or the weather, and this is the stupid, stupid sweater that his stupid, stupid high school friends gifted him as a joke years ago that no one besides him and the nightshift manager at the gym has seen in years, and now Tadashi’s image of him as a professional is irreversibly ruined and this will be the death of him because he also looks so good that he is quite literally ready to pass away after seeing the Yamaguchi Tadashi in his goddamn sweater and—

Kei clears his throat. He wants to say something witty or sarcastic, anything to save himself a little bit of face, but he is utterly unable to do so. Instead, he looks away.

“It’s old. I only wear it after the gym,” he explains. Once he realizes how that sounds pretty nasty though, and hurriedly adds, “But it’s clean! I swear. I only washed it yesterday.”

Through the mirror, Tadashi bites back a laugh.

He feels like a fucking idiot. Embarrassed, Kei turns away to slip on his mask from his pocket and clear his throat. For a lack of knowing what to say, he holds out the candy still in his hand.

“So you don’t bite my head off on the way,” he justifies.

Tadashi huffs out a laugh and accepts it, immediately working to peel the stubborn wrapper off the top, but after watching him struggle for a moment, Kei plucks it out of his hand again and undoes the plastic with one rough tug of his hand.

He doesn’t go to the gym for nothing.

The idol’s eyes light up like stars when he receives his beloved strawberry lollipop again and happily leads the way to the door, humming to himself, finally content in a new outfit, a snack, and the prospect of food.

So when he opens the door for him and the blinding flashlight of dozens of cameras hit his eyes and he instinctively moves half a step in front of Tadashi, and a small hand buries itself in the sleeve of his sweater, all Kei can think about is that he is completely and utterly doomed.

---

Gino’s is in a run-down corner of the city. It’s away from glamorous floor-to-ceiling windows, marble floors, and touch-screen operated elevators, the little edge of a metropole that has still been spared by the unforgiving gentrification taking over the city.

Tadashi is giddy in the passenger seat. He looks out the window with the brightest smile on his face, fiddling with the chewed-up plastic stick of his lollipop, and as he navigates Kei through his familiar territory, it’s obvious how much this means to him.

Kei can’t help but feel the same excitement, though it’s dulled just a little by the anxiety over this newfound responsibility.

As he pulls up to the curb, and Kei feels countless eyes on him before they’ve even left the car, he voices his worries.

“Are you sure you’ll be fine without a bodyguard?” he starts. “What if—”

“Hush, hush, Tsukki, this is the safest place on earth,” Tadashi interrupts him. “Believe me. This is home. And besides, your face will keep all the creeps away!”

Before Kei can even process what the fuck that is supposed to mean, Tadashi is already out the car with an enthusiastic slam of the door. When he finally catches up with him, he scowls down at the idol.

“My face, huh?”

Tadashi smiles up at him innocently. “Yep! You’re more effective than any bodyguard I’ve ever had, Tsukki. I hear that all the time, too. ‘Who’s that bodyguard you’re with’ this and ‘Where did you hire him, he looks so scary’ that, so keep that face on and let’s get some food. I’m starving.”

A hand tugs enthusiastically on his sleeve once more, and Kei can do nothing but stumble after the bouncy pace Tadashi sets, practically invading the run-down corner store illuminated by cheap and irregularly blinking neon lights and try and cope with the fact that people apparently think he’s nothing but mean muscle.

“Tsukki, what do you want? My treat.”

Kei turns around uneasily, much more wary of the turning heads that Tadashi’s loud voice attracts than he is, and he straightens his shoulders a little subconsciously. “Whatever you’re having,” he mumbles quietly, and adds, “I’ll get a table,” before Tadashi is off towards the counter already, greeting the tired teenager behind the register who perks up immediately at the familiar face and the promise of an undoubtedly massive tip.

The fast-food spot is relatively empty considering the time and the day of the week, and when Kei settles in the far corner half-hidden by the register to do a once over of the customers and doesn’t see anything out of the ordinary, he relaxes just enough to sink back into the chair and pull down his mask. No one has whipped their phones out yet and no one seems too over excited by the sigh of Tadashi, which is a rare but welcome occurrence, so he lets himself breathe a little easier.

Maybe his face truly does work more effectively than he initially thought. May as well make use of it.

Still, even as Tadashi plops down with an almost overflowing tray of loaded fries, and he heaps more pickled jalapeños on his serving than it has potato sticks on it while Kei’s own portion is beautifully loaded with cheese and not a single slice of yucky spice, just the way he likes it, even as he listens to Tadashi complain about the upcoming week’s schedule and even as their dinner passes otherwise uneventful, Kei has a bad feeling.

It raises the hairs on the back of his neck and makes his skin crawl and although his eyes scan every single corner of the shop and every passing silhouette on the streets, his suspicions stay unconfirmed.

Shaking it off is impossible.

He feels responsible for Tadashi’s safety, more than ever, and that night he makes sure to always be a step ahead of him. He assures himself further by walking him into his apartment and staying with him through the elevator ride all the way to the penthouse on the 60th floor, and still — when he falls into bed that night, exhausted from his stress-relief workout and the mental strain of the day, he simply can’t get his mind to rest.

---

“Yamaguchi, this is insane.”

Kei can hear the muffled sounds of a heated discussion halfway through the hallway already, and for a very brief second he considers to turn on his heel, call in sick, and spend the rest of the day buried in his sheets to catch up on all the sleep he missed the previous night, but Tadashi’s frustrated curses are all it takes to pull him towards the office despite the ache in his head.

He grips the plastic coffee cup harder, making the ice inside crush together, and takes one last, deep swig of his overly sugary vanilla latte with four extra espresso shots before bracing himself and promptly pushing open the door.

“I really don’t see what the problem is here, Tooru,” Tadashi shoots back, the very moment the door clicks into its lock behind Kei. He looks tense, standing between their PR Manager’s desk and his designated seat on the couch with his arms crossed and eyebrows furrowed, but when he finally notices his presence, his eyes grow wide.

Kei, for the first time in a while, can’t read his expression.

“Tsukki,” he breathes, almost silently, and Kei’s heart does a backflip. It takes all the self-control he can muster up and more to not run over to his side and wrap him in his arms and make all his worries go away, but the deadly and ice-cold hazel of Oikawa locks onto him and keeps him pinned right where he is.

“You,” he hisses. “You have ruined everything!”

Anger and unrest start churning in Kei’s stomach and can feel himself beginning to get really fucking annoyed. Without even trying, he rights his posture and glints down at him through his glasses, postering up to his full height and making use of what Tadashi probably meant by his face.

“I would very much appreciate it if you would explain yourself before throwing accusations at me, Oikawa. I frankly do not have the fucking nerve today.”

From the corner of his eye, he can see Tadashi bite back a laugh, but as much as he wants to capture that beautiful sight, Kei keeps his eyes trained on Oikawa. He would rather die than give this menace of a man the satisfaction of having the upper hand, so he persists, even as the man pulls his arrogant nose upwards and huffs what can only be an insult out before twisting his pristine and brand new MacBook around to him, pointing at the screen accusingly.

“And I, Tsukishima, frankly do not have the fucking nerve,” he mimics quotation marks in the air, which almost, almost makes Kei laugh, “to deal with fucking dating rumors today!”

Kei freezes.

Dating rumors?

His thoughts run all over the place, kickstarted by the caffeine that’s slowly trickling through his system and the uneasy cloud of anxiety that spreads through his chest.

Is Tadashi dating someone?

And how do I—

“This is really the very last thing I need right now,” Oikawa rants on. “After everything I’ve done? Does your high and mighty manager ass even realize how long it took me to convince everyone that princess here is single?” He points a finger to Tadashi, who suddenly doesn’t look like he’s laughing anymore. “You go and ruin all my hard work, and with that atrocious sweater too. How dare you!”

Kei is genuinely lost at this point. He knows that the general marketing strategy for Tadashi is to stay single, at least in the public eye, so he can fit right into the eligible bachelor niche and stay “in-reach” for fans of all kinds, but how did this affect him of all people?

Oikawa snorts and shakes his head in disapproval, or anger, or even disgust — he wouldn’t put it past the man.

“Of course you don’t have a clue what I’m even talking about, do you?”

Kei doesn’t need to answer. Oikawa is already typing up a storm on his keyboard — backwards, notably — and with as much dignity as he can muster up, Kei steps closer to finally get a look at the screen.

“It’s always your kind of people that don’t even look at their phone in the morning,” Oikawa mutters under his breath, cursing Kei out in a storm. “I don’t use Twitter, they say and it ends in this disaster,” he continues. “Stupid cavemen, all of them, fucking all of them, and—”

“Tooru—” Tadashi interrupts, but one deadly glance of Oikawa shuts him up.

“Don’t Tooru me, princess. You’re in just as much trouble as four-eyes here. Look at this. Look at it! Look at it and tell me what the fuck to do because, frankly, I do not know.”

Kei does look at it.

On the screen, Twitter is opened up, and a very familiar scene looks back up at him. It’s him and Tadashi, leaving the building last night, caught by the cameras crowding the exit.

If he wasn’t currently being cursed out by a polished and stuck-up public relations peacock, he would have liked to take a moment to appreciate the picture because damn, is that a good shot and holy shit does Tadashi look good and he wants this framed on his wall, but unfortunately, polished and stuck-up public relations peacock is not done yet so his admiration time is cut short.

“Do you see this? Do you see this? Tsukishima. What were you thinking?”

“I do see it, thank you very much, and I was thinking that this would be better than having to smuggle Yamaguchi out with coffee all over his outfit because that would have arguably been much more of a PR nightmare than my purple sweater. It may be hideous but it looks good on Yamaguchi so I don’t see the—”

“You idiot!” Oikawa interrupts him. “You fucking thick-headed idiot! It’s not the sweater that’s the problem, it’s your sweater! They think you’re dating him, use your fucking brain!”

Oh.

Oh.

They think I’m dating Yamaguchi.

Good joke.

“Ha ha, that’s really funny, Oikawa,” Kei deadpans.

The PR manager does not look like he agrees. Instead, he seems ready to jump him. Anger is visibly boiling in his eyes, and his hands tense so harshly that the veins pop up against his skin, threatening to burst with the tension only a stressed businessman could accumulate.

“I can’t deal with this right now. You better talk this out while I get a public statement ready,” he hisses through his impeccably white teeth and promptly rushes out of the room, not without slamming the door behind him with much more force than necessary, anger fit or not.

It leaves Kei alone with Tadashi.

Tadashi who has been oddly quiet. Kei turns back to him but he is avoiding his eye contact.

“Yamaguchi?” he starts, not sure what to say, but the star only looks at the tips of his own shoes harder.

Surely, this is not as big of a deal as Oikawa is making it out to be. It’s a sweater. Even if people are thinking that they are dating because of this, a simple ‘we are not dating’ should probably do the trick.

So why is it that Tadashi won’t meet his eye?

“Yamaguchi, I don’t know what’s going on but I’m sure we can—”

Before Kei can finish his sentence, Tadashi speaks up again.

“We shouldn’t be seen together anymore.”

The silence is deafening in the large meeting room. Kei is sure he can hear his own heartbeat, hear his blood rush through his ears, hear the erratic pulse in his veins, but he’s not sure he understands what Tadashi just said.

“What?” he asks, unintelligently.

Finally, Tadashi meets his eyes.

There’s something sad and heavy weighing in his onyx, but more than that, they’re determined.

They’re the eyes of a star.

They’re the eyes of a heartbreaker.

“We shouldn’t be seen together anymore.”

---

Kei suffers through the next weeks.

His carefully crafted routine, the very thing that kept him afloat for so long, crumbles away right under his fingers, and he is left to confront himself with the fact that Tadashi is a much bigger, much more central part of it than he would have ever liked to admit before. Whether it’s lonely lunches or the very simple act of having to open one car door less than usual, it’s painfully obvious that there’s something — someone — missing.

Tadashi will barely meet his eyes. They still work together like they always do, a well-oiled machine in the giant mechanism of this parallel world, but there is a tension between them so thick and uncomfortable that leaves Kei with an unscratchable itch underneath his skin.

He finds himself working out tirelessly at his apartment complex’s gym many, many late nights, seeking the only way he can get rid of the bitter aftertaste of yet another day’s worth of unrequited looks and hours in solitude, only to lay awake in bed to look at the same image over and over again.

It’s plastered all over the internet.

He understood quickly why Oikawa was so incredibly bothered by the snapshot. The Yamaguchi Tadashi fan community is a whole new level of determined, and like a pack of bloodhounds, they managed to sniff out every single trace Kei’s existence has ever left on the internet in a matter of hours. There’s articles and blog posts en masse, collections of paparazzi shots and Tadashi’s Instagram stories, anything their insatiable curiosity could get their hands on. Kei is visible in them to varying degrees, and the meticulosity of it is equal parts impressive and terrifying.

It’s a shoulder here, the back of his head there, sometimes it’s nothing more but a blurry hand but somehow, someway, they always manage to spot him.

There’s theories, timelines, enough gossip to feed tabloids for weeks.

The official statement of Tadashi’s label did absolutely nothing to ease the fans away, only spurring on their greedy desire for more information, and the manhunt for The Mysterious Sweater Man is still running hot all over the internet.

Kei hates it with his entire being.

Not because he cares about his image. He couldn’t give less of a shit what they think of him really, but the way they drove Tadashi away from him is unforgivable.

Would it really be that bad if they were dating?

Tadashi seems to think so, anyway.

The way he avoids his eyes, the way he makes sure they never as much as brush hands in passing, carefully keeping an arms-length between them at all times, the way he doesn’t complain about his inconveniences in endless rants anymore; it pains Kei.

Doubts plague him like a pest. His brain screams at him that he’s not enough and too much and the only thing that’s left for him to do is give up and let Tadashi go.

If only it were that easy.

“You have to get your shit together, Tsukishima.”

Ennoshita knowingly studies him through the rearview mirror after another long day, and dark-rimmed, tired eyes look back through glasses.

He knows he looks like shit. He feels like it, too.

Still, he’s sour.

“Don’t tell me what to do.”

Ennoshita raises his hands from the steering wheel in a surrendering motion and shakes his head disapprovingly before slapping them back down on the expensive hardleather. “Fine. I won’t tell you what to do. But a word of advice — you better put that mask back on when you go outside because your face right now is anything but photogenic.”

Kei flips him off but slips his mask out of his pocket anyway.

“Thank you so much,” he sarcastically snaps back, before cracking the door open. “And don’t forget to call me when he gets here.”

He barely gives Ennoshita a chance to throw his very disrespectful “Yes, sir,” back before he gets out, pulls his mask on, and slams the door behind him.

Cocky motherfucker.

Don’t tell me what I already know.

He knows he’s been on the edge ever since the sweater incident. Rightfully so, in his humble opinion. It just doesn’t sit right with him how much more obsessed Tadashi’s fans seem to have gotten by the mere promise of not-so-juicy relationship gossip, and it’s wildly visible in the crowds that await him outside at every single event he attends. They’re much, much denser than Kei is used to, and it makes his skin crawl with anxiety every time he has to let Tadashi go to face them alone.

It’s no different today. Kei watches the crowd outside the entrance through the window with growing unease, barely contained by the few, obviously overwhelmed security guards of the building that try their best to push them back far enough to keep a walkable path in the middle. He would have preferred to just stay in the car and wait for Tadashi to come out, but the producer of the talk show his idol was attending today insisted they have their meeting now.

She rattles off dates and numbers and schedules, and Kei tunes out entirely, letting his worksona take over to handle this while his consciousness retreats into the back of his head.

Something isn’t right today.

He can feel it that somehow, someway, there is something going on and it irks him in the worst way possible. His eyes can’t stop from scanning the area, flickering back and forth between every person entering and leaving the lounge, and if the producer gives him disapproving looks, he couldn’t care less.

It’s when Tadashi finally comes into the room that Kei’s mind jumpstarts back into motion, and he not-so-kindly chokes off the conversation to leave the producer behind and cross the space with long strides.

Tadashi is laughing and chattering with Yachi who is already working to pull him out of his expensive show coat and get him into something more comfortable, but as soon as he catches sight of Kei from the corner of his eyes, he freezes up.

The shift in Tadashi’s mood is imminent as his body goes stiff and his smile dies on his lips.

Kei dies right with it.

“Thanks for today, Yachi. I’ll call you about tomorrow, okay?” Tadashi tells her way too hastily, and stalks to the far end of the room, grabbing his stuff. Kei approaches him, even if he knows it won’t end well.

“Tadashi, can I—“

“I’ll go on ahead, Tsukki.”

The idol doesn’t even look at him. He just stuffs his phone into his bag, slings it over his shoulder, and makes a beeline for the exit, not even risking a glance into Kei’s general direction to give himself his usual once-over in the mirror before he’s out to brace the crowds.

Kei grinds his teeth together in frustration.

He just wants to talk. He just wants to make sure Tadashi is okay, wants to make sure they’re okay, but it’s quite obvious that the star has had enough of him.

It’s painful to watch him go.

He cranes his neck in an attempt to at least keep an eye on him, but his small form is swallowed by the mass of fans almost immediately.

Waiting is torture.

Kei counts to keep his brain from going haywire. He makes it to three-hundred-twenty-nine before he dials Ennoshita.

His driver picks up immediately, voice monotone and bored as always. “What?”

“Is he there yet?”

Ennoshita sighs into the phone and Kei can feel unease crawl up his back.

“Not yet. There’s a lot of people though, and you know how he is. Way too nice for his own good.”

Kei grumbles in agreement.

“Give him a few more minutes, I’m sure he’ll be fine. They don’t look too rowdy today.”

It doesn’t ease his mind in the slightest, but Kei hangs up with a curt goodbye.

This time, he barely makes it to a hundred when the masses outside finally start clearing up.

He pulls his mask back on and the hood of his sweatshirt deep into his face in case the lingering people are still paying attention before rushing out and targeting the car parked at the curb.

Finally.

Fucking finally.

This time he wouldn’t let Tadashi get away. He’d talk to him, whatever it would take, and he would clear this mess up and fix it, somehow, someway — anything to make that awful tension between them go away.

He rips open the backdoor, and—

“Oh. Back already?”

Ennoshita glances at him through the mirror with a raised brow, but Kei’s eyes tunnel on the black leather of the carseats.

They’re empty.

They look at each other for a blink of an eye before realization hits.

Kei’s heart drops.

---

“I don’t fucking care. You’re staying right where you are and you’re not moving a fucking inch until I found him, Ennoshita,” Kei hisses into the phone as he runs along the street. His hands grip it so tight he fears it might bend and crack the glass underneath it, but it’s the only thing keeping him from going insane.

Tadashi is missing.

He’s fucking missing and it’s his fault and Kei doesn’t know what the fuck to do because the police are fucking useless and Tadashi’s in danger now and he can’t wait for them and Ennoshita is rambling his ear off and—

Another empty side street.

Kei curses and keeps running.

“Tsukishima, you gotta stay calm. The police are gonna be here in a second and he couldn’t have gotten far. Hell, maybe he’s just back in the building and not looking at his phone, or—”

“I don’t care, I’m looking for him now before it’s too late.”

There’s a pause from the other side. A long breath. The tone in Ennoshita’s voice changes.

“Don’t say it like that.”

Kei scoffs. “Don’t get sentimental now, we don’t have the fucking time.”

He knows how Ennoshita feels, he does. But right now he doesn’t have the luxury of letting himself feel, so instead, he swallows his own fear down and keeps going. “Why is the phone tracking taking so long?”

“I’m on it but it takes some time to set it up and all that. Give me another minute.”

Kei groans. He keeps running through the streets, frantically looking everywhere for as much as a hint of a familiar form, and the muscles in his thighs burn under the strain of his sudden sprint just as much as his lungs are on fire, breathing techniques be damned.

His mind is everywhere, so overly distracted with focus that he almost runs past it.

A small alley. Nothing more than a tiny walkway between high buildings. Trash cans of the restaurant to the left and empty cardboard boxes of the office to the right litter it, almost covering the entrance entirely, but something catches Kei’s eye and he comes to a full stop.

He can’t even see properly, but his instincts are screaming at him that one of the silhouettes at the end of it is Tadashi.

Kei runs.

For the first time in his life, he thanks this godforsaken city for the noise it makes.

It covers the sounds of his steps and breathing, and allows him to get close enough to them without pulling their attention on him. Each further step he takes only confirms his suspicion. It’s Tadashi, unmistakably. Though he’s covered by the propped-up hood of his sweater, his shoes give him away, and if it weren’t for the possessive arm of a stranger around his shoulder, so would his posture.

Tadashi looks so much smaller, so much more vulnerable like this, and Kei’s stomach turns and twists in the worst way, every conscious cell in his body screaming at him to do something.

Without missing a beat, Kei tackles the person to the ground at full speed.

The man shouts out in surprise and then in pain when he roughly hits the asphalt, buried under Kei’s body weight, and he immediately starts to wiggle out from his position but there’s no way in hell Kei would let him. Kei barely catches a first glimpse of his face before he slams his fist down with his entire strength already, crunching into his nose so hard that blood bursts from it and knocking his head against the street, making the body go slack under his grip.

He’s knocked out cold and stays that way, in a pathetic pile of black, shabby clothing, piss-yellow hair, and filth.

The alley is quiet for a moment and Kei’s mind is finally allowed to catch up with everything that has just happened. His heartbeat is loud in his chest, he can practically hear his blood rushing through his ears, and the ache in his blood-covered knuckles and strained thighs finally catches up to him. Everything hurts and everything is too much, but it feels good at the same time, most importantly because—

“T-tsukki?”

The voice is balm to his soul.

Tadashi. His Tadashi.

When he finally lays eyes on him, properly, that is, the world seems to stop around them.

Thank god he’s fine, is his first thought.

Oh fuck he’s not, is his very close second.

Because while Tadashi is unharmed, the look in his eyes, the pale tone of his skin, and the constant tremble going through his body speak for themselves. Kei scrambles to his feet, unconscious body on the ground forgotten, but before he can do anything at all, Tadashi all but crashes into him.

He’s shaking like a leaf and yet small hands are practically clawing at his front, burying themselves in the fabric of his sweatshirt and Kei is at a loss of what to do. The temptation to just pull Tadashi into his arms is big, almost overwhelmingly so, but he holds back and keeps his hands to himself, not wanting to make matters worse than they already are.

“Are you okay? You were gone so fast, and—”

“Tsukki I’m sorry! I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I sorry, this is all my fault, I’m sorry, I’m sorry—” Tadashi sobs, gripping him even tighter and Kei’s heart aches at the fear in his voice as he repeats the phrase over and over again.

“Shh, Tadashi, you’re okay, you’re safe,” he mumbles, “and you don’t have to be sorry about anything at all.”

A shake of a head. “My fault. It’s my fault. I’m sorry.”

Slowly, Kei reaches for the hand on his chest, hovering over it.

“Can I touch you, Tadashi?” he asks, carefully, and Tadashi sniffles out a “yes,” accompanied by a hurried nod. A weight falls off his shoulders when he gently takes cramped hands in his, holding them close.

They’re so much smaller than his, he notices. Softer. Delicate. And yet they hold so much strength in them.

Tadashi’s sobs calm down gradually, ebbing out into occasional hiccupy breaths, and he rubs his face against Kei’s sweater, hiding there as if it shielded him from the world.

They stay like that for a long while; even when Ennoshita comes running around the corner breathlessly, even when a whole horde of police officers follows a minute or two later, even when they handcuff the still unconscious man on the ground and drag him away, asking Tadashi to come to the station with them and Kei helps him along and they spend the better part of the next two hours huddled awkwardly in plastic chairs under grossly cold LED lights.

Tadashi’s hand doesn’t leave Kei’s once.

He grips it tight when he talks about the man that had lured him into the thick of the crowd with the request of taking a picture only to hold a knife to the star’s side, forcing him to walk away with him and not pull any attention towards them. It goes softer as the night proceeds and exhaustion washes over both of them, but even as they tiredly trot back to the car, their fingers still hang together, connecting them warmly.

When they finally slide into the backseat, Ennoshita looks ready to cry.

He bites it back visibly, but one warm, tired smile from Tadashi is enough to bring the tears up in his eyes. Ennoshita quickly turns away, busying himself with clicking the controls to roll up the partition already.

Weak, Kei thinks, but he’s secretly grateful for the privacy.

He hasn’t truly gotten a moment alone with Tadashi in weeks, and he would be damned if he let it go to waste. Tadashi seems to think the same, because when he turns to look at him, eyes are already fixated on him.

“Tsukki—”

“Tadashi—”

They both start at the same time, interrupting each other, and then Tadashi breaks into a laugh so bright and clear that it washes all of Kei’s worries and the events of that day away.

“I missed you,” the star admits once he’s calmed down enough to speak again, and he slides closer on the backseat. “I missed you a lot, Tsukki. I’m sorry about being so cold, I—” he hesitates, fiddling with his fingers. “I thought it was for the best. I know how obsessed some of my fans are, and I thought if they suspected you were dating me they would try to hurt you—” he trails off. “Well. Now we’re here. I’m sorry.”

If Kei tells himself that his heart isn’t doing backflips that moment, he’s lying to himself.

“I missed you, too,” he says instead, trying his best to keep his voice from cracking awkwardly. “And I’m sorry as well. I should have been more careful.”

He sighs heavily. “I promise I’ll never let something like this happen again. I’ll get you a real bodyguard, if you want one or not, and—”

“But I don’t need a bodyguard, Tsukki.”

Kei looks down at Tadashi with confusion in his eyes. The idol only smiles knowingly, and once again takes his hands in his own, holding them between his smaller ones.

“See?” he asks, as a gentle thumb traces the back of Kei’s hand, following the ups and downs of his knuckles. Leftover blood still clings to them, everything he couldn’t get off in one hasty wash because he didn’t want to leave Tadashi’s side earlier, and it’s a deep brown now from the oxidation.

Tadashi continues as his finger does its round.

“When you’re with me, I feel safe, Tsukki. Safer than any bodyguard ever managed to. Not because people are scared of you, but because I know that in here,” he pokes his chest, right above where his heart is beating erratically, “you’re the gentlest, most sincere person I know.”

Kei holds his breath as Tadashi inches even closer.

“I want to be with you all the time, Tsukki. And I don’t care what my PR team says. I only care about what you say.”

He’s so close now, Kei can feel the warmth radiating from Tadashi’s body and it fills him with buzzing electricity.

“I—” he starts, not able to form a single coherent thought in his mind let alone speak a full sentence. “Yes.”

It’s dumb. He feels so, so dumb that he seriously considers burning every single academic certificate to his name soon as he gets home because he sure as hell doesn’t deserve them, but it makes Tadashi giggle and it washes all doubts away again.

“Yes?”

He’s practically leaning into his lap now. They’re close, so, so, so close, if he would bow his head down just an inch, they would—

The car comes to an abrupt stop and Ennoshita’s voice rings through the intercom.

“Your stop, Yamaguchi. Goodnight, and take care, ‘kay?”

They’re still incredibly close and the tension is still thick in the air, but the moment is lost and Kei curses himself and the world and Ennoshita and the city streets for being too empty this time of the day and—

“Your sweater is still at my place, Tsukki,” Tadashi mumbles quietly and rips Kei out of his thoughts. His eyes gleam mischievously, a clear ulterior motive behind them.

“Want to come up and get it? I just washed it yesterday,” he winks, and Kei’s heart lurches.

His right hand grips Tadashi’s tighter while his left is already reaching for the door handle.

“It would be a pleasure.”

When he falls asleep that night, his entire world in his arms, Kei comes to terms with the fact that he may not be able to keep Tadashi captured in a picture and hidden from the world like he wanted to so badly just mere hours ago. He’s oddly okay with it now.

It’s nothing compared to the real thing after all.