a/n: i'm not actually completely sure where i was going with this! it happened, though.

"I'm getting married to that model," he mentions in passing, over the annual family dinner. His voice is steady, but he keeps his eyes down. He keeps them shut, even; it's easier to show an easygoing smile when he's not so concerned with the table he's sitting at.

He doesn't need his eyes to process what happens after, anyway.

"Seijuurou," his father says, his silverware clattering against the plate, and the rustling of the tablecloth mixed with the jerky movements of his mother's clothes when her hands cover her mouth. The atmosphere unsettles him in an instant, so he looks at his father; he does not exude confidence anymore.

It's not to say he's not confident —

"No." His father's expression sours. The rejection is quick, but his brow furrows slowly. It's probably disbelief, and disappointment, and a little bit of old age.

"Father," he says. He comes off more commanding than he really intends, but it's hard to gauge how he really sounds at the dinner table. He comes off just as bored as he is, or — tired. "Am I not a perfect successor to you, already."

It does about as little to dispel his father's sour expression as it ever has.

"No," his father repeats.

"No?"

"You will not do this."

"Ah," is his perfect, passive response. "I won't send you a wedding invitation. To avoid offending you."

An open palm hits the table, and it shakes, down to the foundation of the house. If he was younger, or less polite, he might roll his eyes; it's some ten years too late for it to faze him. "Seijuurou," his father repeats, and he is a brilliant man in many respects, but vocabulary is not one of them.

(Or, maybe it is, when he's not dealing with his handful of a son, very probably questioning why he'd ever put all his prospects on just the one.)

"I will produce a grandson for you," he murmurs, looking to the side, in the direction of the captivating windows. "In the meantime, I will marry who I like."

He catches his father's eye with his addendum; how could he forget? "By blood, of course."

His mother's small, concerned voice urges them to enjoy the dinner, before the tension escalates. It's a bit of a moot point; the pressure's already given the younger Akashi a headache, and for all his boredness, the practiced steadiness, there's still something unnerving in arguing with the older.

The rest of the night goes by without hitch, largely because neither utters a word to the other.

"Your father's really terrible," Ryouta half-mumbles, half-whines into the back of his neck.

Seijuurou twists the fine strands of his bangs between his fingers, an idle, unintended motion. "Is he?"

"He's intimidating," Ryouta goes on, tucking his chin in the crook between the shorter boy's neck and shoulder. "And he's strict — he's a lot like you, but about all the wrong things."

"Like?"

"Like tradition. It's the 21st century."

"Mn."

"I can take a train to Akihabara and buy used panties from a vending machine, but I'm never going to get approval to marry a guy."

The comparison seems out of place for a number of reasons, but he doesn't argue.

"Tradition's important, though."

"Seicchi," Ryouta whines, pulling his boyfriend closer by the chest. "You know what I mean."

"I know," he says, smiling a little. "You're very distraught over this, Ryouta."

"It's not like I want to cause trouble for you. Or your dad."

Seijuurou knows that, too; he places a hand on Ryouta's arm, a cheap comfort. He gets a loosening grip, a little kiss on his shoulder, a small apology.

"Ryouta," he chides, and gets a quiet whimper in reply.

"Your family is going to eat me alive," Ryouta says, brows knit together, eyes focused intently on the boy currently knotting his tie.

"My family is not populated with savages," Seijuurou assures him, ironing down the final loop of the double windsor. Models don't usually require extensive knowledge of formalwear.

"Are you sure? It's always the rich families, you know — the fathers, especially—"

"This isn't a soap opera, Ryouta." Seijuurou tugs at his tie, looking up at him with a grave, unhappy expression that cracks, briefly, into a smile. "If anything, they'll smell fear."

"Seicchi, don't joke like that!"

"I'm not joking." He chuckles, and gives the taller a pointed shove that nearly knocks him off his feet in his nervousness. "The more anxious you are, the less respectable you are."

Ryouta finds a seat on the bed and crinkles the fabric of his slacks between his fingers. "Your father is going to hate me."

"If it's any consolation," Seijuurou says, turning towards the mirror to fix his hair, "he probably already hates you."

The bed creaks under the sudden force of flopping weight.

"That's not consoling at all."

"You're going to ruin the suit."

"I'll make it up to you," he promises, tucking a loose strand of blonde hair into place.

He makes it up to him in the comfort of the apartment, undoing the same knot he worked on earlier and twisting the silk around his fingers. There's nothing passionate about it, admittedly; a dinner with the parents is about as far removed from intimacy as anything could be. Still, he tugs Ryouta here, and there, and trails kisses along his jaw, and murmurs he's sorry, and does the undressing for him, because the blonde's still frazzled and uneasy.

He's significantly less uneasy five minutes from then, with Seijuurou in his lap, his arms lazing around Ryouta's broad(er) shoulders, thin fingers twirling in his hair.

"I didn't embarrass you, did I," he mumbles between kisses.

"No," the boy in his lap mumbles back. "Shut up," he says, pressing his lips against the other's, shutting his eyes lazily. Ryouta feels vaguely uncomfortable without the anchoring effect of bright red and yellow giving him an easy place to focus attention on, and he gulps. The fingers at the back of his neck dip down to trace along the start of his spine to offer a distraction.

There are a lot of conflicting sensations at play, but he shuts up, or the boy in his lap makes him shut up. He loses Ryouta's attention when he closes his eyes; he steals it back when he rocks gently against him, bites at the bottom of his lip.

He makes up for a long night of tense silence and relentless interrogation when he moves a hand to Ryouta's cock, pumping up and down and letting his breath hitch in anticipation, spoiled by whines and little red marks he's left on the slender neck in front of him. That's all he really needs to do to make up for anything, because it takes the other's mind off of dinner, and moves it to the now, and it's not long before that's all that matters is now, now, now, as if they're greedy children.

Well, greedy children don't play as nicely as they do, and there's a little bit of give and take, because Seijuurou is the one who's slicked up, and filled out, and by extension mewling into Ryouta's neck; but he's on top of him, and so there's a level of control, there, that they both know he has trouble going without; but the hands on his hips are steadying, and controlling, too, in their placement, and their movement, coaxing, like it's not good enough, what's he's giving already.

(He never really gives a hundred percent if there's no precedent, anyway.)

Afterward, Seijuurou will lick the sweat off his lips and rest his chin on one of those broad(er) shoulders, an ear pressed to the side of that slender neck, listening to the steady inhale, exhale pattern as it slows.

Like this, it's fine; no one would ask who he sleeps with on weekends. On weeknights. In the mornings before work.

And, like this, it's not quite empty, settled firmly against the object of his affections, half-drunk with the 'post-coital' and half-asleep with the 'embrace.'

In the morning, though—an empty bed. Or, coming home from work—an empty house.

It would be devastating, he knows, for the boy he's resting against, with. And—it would be lonely. He bites his lip; there's no logical reason any child-bearing woman couldn't be a companion to him. She could be as energetic and flighty as Ryouta, constantly on her feet. Someone like Satsuki, with her feet firmly grounded, and her goals firmly placed.

But there's some aching when he thinks like that, some pounding in his ears.

He twists the hairs at the nape of Kise's neck around his fingers, and he bites his shoulder softly instead.

It would be like losing.