cup of coffee, rated pg-13. touga/saionji (garbage challenge). post-series. 620 words.

(so no of course we can't be friends)

The coffee is half-gone before the conversation turns.

"So Nanami gave you my number, did she?" Saionji asks suddenly, without preamble as is his way.

"Yes, she did," Touga replies evenly while displaying no surprise at all at the sudden change in topic. "Why do you say it like that, Saionji?"

Some of his old sullen nature is audibly creeping back into his voice and he hates it; only Touga still holds the ability to make him feel this way, like he should cut off his nose to spite his face just because he can. "Like what?"

Touga's voice is still as smooth as a vestal virgin's skin. "Like an accusation?"

"I never said she could give you my number."

"I suppose that she never thought that she needed permission. We are old friends, aren't we?"

"Old being the operative word, yes."

He relaxes back into his chair, long body sliding effortlessly under the fine fabric of his business suit. The dark material contrasts so finely with his pale skin, blazing hair.  "Why did you meet me at all then, Saionji? You obviously didn't want to."

"We were friends, Touga. It's just that we can't be friends anymore."

"What makes you say that?"

Pushing the cooling coffee aside – coffee he never wanted in the first place, and not only because Touga had insisted on paying for it – he shakes his head sharply. "We're different people now. We've grown up…whatever we had as children, we grew out of. I think it's better for us to let it lie."

"So you're telling me you don't want to see me again over a cup of coffee? Very melodramatic, Saionji."

He stands up, unable to cope with the smooth-talking businessman seated across from him in this suave little coffee-shop. "I'm sorry, Touga," and he's not sure for what. Nanami had warned him that Touga hadn't changed much at all; why had he been so determined not to believe her once he'd heard the voice on the phone again? And if that was so true, why had she given him his number after all? "I don't know why I came."

"I know why you came," Touga says quietly as he stands himself, and Saionji knows he probably does. It will, after all, be the same reason why Nanami provided him with that damned number even though she knew better. "You'll always be my one and only friend, Saionji."

"He who believes he has friends is a fool," he murmurs, quietly as he meets his eyes.

Touga moves too quickly, his hands on his arms and in his hair. The kiss is brutal and yet tender because it moves so deeply under his skin. It is like a thousand sharp thorns from a dozen red roses are being shoved into his flesh wherever Touga is touching him, and by god…by god, even through the pain and the shock, he loves it.

"With friends like this," Touga breathes into ear, oblivious to all others staring at the pair, "who needs anybody else?"

Saionji pulls back, as far as Touga's possessive grip will allow him. "The coffee is getting cold, Touga," is the only thing he can think to say, though his attention is fully fixated on the man before him.

"Let it," he says quietly, and perhaps there really is something of the Touga he remembered as a child still in those too-blue eyes…the child he was before the grown-up world of money and politics and sex and too much damned coffee. Yes, perhaps the Touga he once knew is what he feels as the older Touga leans in kisses him again, whispers against his lips: "I have all I really came for right here, after all."