Ketchup did not belong in low mein.
But Suzuki could do whatever he wanted. If he wanted Fukuda to fuck him up the ass until he came, recovered, and then came again then it was happening. If Suzuki wanted them to spend all their time in bed, including meal times, alternating between fucking and cuddling then that was what was going to happen. If Suzuki wanted to fill their entire box of low mein with ketchup than that was what was going to happen, too. There was nothing that Fukuda could do when Suzuki decided that something was going to happen.
He had completely lost control of the situation.
"You know you could have just said that you didn't want to share." Said Fukuda as Suzuki dumped what had to have been half a bottle of ketchup into his box of low mein. Chinese food tonight. Actual food, not just whatever snacks the kids had left behind. Suzuki was finally actually hungry. Maybe he was getting ready to take a break from….whatever the hell the past few days had been. He was wearing clothes now, an actual t-shirt and pajama pants, so maybe he was finally over whatever the hell all of that had been.
Or he might have just been taking a dinner break.
"No, I'll share with you. Here." Said Suzuki as he put the ketchup down. He held the box out towards Tadashi. He just wrinkled his nose and put his hand up. What was with him? One minute he said that he was hungry and now he wasn't. He hadn't even touched his various sweet and sour things. Chicken, shrimp, pork, something called 'impossible meat' which was somehow made from soy. Tadashi had always liked sweet and sour and Suzuki, well he had no idea if he liked this modern take on meat, had done his best to make him happy.
He had a vested interest in Tadashi's happiness now.
"Are you kidding? You dumped half a bottle of ketchup in it." Said Fukuda with a wave of his hand. Typical Suzuki. If he liked something then everyone else had to like it too. It wasn't like other people had feelings or wants or needs. It wasn't like he had to think of anybody other than himself. Ever. No, he was Suzuki Touichirou, the most powerful esper ever to live. What did he need to concern himself with the thoughts and feelings of anyone else for?
"Don't exaggerate." Said Suzuki. Tadashi had been so strange lately. He should have been happy. They'd been having some truly amazing sex these past few days. He wished that he'd figured out that he was bisexual earlier. He and Tadashi had been together for three decades. They could have been having sex, really amazing sex, every single day multiple times a day since the day they'd met. Better late than never. This was…he had no idea what this was, what he would have called it, but he knew that he liked it. Tadashi liked it too, even if he was being strangely argumentative right now.
"I'm not exaggerating." Said Fukuda. Suzuki just couldn't conceive of the fact that other people had their own inner lives that didn't involve him in the slightest, could he? If he was bisexual then everyone was bisexual. If he wanted to have sex then everyone else wanted to have sex with him too. If he wanted Chinese then everyone else wanted Chinese. If he wanted to cover every single bit of food they had in ketchup then of course everything needed a generous coating of ketchup. If Suzuki had asked him then he would have said that he wanted pizza, not Chinese, and without ketchup thank you very much. A bottle of the really nice cognac Shigeko ordered for his office, too, while they were at it. Something to et rid of the memory of all of this. The feel of Suzuki around him. The way his hands scratched at his shoulders. The way he begged, honestly begged, when he got close. The cuddling….so much cuddling. He had hated it, before, being replaced. Suzuki just throwing away all the time, energy, and life Fukuda had put into Claw. But now…if Hatori wanted to switch places with him then, sure, whatever the little moron wanted. Seriously. This was…he hesitated to even think the words 'too much' because every time he so much as thought something was too much Suzuki took it as a personal challenge.
"Yes you are. See this? If there is more than half left in this ketchup bottle then obviously you're exaggerating." Said Suzuki. He had no idea why Tadashi was so argumentative right now. He couldn't ever remember him being his argumentative….though they had never been in this sort of relationship before. A sexual one. That was what he was going to call it for now. They were just having sex. They weren't…what even was the word? Boyfriends? Or maybe lovers was better….yes. They were lovers now, but not in the way that he and Shiori were lovers. They were in an actual relationship on the track for marriage and children and growing old together…and he was looking forward to it! He was, that was what the whole point of this had been about. He had to get his sexual feelings for Tadashi out of his system and then he could get on with his relationship with Shiori. There. Simple. It wasn't as though he and Tadashi could actually have been in any kind of a relationship. No, he didn't have the same sorts of feelings for Tadashi as he did for Shiori.
But Tadashi was another man while Shiori was a woman. They were different.
Could the differences in their sexes account for his differing feelings for the two of them. Shiori was often argumentative with him but he didn't mind. He liked it, actually, that she wasn't afraid to state her wants and needs…and to make him rethink actions when he needed to. That was what women did, really, women complemented men and men complemented women…but then how did men stand to be with other men? Tadashi being argumentative was annoying because he was a man, Suzuki decided, and he would not be challenged by another man.
He would get penetrated by another man, that was fine, but he would not be challenged by one.
"Fine, alright, I was exaggerating but not by much." Said Fukuda with a sigh. If Suzuki decided that he was exaggerating then he was exaggerating. There was no point in arguing with him. He was the President after all, and the more powerful esper. What he said went. He was the boss and Fukuda…Fukuda was just the guy who fucked him and cuddled him and shared post sex Chinese food with him. He was just…here. Beside him. He wanted to be anywhere else. Hell, he even wished he had gone to the North Pole with the kids. Anything would have been better than this. It would be over soon…over-ish. He couldn't see this happening when the others were around. Suzuki was loud, and his aura was bright. Fukuda got the feeling that this was not the sort of thing he wanted to share with his children and close associates. They wouldn't always all be together, of course. Shigeko treated her life like a permanent vacation. Suzuki moved them when he needed to, when work called for it, but Shigeko just ordered a plane whenever she saw somewhere that peaked her interest. She had to come back to Tokyo for some party or whatever but then it would be off to the races for her and the others again…and he would be left alone with Suzuki….again…
"I don't see why you won't just have some. There's nothing wrong with ketchup. I can't think of a single thing that can't be enhanced with a little ketchup." Said Suzuki. Tadashi was being…distant. Yes, he got the feeling of distance right now. They were right beside each other on his bed but it felt as though there was a great distance between them…he didn't know why. It was the same feeling that he got when he was away from Shiori…but he loved Shiori. He didn't love Tadashi…did he? But then if he loved Tadashi then how was he going to reach his goals? Love, marriage, more children, a wife waiting for him when he got home at the end of the day. Dinner. Companionship. Sex…well sex could happen with anyone….but he did like women in addition to men. Or maybe it was men in addition to women. Or maybe they complemented each other? The experience was just so different with another man that he was having trouble comparing the two….this was very complex…more complex than dinner ever needed to be.
"Or a lot." Said Fukuda with a wave of his hand.
"Yes, or a lot." Said Suzuki. There. He was coming around…right?
"Ketchup doesn't go with low mein. To the rest of us ketchup doesn't make it taste better, it just makes it taste like ketchup. Like ketchup and low mein together." Said Fukuda with a shudder.
"Alright then, if you don't want any then don't eat it." Said Suzuki. Well then there went that. He had thought that Fukuda had been coming around but now…well now he didn't know. He was still being argumentative for no reason. Why? Women had always been very complex in the way they expressed themselves and their endless emotional responses. He had always thought, when he had permitted himself to think, that being with another man would have been easier. Another man would have known how he thought, he had always figured, and would have been able to understand him. Now he knew that people, no matter what their sex was, were complex and unknowable beings.
"I still have to taste it." Said Fukuda
"You have your own food." Said Suzuki
"I'm still the guy who's got to kiss you later." Said Fukuda. He was. He did a lot of things around here. The books, for one, as well as asset acquisition, being Suzuki at functions he didn't want to go to, took care of Sho…and now he was the guy who kissed Suzuki, too, and other things. Other things that he knew he was going to have to do when Suzuki was done eating. Sometimes he hated his powers. He'd always had a good recovery time but he hadn't known that he had that effect on other people, too. Masami had been able to finish multiple times but he had always just figured it was because she was finally with a man who knew how to touch her. Turns out it was just his powers acting passively. So he knew, now, that he could go all night with anyone. Not just the love of his life. He would be going all night, again, with Suzuki. Hard and fast just like he liked it….
Fukuda needed a shower.
"Do you want to have sex again?" asked Suzuki. He was past the point of blushing. It had been like the first time, the very first time, before. The first time he'd ever dipped his way into the world of sex. He'd been young, nervous, and inexperienced back then. Now he was older but he had been just as nervous and inexperienced. Men's bodies were different from women's. He knew how to pleasure a woman. It wasn't difficult. The clitoris was the trick. As long as you touched that in some way she was happy. Men were different. There was just so much more to touch and see and feel and taste. It was less like hitting one button and more like hitting several at once. Sort of like trying to play a two player arcade cabinet on your own without telekinesis. He knew how his own body worked, of course, but Fukuda was a different person entirely. So really all he could do was be passive when they had sex.
He wasn't used to being passive.
But that was what it was to receive, wasn't it? Women were passive-ish when they received. Masami had gotten passive towards the end. Her hands, which used to roam his body, stuck to his shoulders. She had stopped kissing him, touching him, and drawing him in. Pang hadn't been passive. She had been the one to kiss him first and then once he'd had her on his desk she'd practically thrown herself back onto him. Shiori was anything but passive, and not just when she penetrated him. She used her telekinesis to push herself onto him, at least one hand on the wall behind her pushed her entire body onto him. She threw her legs over his shoulder and practically did all the work. She was amazing. He was…passive. Tadashi was amazing on his own. He knew, from the beginning, what he was doing. Suzuki hadn't ever been this passive in his life.
Passivity didn't suit him.
"Do you?" asked Fukuda. No, of course he didn't, but he didn't have the option of saying no. He had never had the option of saying no, even when they had been kids. Their first kiss, his and Suzuki's together, had come after Suzuki just sat there and declared that they were going to try kissing. Fukuda should have walked away right there but he had been thirteen and stupid. He had finally found someone else like him and he had thought that, yes it had been weird, but he could bear with Suzuki until he got normal. Until they became the normal sort of friends…but they were never going to be the normal sort of friends. The normal sort of friends didn't kiss or do any of the things that they did together now. Normal…what a word. He'd never been normal and he never would be. This was his life, the life that he had made for himself. For as long as he lived he would have to live with the choices he'd made. Befriending Suzuki, giving his life to Claw, helping Masami escape…all of it. There was no way out of the prison he'd made for himself.
As long as there was a Claw then he knew he'd be trapped in it…here…with Suzuki.
"After dinner." Said Suzuki. He wanted to have sex again, he was certain of it, and hadn't that been the point? To return to certainty? Well he was. He wanted to have sex again so that was what was going to happen. He wanted to wake up beside Fukuda tomorrow so that was what was going to happen. He wanted to have sex again tomorrow so that would be happening too…but there was more to life than sex. It was the end of the year, not much work to be done. But once the holidays were over then his time would be taken up by other matters. Time was not in his favor. He was going to be forty six next year. He would have thought that he would have conquered the world by now but he hadn't. Too many setbacks. Too many distractions. He had always been so certain. He had always seen the path ahead of him, the steps, like one of the children's connect the dots pictures back when they still played with those.
One thing led to another and then another.
It was as though he was drawing two pictures at once when he would have been drawing one. It was just more efficient that way. One picture to take over the world with and the other to live out his personal life with. Work and home. President Suzuki and Suzuki Touichirou. They needed to be one in the same. He was certain of it. To conquer world he needed money, manpower, and resources. To keep the world he would need an heir, a worthy heir. He had one, Sho, but he was more of a nightmare than anything. He needed a better son, and as many daughters as he could have since they were clearly the superior sex of child to have, and to get a better son then he needed to get a better wife. One that wouldn't leave him. One that was just…better than his first wife.
Marrying Masami had been a mistake.
Marrying a normal woman had been a mistake. There had been so much of his life that he'd had to keep from her. That in turn led her to keeping parts of herself from him, the parts that wanted to leave. What he needed was someone he could be completely and totally transparent with. Someone who could know about every facet of his work. Someone who could even be an asset to him, and not just in a childbearing capacity. He needed a wife…and he needed a partner. Shiori could be that partner…but then to be with Shiori he would have to let go of Fukuda. To stop this…to stop what they had just as it had started.
He was going to have to make a very pragmatic choice.
"Can you at least brush your teeth first?" asked Fukuda. Masami had said, before, that making love to Suzuki had been like making live to a dildo with a man attached. He never touched her unless he told her to, he never kissed her, and he never said anything. Well obviously something had changed in the past six years. Suzuki was all kisses and cuddles, declarations of love and pleasure, and begging. So much begging. Maybe that was just for him, maybe Suzuki wasn't even bisexual, maybe he was fully gay and he just wasn't ready to admit that to himself yet…..oh God…..
"I'm amenable to that." Said Suzuki
"Good. And let me take a shower afterwards, too. I haven't had a shower in days." Said Fukuda
"You just took one yesterday…but I suppose that I am amenable to that…though I do ask that you don't take very long. I want us to have as much time together as we can." Said Suzuki
"Shigeko and the others are coming back soon?" asked Fukuda. He crossed his fingers and prayed to whoever was listening that Shigeko came back and stayed put for a good, long time.
"Yes, but that's not it. I want us to have as much time together before I settle on what I want." Said Suzuki
"Do I even want to know what you're talking about?" asked Fukuda with a groan. Suzuki was thinking about something…this wasn't going to be good. He half expected Suzuki to get down on one knee and ask for his hand in marriage. Fuck gay marriage being illegal in Japan. He was Suzuki Touichirou, the future ruler of the world. If he didn't like a law he could just have it changed.
"I want children." Said Suzuki
"Then I'd hate to break it to you but this is not the way to go about it." Said Fukuda
"I know human reproduction works. We were in the same health class both times we were forced to take it. I am well aware of the fact that I need a woman to have a child and I am well aware of the fact that you are not a woman. You made that abundantly clear." Said Suzuki
"Hey, you asked for it." Said Fukuda
"I did, yes, and I still plan on asking for it…for as long as I can. I want children but I also want to be with you. You cannot give me children and, honestly, I have no idea how to be in a relationship with another man. Even if by some miracle of science we did manage to reproduce I have no idea how to be your husband. Also I think that those miracles of science are a long way off and I don't have that kind of time. I'm nearly fifty." Said Suzuki. He didn't have a lot of time left. Thirty years, maybe forty. Less if someone actually found a way to assassinate him. He had no idea what his elderly years would be like. Before he managed to find a way to have a child with Fukuda he could have lost control of his mental faculties completely. Then what? Also he wanted to be young enough to spend time with his daughters and to teach his son, or sons, but hopefully he got it right on the first try, how to lead the world. How to run Claw. How to be the man that he was meant to be. Not the sort of man that Sho was becoming. Sho…now there had been a series of mistakes. Ones which he would not be making with Tetsuro…or whatever it was that Shiori wanted to call the boy…
So he was decided, then….maybe.
"So, what then? This is going to be over soon and we're going to get back to normal?" asked Fukuda as if such a thing was even possible. He'd been inside of Suzuki more times than he could count. He didn't see any way in hell that they would ever be able to come back from that. Not unless they gave themselves amnesia but since he healed so quickly he knew that wasn't going to be an option for him.
"I…don't know yet. I know what my feelings for Shiori are but I have no idea how I feel about you. You're incredibly sexually skilled and you understand me on a level that nobody ever has before….but I want a wife. I have no idea how to be a husband to another man but I know how to be a husband to a woman." Said Suzuki
"Yeah. Because you've done such a good job of it." Said Fukuda sarcastically. He knew that the sarcasm would be lost on Suzuki. He didn't care. He had tried to confess what had happened before but Suzuki didn't believe him. Even if he came out and said it, that Suzuki had no idea how to be a husband in any sense of the word, he knew that it would just fall on deaf ears. Suzuki trusted him too much to believe something like that.
"I have been a good husband in the past…or at least I thought that I had. Masami was a normal woman and she had needs that I couldn't foresee. Shiori is an esper and therefore I can understand her better…but I do apologize for speaking about another person who I have romantic and sexual feelings towards in front of you. That was unkind of me and I take full responsibility for any jealousy that you may be feeling right now." Said Suzuki. Right. Tadashi had emotions too…he was fine. Maybe a little jealous, though, but most likely perfectly fine. He was the one getting the most benefit from this…whatever they were. He was probably having more sex now than he had at any point in his life. He'd never married and had never had any long term girlfriends…or boyfriends since obviously he and Tadashi were both bisexual. Otherwise why would Tadashi have agreed to this? And had so many orgasms…his aura was so pleasant when he reached his climax. Tadashi was clearly the winner here. He got sex whenever he wanted it and he didn't even have to pay for it. Tadashi and prostitutes…Suzuki wondered how much of his money he'd wasted over the years getting from women what Suzuki would have given him for free. If only Tadashi had propositioned him at some point then they could have been doing this for years…it would have been wonderful and it would have saved them both a lot of time and money. Suzuki knew that dates and girlfriends and wives were expensive and he assumed that prostitutes came at a comparable price. He didn't know, father had always told him that real men never paid for it. He was sort of paying for it now, actually, since he did pay Tadashi for all he did for Claw.
Not that he was going to compare Tadashi to a prostitute. He may not have been the most socially graceful man in Japan but even he knew that wouldn't end well for either of them.
"I'm not jealous. If you want to go to Shiori then go to her. Please. Ask her to marry you, move to the countryside, have a dozen kids and pretend they're donuts. Do whatever you need to do." Said Fukuda
"I…have no idea what I need to do. I like this, what I have with you, but I am certain that I want more children….I'll have to speak to Shiori about the matter. I'll have to ask her if she considers this to be an infidelity or not. She told me that she wanted me to have sex with you, to get you out of my system, and that she doesn't consider any feelings I might have towards another man be them sexual or romantic to be a threat…so I'll have so see how she feels after we marry. We will be having sex again soon so don't worry about that…but eat your dinner. I want you inside of me and I don't want to have to wait around all night." Said Suzuki
"…..fine." said Fukuda. There really wasn't anything else that he could do. Any hope that he'd had was just dashed. Shiori would probably be alright with him and Suzuki carrying on like this. They were both men so it wasn't like Suzuki was cheating on her. Maybe if he cheated on Suzuki….no, if he by some miracle found a girlfriend Suzuki probably wouldn't have considered it to be cheating…and he did not want to find another man. No, if he had learned one thing about himself from this ordeal it was that he was without a doubt completely heterosexual. Suzuki probably wouldn't even have believed him if he said that he was sleeping with someone else. He hadn't believed him about the Masami thing. No, Suzuki trusted him too much. There was no way out of this, not unless he managed to defect from Claw….not that Suzuki would ever have let him go. As long as there was a Claw then Fukuda was trapped, trapped in the life that he had made for himself….
But hey, at least there was Chinese food.