STORY WARNINGS:
– This is Yaoi – Male/Male manga genre often created by female authors and aimed primarily at female audiences.
– Rating: Mature. ADULTS ONLY. Contains graphic violence, some coarse language, explicit sexual content both consensual/non-consensual, forced/willing submission, light bondage.
A/N: You're so lovely, thanks for such a warm reception on the first chapter! I'm curious, do you prefer longer/ shorter chapters?
Into the dragon's lair we go. Poor Aki, I had such fun teasing him in this chapter. Bwahahaha... ;-P
~ Nyx ~
DISCLAIMER: The Finder series and all recognisable characters belong to Yamane Ayano sensei.
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Chapter 2
Z4m4 M1r0 was his shield. Akihito was used to being safe in his anonymity, concealed behind his cheeky alias and a whole array of cyber shields. At most he might have communicated with his targets anonymously online. He might have spotted them being led into court from afar, just a nameless face in a packed crowd jostling to see the next spectacular fall from grace thanks to Spotlight.
He never, ever, did face to face.
Panic gripped him as Glasses practically shoved him through the heavy double doors.
His focus skittered across the wide expanse of carpet and landed on a meeting table, the large sheet of oval glass nestled with twelve sleek armless armchairs. The decadence of the insanely rich, the display of such space as to dwarf the large meeting table when every bit of breathing space was at such high premium in the mega-metropolis. Not only was the office stupidly big, Akihito realised, but oddly shaped as well, the main event happening down the long arm of the L stretching to his left.
The desk was predictably massive and solid. Flanked by the impressive Tokyo backdrop, floor to ceiling on three sides, with the golden sun setting behind Mount Fuji and painting the room faintly orange, it was a stamp of prestige with a hefty dose of intimidation. But eclipsing it all was the sheer presence of the one Akihito would have given anything to avoid; the easy, devastating dominance of the man who secretly held the true reins of power over Tokyo, if not all of Japan.
Act normal.
That was the only plan Akihito could think of. To be as unremarkable as the next employee, to be easily overlooked. It was too late to do anything about his clothes, but boring, he could try. So he held his tongue and waited to be acknowledged, knowing that his tendency to blurt out whatever to whomever wasn't what good little employees did.
Asami was flicking through a thick file and still hadn't glanced up.
It was a strong jaw, with the kind of sculptured definition that artists strove for. The lips were slightly pursed, the nose straight, the golden eyes fixed hard on the report, his brow creased in concentration or maybe displeasure. Several strands of black hair had escaped the comb to brush over the lashes. Another impeccable three-piece ensemble from an expertly tailored wardrobe completed the striking image of one of the – ok, who was he kidding, the most attractive man that Akihito had ever laid eyes on.
He'd actually convinced himself that Asami couldn't possibly be as stunning or quite as larger-than-life as he seemed to recall after their whirlwind encounter in the dead of night. But even from so far across such a ridiculously large office, he could see now that there was nothing exaggerated about his memory whatsoever.
All Akihito could think was, Hot damn. And he wasn't even gay. He'd be in serious trouble if he was. His attention drifted back up...
Shock jolted through him as he suddenly found himself meeting Asami's gaze – the eyes dark but the gleam golden, ensnaring Akihito in an air of barely leashed menace...
How long had Asami been watching him watching him? Caught ogling – because that's precisely what he'd been doing, no denying it – Akihito flushed, his mouth going dry.
It was the slightest curve of those lips that did it, the mouth a little softer now but unmistakably smirking at Akihito's discomfort. That, and the intense gaze that lazily raked all the way down to Akihito's favourite sneakers and back up the black jeans hugging his lean thighs and the non-iron shirt, before meeting his alarmed eyes again with an arrogant glint.
Akihito's temper flared, snapping him out of his trance. Gritting his teeth, he clawed back what little air of professional competency he could salvage. He wouldn't be looked down upon simply for the massive difference in pay checks and microscopic strands of DNA.
Be boring. All he had to do was fix the problem and leave. Simple.
With as cool an air as he could muster, Akihito swallowed back his angry retort and stepped forward with a polite bow instead, his face blank. "Pardon me, I am Takaba covering Tech Support today. How may I be of assistance?"
Akihito wasn't sure if that might have been surprise that briefly flickered across Asami's face before it gave way to arrogant amusement again.
Asami reclined in his leather throne. "It's good of you to come so quickly, Takaba. My equipment overheated," he waved elegant fingers at on his desk, "Why don't you take it in hand and see what you can do."
No freaking way. Asami did not just do that... But there was nothing in his expression to indicate he'd meant those words as anything other than face value. Maybe he really didn't and it was just that bedroom baritone that made Akihito imagine loaded meanings.
"I can take a look," he replied as evenly as he could manage, heading across the office. Normal and boring, he reminded himself.
The hardwood desk was absolutely huge. Stick a mattress on it and Akihito could have slept on it comfortably. It was mostly empty save for the laptop, docking station, screen, intercom, and some clearly pricey stationary that could have helped towards his rent with the 24K gold inlay. Several thick reports were piled up on one side but it was still nowhere near like the scattered mess that was Akihito's crowded cubicle.
As he came up beside the desk he encountered a problem. Asami sat there, his long legs crossed at the ankles and stretched out completely in the way, his hand still resting on the thick folder he'd been reading. The silver laptop was docked in the middle of the desk, entirely in Asami's personal space. Akihito paused and looked at Asami, who simply returned the gaze with that same amused sneer playing at the corner of his lips.
Akihito's irritation flared again. CEO or not, regardless of whatever he knew about the man, Akihito was having far too shitty a day to be humouring whatever power games Asami was playing. The bastard could play by himself for all Akihito cared.
"Excuse me," he said firmly, not waiting for a response before reaching across Asami to hit the docking release button and pulling the laptop towards him to place beside his own. Asami's was sleek and visibly top of the range, whereas Akihito's was a powerhouse encased within a chunky old model.
"These things tend to slow down with age," Akihito deadpanned, pretending to be talking about Asami's laptop as he started it up. He couldn't help himself, it was in his nature and he was too annoyed to hold his tongue any longer. "But injecting a bit of artificial boost can go a long way to help keep the motors chugging away."
Asami was 35. Hardly old old, but certainly older than his 23. Akihito was sure the man wouldn't get it anyway...
"You can whip it into shape, I take it?"
Oh there was no mistaking the emphasis this time, subtle or not. Holy baloney, Akihito was trading innuendos with Asami... He cleared his throat. "What happened with this?" he asked instead, triggering system diagnostics.
"I opened a file. It crashed, overheated, and it's been stuck on that blue screen of death ever since." Asami waved at the sea of blue with the white blocky text.
"What was the file?"
"I don't know."
"Who was it from?"
Asami hesitated. "I'm not sure."
"... You're not sure?" Akihito repeated flatly. Asami might have the brains to run a multi-billion dollar company but it was plain stupid opening mysterious attachments from God knows who.
"It was forwarded to me, supposedly originally sent by... an associate," came the drawled reply, with just enough emphasis to let Akihito know that it wasn't really an associate. "Is there a problem?"
Akihito tweaked the diagnostics to include extra parameters to cover his suspicions before letting it run.
"This is why you have problems in the first place," he muttered to himself as he turned to his own laptop to check other configurations. "What's the point of upgrading infosec if people are just opening any old file anyway? No wonder Ogawa-san had to... Root?" he interrupted himself. "Why is it root? No way... General, general, ah, there it is, general executive... Disable that..."
"Why are you changing my access level?"
Jolting, Akihito froze. His fingers hovered, his back still bent over the laptop.
Asami was leaning on the desk to Akihito's left but was looking over his right shoulder, practically draped over Akihito save for the token gap that separated them. They might not have actually been touching but Akihhito could feel the warmth through his shirt at his back, the sandalwood cologne and the scent that was all Asami curling up his nose...
Akihito scurried out from under the taller man as though he'd been scorched. Fighting the uncomfortable heat that seemed to have rushed over his body and up his face, he mentally shook himself and stared defiantly back into that smirking face. "Root access gives you complete control over everything."
"So? It's my company."
Akihito wasn't backing down. "I know that, but unless you know what you're doing, you'll cock everything up and next thing you know, Sion's whole network goes pear-shaped."
A dark eyebrow rose.
Akihito always did this. He got all fired up and then blam, verbal diarrhoea. Right in the big honcho's face. Way to go, Aki.
"It's risky unless you know what you're doing," he amended with only a bit more tact. Then ruined it by adding, "which you clearly don't." He would have rolled his eyes at himself if that would have improved his mouth filter. "Just let IT know what you need doing and they'll do it for you."
Asami stepped towards him, forcing Akihito to step back. "Ogawa had no issues with my access level."
Ogawa probably didn't have the balls to say no to the CEO but Akihito wasn't about to be browbeaten into agreement. "I clearly must not be as skilled or willing as my boss is to fix problems you might introduce."
"What exactly is your job?"
Akihito couldn't tell if he was being paranoid or if Asami was hinting at something. He played it down. "Well, you know, I do admin stuff. I'm just your regular dogsbody."
Asami's eyes narrowed a fraction, but Akihito was saved when the laptop beeped. "Do you mind?"
Asami was blocking the way.
"By all means," came the gracious reply as Asami finally gave him some breathing room, rounding back to his side of the desk again. But instead of sitting down behind it, he reclined against the edge, right beside the corner where Akihito had placed Asami's laptop.
He was still standing way too close but Akihito wasn't about to be cowed. He hunched over the machine again and studiously ignored how his face was only an arm's length away from Asami's tight ass clad in the amazing suit as he checked through the scan results and cleaned out the system and why the heck was Akihito thinking about Asami's ass? He could feel the heat rising up his neck and he grit his jaw as he focused his attention firmly back on killing the trojan that had been detected and not on the tapered fingers lazily smoothing up and down the bicep and why was Asami stroking himself and why the hell was Akihito still thinking about him? Argh! What was wrong with him?
Despite his brain's little freak-out Akihito soon managed to finish the job and restrict Asami's access from being able to do any real damage.
"All done," he confirmed as he turned the laptop back towards its owner. "I think your associate must have sent you the wrong file, it contained a trojan worm aiming to send all of Sion's folders into the public domain. Luckily our security shields forced your laptop into a system crash and offline so it hadn't been released or spread. You need to stop opening dodgy files. Contact the Helpdesk if you're not sure or get stuck." Because Akihito sure as hell was never going to see this smug, infuriating, arrogant, beautiful man again.
Asami didn't miss the hint. Or take it. "I'll be sure to call for you personally, Takaba Akihito."
They remained there, Asami leaning on the corner of his desk not nearly far enough away, Akihito about to insist again that it was a Helpdesk job, when he belatedly registered the deep, downright erotic purr of Asami's baritone caressing his name. It clean wiped his mind, blanked any recollection of what he'd been about to say. He then realised that he was lingering with his mouth hanging open and gah, how awkward!
He huffed, snatching up his own laptop. "If that's all, have a good evening." He bowed, turned, took a step –
"There is... one more thing."
Something about that tone raised the hairs on the back of Akihito's neck.
Asami turned to grab something from a drawer of his desk, small enough to fit in his hand. Akihito teetered, still on the verge of hightailing it out of there, when Asami prowled round his desk to loom over him.
Akihito was rendered mute by the alarming change in Asami's demeanour. Merciless and lethal, his powerful aura swarmed over him. Akihito had only been sensing glimpses of it so far, he realised, as he was now faced with the potent darkness fully unsheathed.
Asami's broad shoulders suddenly seemed broader, his chest immovable, his height towering, his features hard as marble. Akihito had no trouble at all imagining this formidable man at the head of a global crime syndicate.
Mesmerised, it took a moment to see what the long fingers held aloft – an encrypted USB stick, with buttons for the pin on its side.
"I want you to unlock this for me."
Akihito's stomach plummeted. "Did you forget the pin?" he asked innocently.
"I don't have it."
"Is it yours?"
"... It's in my possession."
Oh crap... Thoughts raced and tripped over each other in Akihito's mind. Get out of here! ... Don't be such chicken shit, Aki, he's just a man. Just a man. Just a man...
This was potentially shady business. Actually, scrap that, there was no potential about it, it was blatantly criminal. And yet, what a chance to learn something straight from the horse's mouth! He'd be no use to Spotlight being a coward, and he'd never forgive himself if he missed such a golden opportunity...
He battled for composure, to appear harmless. "Sure. I'll bring it back tomorrow."
"This doesn't leave my office. You'll do it now."
Akihito blinked. "Now? But..." Now didn't give him time to poke around. He cleared his throat and tried to stall. "Whose is it really?"
"A... colleague who is unfortunately no longer with us. We need access to some records where they couldn't complete the handover."
Akihito's thoughts conjured up all sorts of wild scenarios, mostly involving bodies encountering all manner of gruesome ends... He swallowed hard and turned to his laptop, accessing the employee database. "Ok, well, uh, if I can have the employee's name, I can check their account details to see if we have –"
"No name."
Akihito paused, then turned back to Asami. "No name? Is this even legal?" he blurted. If they'd even been an employee in the first place.
"It's fine," Asami dismissed vaguely. "Can you do it or not?"
He didn't know when Asami had moved closer, but Akihito was suddenly aware that he'd been backed up with the desk digging into the back of his thighs. Would he make it out of the office alive if he took a wrong step here? He was mildly panicking inside and he was sure Asami could see it.
"I –" He clamped his mouth shut as he came out with more of a squeak than a voice. He cleared his throat and tried again. "I can try, but it might take some time."
Asami tilted his head thoughtfully. "How long?"
He shrugged as his hand crept to the back of his neck, squeezing the muscle, a nervous habit. "It could be minutes, it could be hours. It might even need a chip-off which I can't do here. I won't know till I try. That's why I said I'll bring it back tomorrow."
Asami was still studying him, considering. Akihito couldn't stop fidgeting, edgy as fuck.
He almost leaped out of his skin as Asami abruptly leaned right forwards, so far that Akihito was forced backwards onto his elbows on the desk to avoid crashing heads, awkwardly bent backwards from his waist. His laptop landed beside him with a thud.
"What –?" he breathed shakily, but Asami was reaching over him for the intercom button.
"Kirishima, is there anything urgent in my schedule this evening?"
"One moment, sir," came the immediate response from Glasses.
Asami waited. By resting his hands on the desk. On either side of Akihito. Hovering over him. While Akihito was still forced backwards on his elbows. With their eyes locked.
... Huh?!
Akihito couldn't fathom what was happening. He couldn't get his head around the position they were in. It didn't matter that there was a clean gap between them and they weren't physically touching, the implied intimacy completely blew a fuse in his head.
But the most confusing thing of all... What on Earth was he doing getting flustered...? There was an unmistakable stirring –
Alarm propelled him as he shoved at Asami. "What the hell are you playing at?"
But Asami barely moved. He easily pinned Akihito back down with a large hand on his chest, and all at once there was no question at all that they'd so, so crossed the line.
The secretary's voice came over the intercom. "Your schedule is clear, Asami-sama. However your dinner engagement is still an option if you wish to attend."
Asami took his hand away from Akihito's chest – leaving the imprint of his searing heat – and reached for the button. "They're still expecting me?"
"They assured me that they are completely at your service."
Asami sighed. "Fine, let them wait. I'll decide when I'm done here."
"Yes, sir."
Akihito was all mentally geared up to fight free when Asami scooped him up, slipping a strong arm under his back and righting him.
Akihito opened his mouth, but before he could let loose on his ire, Asami was steering him around his desk, the arm wrapped securely around his waist.
"Hey, stop that! What –"
Asami bundled Akihito into his own chair, pushed it in under the desk, and plonked the chunky laptop in front of the startled young man. Holding the USB stick out to Akihito, Asami waited expectantly.
Akihito looked up at Asami. He looked down at the thumb drive between them, then back at Asami again. He looked at the solid wooden desk, at the luxurious leather swivel chair that had seemed like normal size when Asami was sitting in it but now looked massive around Akihito. He looked out at the darkening Tokyo skyline, around the office, then back at Asami again. Finally registering that his mouth was hanging open, he snapped it shut and glared.
"What... are you doing?" he demanded hesitantly.
"It could take some time, can't it? So sit. And start."
Akihito didn't know how he was supposed to concentrate with Asami breathing down his neck, or do any snooping even if he did manage to get it unlocked. He tentatively went to tug the USB stick away. Asami didn't let go.
Akihito frowned, awkwardly holding one end of the flash drive while Asami still held the other end, and glanced up –
The menacing intensity was back on full whack, the golden gaze razor-sharp. Akihito was frozen for all of two seconds when Asami stretched out his other arm over the backrest.
Akihito shrank back in the oversized chair. Then he saw it.
Only revealed in the shadow of the suit jacket with the way Asami's outstretched arm parted the jacket open, against the side seam of the waistcoat, sat a holster with a glint of black.
Asami was packing.
Akihito's blood froze.
Run. He hadn't seen anything. Honestly. Would Asami buy it?
Round hazel eyes flew up to the frightening, stunning face – but Asami's expression didn't change, still coolly vicious and seeing every flash of emotion. Akihito belatedly realised that for someone like Asami, no way was this an accident.
Akihito cursed himself. He should have legged it the first moment he'd wanted to, pride be damned.
Asami's voice was a samurai sword wrapped in velvet. "You unlock this. That's all you're going to do. Understand?"
Akihito swallowed and nodded mutely, his movements jerky.
Asami let go. Akihito almost dropped the USB stick, fumbling to catch it and shakily putting it down next to his laptop. Just get this over with, he told himself. He took a fortifying breath, willing himself to concentrate.
I'm sitting at the desk at the head of Sion...
Akihito shoved that surreal thought aside and grabbed the thumb drive. He scowled at the tremor of his hands, scratching against the USB socket of his laptop.
"Need a hand plugging my flash drive into your USB port?"
Akihito stilled. That voice again? In no time at all Asami had slipped right back into loaded overtones. "At your age don't you mean your floppy drive?" he muttered as he jammed the flash drive in. Civility had flown clean out the massive windows.
Asami coughed a stifled laugh.
Pulling up a specialized access program to probe the encryption put Akihito back on more familiar territory and he felt a bit more like himself after being so rattled.
"Are you running through pin combinations?" Asami was watching closely.
Akihito spared him a wary glance as his fingers clicked away. "Not much point doing a brute force attack. It's easy enough to create an automated trial-and-error process but you'd get locked out after ten attempts."
"So...?"
"So, what?"
"How are you going to unlock it?"
Akihito frowned. The more he explained, the more he risked revealing what he could do. "I don't know yet. But what does it matter anyway, you just want to get to the data, right?"
He'd hoped that would be the end of it, but no such luck. Asami leaned on the desk, his large hand right beside the laptop. "How?"
Akihito doggedly tapped away. "These things usually have a backdoor, another authentication system in case the user misplaces the pin. Depending on where, this could take a while."
"Where, being...?" Asami prompted.
"If it's server side I'd have to –" Shit, this was such a bad idea. "It could be server side, or it could be on board which would be a lot easier."
Asami wasn't fooled or deterred. He leaned closer still. "You'd have to...?" he coaxed.
Akihito didn't know why he was having such difficulty maintaining regular breathing just because Asami was so close. He'd forgotten what he was typing too. "Look, it's really boring. Just let me get on with it, ok?"
"Tell me, Takaba." There was an edge of warning this time.
It seemed he wasn't going to let this go. Maybe it came from being so used to keeping his finger on the pulse across his sprawling business empire. Akihito glared as he turned resolutely back to feeling out the encryption and forced his brain to snap out of it, determined not to be caught in a terrified stupor again. "If they're clever they'll have set it up to allow decryption only when on the network, or over the VPN. That's a whole other set of hurdles to cross. But if we're lucky then the encryption hardware's on board and we can just mount it."
"Mount it?" Asami murmured, his voice highly suggestive. "Really, Takaba. This is fascinating."
Akihito scowled. "You're unbelievable." He was saved from a further retort that would have most likely been highly ill advised when his feeler program delivered some good news. "Huh. The key's right here after all. I'll be able to crack it wide open."
Focussed on the task, Akihito missed the amused smirk Asami gave him.
"I just need to set a breakpoint right after the decryption routine... set it to... retrieve the key..."
"You do this a lot?"
Akihito paused, turning slowly from where he'd been craned over his keyboard. "Uh..." His eyes shifted. "First time?"
It was a blatant lie. Asami scoffed but let it slide as Akihito turned his considerable hacking might to retrieving the encryption key, clutching at elusive hopes of gaining intel.
The familiar act of delving into the coding calmed him. He almost forgot about Asami hovering close, never interrupting but always watching eagle-eyed. He didn't know whether Asami could tell that this was no run-of-the-mill work that he was doing, but he just wanted to see what he could grab and get out of there.
Completely absorbed, he reached several times for something that wasn't there next to his laptop. He usually had drinks and nibbles to hand, a familiar habit to sustain himself as he dedicated hours upon hours on his investigations. He was so in the zone that he didn't notice anything unusual when a cup of tea and some dorayaki [red bean pancakes] appeared there at some point. He simply pulled a leg up onto the chair, forgetting he was wearing shoes and that this was Asami's chair, and munched and sipped away as he mumbled to himself and his fingers carried on tap-tapping away.
He even handled a Helpdesk query that pinged up as high priority, one of the execs a couple of floors down losing his rag over a new internal blog that he was meant to be updating with some key announcement. Akihito sat cross-legged, both feet up on the chair now, and handled it in his signature way – after confirming his suspicions in the records, he voice-skyped the man and told him outright that he was only stuck because he forewent the mandatory staff training held only the week before. Still skyping the exec and firing off basic instructions, he tweaked something in the decryption code that had just occurred to him. He hurriedly finished his call as he managed to get some preliminary readings back from the USB drive, glimpsing the name 'Tsubasa' as the registered owner – though he didn't know if it was a man or woman or even just an alias meaning 'wing' – before the rapidly scrolling text sent it off the screen. Soon he was running the final angles...
"Aha!" Akihito exclaimed. He set it to run, watching, waiting, eyes scanning... It bleeped back with a six-digit number. "Kaboom!" He fist pumped the air. "Suckerrrrrrs! Now let's see –"
"Just your regular dogsbody, huh?" The warm, husky voice breathed in his ear.
Akihito froze. Dead stop. The world crashed back down. He'd been so absorbed that he'd forgotten where he was... Had Asami been watching all this time? The light ache in his joints told him it had been just over an hour – by now he was well versed to his protesting joints informing him how long he'd been 'in the zone'.
"Are you done?"
Akihito unfroze himself. "Uh, just a sec." He disconnected the drive and yanked it free. "Here." So much for skimming off anything useful.
As Asami straightened up and out of his space, Akihito released a shaky breath he hadn't even realised he was holding. Yep, definitely time to go. He stretched and rolled out the kinks. It wasn't unusual for him to get cramp from sitting still for long periods of time. The bottom corner of the screen told him it was nearing 8pm. He closed up his programs and pushed away from the desk, creaked out of the chair, took a step –
He came nose-to-perfect-knot of Asami's tie. There was an edge to Asami's gaze and Akihito knew what the question was without a word being spoken – he couldn't unlock the USB.
"There's a pin." Speak of the obvious... Akihito would have winced at himself had he not been so bushed. "I reset it." Well, d'uh.
For the teeniest, eentsiest moment, Akihito actually entertained the idea of holding the new pin to ransom in exchange for the identity of this so-called colleague. But Asami's eyes took on a dangerous glint as though sensing the direction of his thoughts, reminding Akihito of the other glint of black that he'd spied before, and he caved faster than a house of cards.
He blurted, "It's 987654. Just plug it into your laptop and it'll prompt you to change it. Even an idiot could do it."
Asami regarded him for another heart-shaking moment before trying the pin. Apparently satisfied with the flash of green, he pocketed the thumb drive and returned his full attention to Akihito.
Akihito wasn't aware of his breath stuttering, all he could see was Asami suddenly looming nearer and he was edging backwards but the desk was in the way and there was only so far he could lean backwards. His exhausted mind grappled with the sense of déjà vu, mustered the energy to flee –
Asami terminated any attempt to escape before it could begin. No beating about the bush this time, he swiftly closed the final space between them, trapping him against the desk with his groin pressed against Akihito's lower belly, Akihito's crotch digging into a muscular thigh.
There was a strangled whine. The abrupt, full-on contact had Akihito bypassing panic straight to overload.
A long tapered finger traced up his throat, tilting his chin up. The deep voice curled lazily about him. "I don't think there's any need to bother anyone about the insignificant little USB drive, do you?"
The barefaced warning was purred in a sensual baritone, with menace and seduction all tangled together. Akihito's body was totally confused. He could only manage a jerky shake of his head as heat rushed north and south and everywhere in between.
Asami pressed closer, harder, their chests touching now. Akihito's stomach strained as he leaned away but that mesmerising face was oh so close and getting closer still and Akihito's shaky breath rushed between their lips and why the hell was Asami angling his head –
The electronic beep was like a bucket of ice water thrown in Akihito's face.
"Asami-sama, I apologise for the interruption. There is an urgent call for you from Europe."
Kirishima's voice over the intercom shattered Akihito's stupor. Realisation dawned, and with it horror –
Akihito shoved Asami aside with all his might and scarpered.
He couldn't have made a more undignified exit if he'd tried. He stumbled as his sneakers caught in the thick carpet, running and half falling until he caught himself on one of the black armchairs by the glass table. He took another few steps before belatedly remembering his laptop and swerved a 180, only to find that Asami was holding it out to him, amusement curving his lips. Akihito gritted his teeth, stomped over, snatched his laptop back with a glare, and bolted for the door again. But before he'd quite escaped, he caught the edge of the heavy door with his shoulder and ended up spinning around and practically falling backwards out the doorway, just in time to catch a glimpse of the bastard laughing outright as the doors closed.
