Notes: I had actually completely forgotten that I never uploaded this... would you believe this has just been sitting at 95% completion in my Google Drive for three years?!

well here it is now lmao HAPPY BIRTHDAY NAEGI

After Dying
Part 2

It had been a long while since Naegi had had his nights free, at leisure to stay out late at Kagayaki like so many of his peers. It wasn't like he was a huge fan of drinking or anything, but it was nice to spend time with people and just relax at the end of the day.

And besides, there was someone he was hoping to get the chance to speak with.

The first and second time he didn't get that opportunity, since the other party was with his other predictable company, but on the third night he finally spotted him by himself, and sat down next to Hajime Hinata at the bar.

"Um, hi," he said awkwardly. "Can I sit here?"

Hinata grinned. "Of course." He took a sip of his beer, studying Naegi curiously. "I noticed you've been around here recently... something happen at the convenience store?"

"Ahaha, yeah," Naegi said, grimacing. "Um, I'll have to find a different job now. Just the usual."

Hinata hummed in understanding. "What did you do this time to get fired?"

Naegi fell silent for a long moment. "Um, actually," he said finally, "I, uh. I quit."

Hinata froze, placed his glass on the counter, and slowly turned to stare at him in wide-eyed shock. "You quit?"

"Uh..." Gosh, Naegi had underestimated how quickly the conversation would turn awkward. "Yeah. I quit."

"Have you ever quit a job before?"

"No."

"Why in the world did you quit this one?!"

Naegi cringed, fingers curling around the glass of cassis orange. "Um, just... stuff."

"Naegi."

Fidgeting, Naegi glanced around the dining room full of patrons, acutely aware of all the people who could overhear their conversation. "Um... can we move to a booth in the back? Before I explain?"

Hinata cocked an eyebrow, but his expression turned to mild understanding as he noticed Naegi's discomfort. "Sure. It looks like my usual booth is free, so let's head over there."

After flagging down Hanamura to let him know of the ticket change, they took their drinks to the far end of the dining room and settled in at the booth.

"So," Hinata started in a hushed tone, leaning forward conspiratorially. "What's the big secret?"

"Um, it's not exactly a secret..." Naegi paused, then shook his head. "No, I mean, I guess it kind of is. I mean, I don't want you to tell anyone else about this... if you don't mind?"

"Of course," Hinata assured him, frowning. "But there's no secret for me to keep if you don't tell me what it is."

Naegi hesitated, eyes darting about nervously even though he knew that they were secluded enough to say what he was thinking. And there was no judgement to fear from Hinata, either—even if there was, he had spent several days psyching him up for this talk, so why would he be chickening out at that point? Taking a deep breath, he asked in a single breath, "How did you figure out how you feel for Kuzuryu-kun?"

"Huh?" Hinata leaned back, surprise evident on his face, and cheeks turning just slightly pink. "How? How... Uh..." It was Hinata's turn to glance about nervously. "Um, the short answer is that it just sort of... happened? I kind of... got drunk and just suddenly wanted to kiss him, and—I didn't kiss him then, but I almost did, and then when I thought about it I realized that—hold on, what are you asking for?"

Naegi pondered silently for a moment. Did he want to kiss Togami? He hadn't had any real impulse of the sort up to that point, but... was the key getting drunk? He stared down at the virgin drink in front of him. He wasn't much of a fan of alcohol, but... no, that was silly. But kissing Togami... maybe that wouldn't be so—

"Naegi?"

"Huh? Oh, sorry!" Naegi looked back up at his friend, flushing in embarrassment. "I was just... thinking. Um. I asked because I... I guess I'm just trying to figure out my own feelings, and whether I'm identifying them correctly, so..."

Hinata's brows furrowed together in confusion. "Do you have a... crush on someone?" He laughed slightly, in a gentle tone. "I mean, I don't mean mind helping you if I can, but I think there are better people to ask than me..."

"About romance in general, maybe, but, um..." Naegi scraped his nails across his glass, letting the condensation settle under his fingernails. Gaze averted, he said quietly in a rush, "I just don't know anyone else in this kind of relationship."

"In this kind of...?" Hinata was thoughtful for a moment, until it seemed to dawn on him, and he looked back at Naegi, shock on his face. "Wait, do you mean you've fallen for a man?"

Naegi shrunk back in the booth. "Is that so surprising?"

"I mean, I guess it shouldn't be, necessarily, but I kind of thought you might have a thing for my sempai..."

"Kirigiri-san?" Naegi shook his head. "No, she's just a friend! I mean, if she had brought it up to me before I would have probably agreed to see where it went, but..." He flushed. "I... I was never really so enthralled with her like I am with this person? I think? I'm still not really sure..."

"Hmm..." Hinata rested his elbow on the table, cradling his face in his hand as he tapped his cheek thoughtfully. "So who's the guy? Someone you were working with at the convenience store?"

"Uhh..." Naegi let his gaze wander all the way to the far corner of the booth over Hinata's shoulder. This was probably the part he was least looking forward to talking about. "Just... some guy... his name is Byakuya Togami..."

Hinata promptly lost his balance and nearly knocked his forehead against the table when his elbow slipped underneath his weight. "Togami?!"

Naegi quickly shushed his raised tone, panicking about anyone overhearing. "Not so loud!"

"Yeah, sorry," Hinata whispered, "but seriously? Byakuya Togami?"

Naegi fidgeted with his glass. "I just... well, yeah."

"From the Togami Corporation."

"That's the one."

"The Togami Corporation that owns most of the chains around here."

"Yup."

Hinata sighed, running a hand down his face. "Well first of all, you'll need to stop avoiding him simply out of necessity if you want to get another job in this area, even if it were a good solution to your problem. And it's not."

"Right." Naegi slumped inward. "I know that, I just..."

"Believe me, I get it." Hinata grinned at him. "Do you know how many times I literally ran away from my problems with Kuzuryu? It never helped."

Naegi looked at him curiously. "Really? Were you that uncomfortable with being attracted to a man?"

"No, not that, I just..." He trailed off and made a strange face. "Hey, uh, speaking of which, is this the first time you've realized you could be attracted to a man?"

"Uh..." Naegi sighed. "Yeah. I guess. I don't think I ever really thought about it, but I've only ever found girls cute before, stuff like that. So I don't know..."

Hinata nodded sagely. "Right. But it doesn't seem like you're that bothered by discovering this about yourself?"

Naegi paused. "Well, I mean... I guess for me, it's not so much the body that matters, but the mind." He chuckled darkly, reminded of the conversation he had had with Togami that had triggered all these troubles.

Hinata hummed thoughtfully. "I see. So what are you planning to do now?" He ran his finger around the edge of his glass idly. "You can't avoid him completely, so long as you want to work in the Kibougaoka area. The way I see it, your options are to either somehow resolve these feelings yourself or try to confess."

"Confess?!" Naegi could feel the warmth in his cheeks spreading to the tips of his ears and the base of his neck. "I couldn't—! Like I said, I still don't even know—"

"Can you really say you still don't know if that's how you feel at this point in the conversation?" Hinata pointed out.

Naegi took a deep, steadying breath. Right, if he really thought about it... would he really be worrying about it so much, and discussing it out so much, if he didn't actually have some significant feelings for Togami?

He had feelings for Togami.

"Oh my god," Naegi whispered, pulling his arms around him as a chill ran down his spine. "I really do like him."

"You all right there?" Hinata asked.

Honestly, Naegi wasn't sure if he was. He thought romance was supposed to be some sort of warm, happy feeling, but coming to terms with this revelation...

It was terrifying. It was the scariest thing Naegi had ever had to concede with.

He had feelings for Byakuya Togami, and what chance did he ever have of those feelings being reciprocated? Togami was rich, high-class, a local celebrity. Naegi was... Naegi. He wasn't anything special. He couldn't even hold down a job for more than a few months at a time.

"What do I do?" he breathed out. "I'm only going to get hurt."

Hinata looked at him, gentle sympathy reflected in his oddly-patterned eyes. "I can't tell you that," he said. "That's for you to decide for yourself. But I think any route you take has the possibility of you getting hurt. If you want to avoid that, you should choose the one with the smallest possibility."

Naegi nodded his head. "Yeah. Thanks, Hinata-kun."

They sat there for a long time in silence, until Hinata announced that he had to catch the train home, and Naegi followed shortly afterward, walking the familiar route to his apartment.

Talking with Hinata... had made him feel better. That was for certain.

But in a way, it had also made him feel so much worse.

For the time being, Naegi continued to avoid Togami as much as possible. He still hadn't decided how he would approach his feelings for the heir, and he suspected that encountering him before making that determination would cause him to spontaneously combust right where he stood.

So, he slept normal hours, and spent the mornings when he would normally be sleeping applying to any business that he knew for sure wasn't owned by the Togami Corporation.

And Hinata had been right: there weren't many of them that were seeking new employment and also weren't past employers.

In the afternoons, he would head to work at the udon store shop as usual, and busy himself with making deliveries, focusing steadfastly on his work and not bothering with thoughts of a golden-haired entrepreneur with striking blue eyes.

Until he returned from a delivery one day and said entrepreneur was standing right inside the musky restaurant, looking as out of place as a sticker deliberately placed on the wrong page of a children's sticker book.

"Togami-san?!" Naegi cried out instantly, then felt a bit foolish for doing so, because the possibility still remained that he was just a mirage of some sort, a figment of Naegi's imagination. Right? That was possible.

"Naegi." Oh, but he answered, and his voice was reverberating off the old wooden rafters in exactly the same way a real person's voice would. Maybe that possibility was disappearing. "What do you think you're doing?"

Naegi glanced nervously between the Togami mirage and the udon shop owner, and it certainly seemed as if the owner was just as perplexed by the Togami Corporation heir as Naegi was. So he wasn't an illusion. Damn it. "Um, I'm working," Naegi answered simply, trying his best to shuffle around the taller man and back to the shop counter. "So, um, I have some deliveries to do so I'm just going to—"

"I did not receive a satisfactory resignation letter."

Naegi blinked owlishly at Togami. "Sorry?"

"You left my store abruptly, with little prior notice. In such a situation, it is customary to provide a resignation letter formally severing employment." He stuck out a hand. "So I am here to get my letter."

Naegi stared blankly. "Um, but I... I gave a vocal resignation, so..."

"I demand a proper resignation letter."

Naegi felt like screaming. "Togami-san, really, I need to keep making deliveries so—"

In three short strides, Togami had marched right up to Naegi, putting himself directly within his personal space and sending Naegi's heart on a fevered rampage against his ribcage. "Makoto Naegi," he said, and the sound of his full name from Togami's lips made Naegi's stomach do a funny little flip. "You might be the most puzzling, most frustrating person I've ever met. If there's a reason you insist on giving up the most promising job prospect you'll ever have, tell me what it is."

All words dried up in Naegi's throat. He couldn't tell Togami the true reason he had run away—not yet—but he could at least admit to himself now that working for Togami, working with Togami, just being in his presence in some capacity... it wasn't unappealing. But... "Togami-san, I can't... that secretary thing you mentioned isn't..."

"Ah, that?" Togami took a step back, his back straightening as he crossed his arms. "After that display of unprofessionalism from you, the secretary position is off the table."

"Oh." Naegi felt an odd mix of relief and regret. "I guess that makes sense, huh?"

Togami pushed his glasses up his nose. "Yes, you'll have to earn back my respect before that's available to you again. For now, if you want to return, I'll have to place you back on the storefront as a shift manager."

Naegi afforded himself a moment to hold back a grimace... then he allowed the words to fully process and he blinked up at Togami in shock. "Wait... a shift manager? But that's a promotion... and a full-time position?"

"Well naturally." Togami smirked. "How should I expect you to prioritize our company when your allegiance is split between multiple part-time jobs? Of course, you'll be getting a generous benefits package befitting the Togami Corporation as well."

"W-wait, wait wait wait!" Naegi waved his hands in a panic, glancing between Togami and the udon shop owner, who looked like he wanted to interrupt but wasn't quite sure how. Regardless of whether or not Naegi was interested, wasn't it a bit brazen to be suggesting this in front of his current employer?! "I can't just... that's just way too—"

"If that's still not enough, perhaps you'll be glad to know that I plan to assess your progress regularly and move you up as I deem appropriate."

"That's not the... Togami-san, stop!"

Naegi half expected Togami to look put-off by the command, but instead he looked rather pleased with himself. Taking the moment of silence to compose himself, Naegi looked again at the udon shop owner, who responded with a small smile and a defeated shake of the head.

Naegi's breath caught in his throat when he, too, realized how he was about to answer.

"...Three weeks," he said, holding up three fingers to illustrate his point.

Togami arched an eyebrow. "Three weeks?"

"Yes. That's my condition." He looked down at the delivery box at his feet. "My weekend job at the karaoke box... I can probably leave that one right away. Turnover there is high enough anyway. But I think it's only fair to take three weeks to get things in order here before I can commit to full-time for you."

Togami hummed thoughtfully. "You do realize that after that stunt you pulled leaving without notice, you're not exactly in the position to be making demands."

Naegi flushed, deliberately avoiding meeting Togami's eyes. "Yeah, I know."

"As long as you're aware. But yes, I agree to that condition. Now, what time are you done with work tonight?"

Naegi snapped his gaze back up, disbelieving. "What time...? You're not asking me out for drinks or something, are you?"

Togami's eyes narrowed into scathing turquoise slits. "I was going to ask you to stop by the store to sign a new contract, but..."

"R-right, of course!" Naegi wanted nothing more than to just die of mortification. "I can do that, I'll be by around 10:30!"

"But if you'd rather I make a reservation somewhere and bring the contract there..."

"The store is just fine, Togami-san!"

Naegi knew that he was only setting himself up for more humiliation in the coming weeks and months. Readily agreeing to work exclusively for the man he was harboring fledgling feelings for was bound to cause trouble time and time again.

But, he thought, maybe this indulgence would be one that could be a net positive in the end.