Almost immediately, Kotetsu had to put Agnes's advice to into practice. Reporters mobbed the Apollon transport after Barnaby and Kotetsu's next hero dispatch, out for blood. Kotetsu edged around for an escape route, an unblocked path to the van, maybe he could leap onto the roof with his power or use Barnaby as a shield…
The reporters caught him before he could use any of his brilliant plans. The public wanted to know Kotetsu's response to Barnaby's over-complicated, claimed-but-not, submissive-Alpha statements.
"Tiger! How would you describe your relationship with Barnaby?" a reporter shoved a microphone under Kotetsu's nose.
An easy one, at least. "He's a great partner. We make an awesome team."
"Have you heard Barnaby's comments from the Lyra Heartstrings Show?" another asked.
"Yeah, I heard them."
"What do you have to say in response?"
"Anything I have to say, I said to Barnaby," Kotetsu told them. That stretched the truth, actually, because he and Barnaby hadn't discussed the content of that interview at all, but even if they had talked it out, Kotetsu wouldn't share that with the press.
"Do you have feelings for Barnaby?"
No, Kotetsu thought, but that wasn't how Agnes told him to play this. "Like I said, he's a great partner. I feel happy that we're on the same team."
"But what about his Scenting? Do you find his Scent attractive?"
"He's—he's my partner! A great partner!"
"You agreed to let Barnaby cuddle with you—why?"
"It just, um, seemed like a nice thing to do, at the time. It's no big deal."
"Have you started seeking an Alpha?"
"No. I don't need—"
The same reporter cut him off with a follow-up question. "Speaking hypothetically, if you were seeking an Alpha, would you consider Barnaby?"
Just hypothetically? In a sort of must-pick-someone scenario? In that case… "I guess?"
That answer drove the reporters into a frenzy so loud and confusing that Kotetsu couldn't tell one question from the next. So he flipped down his faceplate and shoved his way as politely as possible to the transport door. Once inside, Kotetsu tugged off his helmet completely, breathing a huge sigh. This was almost as bad as his rookie year, with everyone going absolutely insane over the idea of an Omega who denied all Alphas. He wiped one hand down his face, peeling off his mask, but not his stress.
He looked up, and noticed Saito standing at the little door between the travel lounge and the suit-up section.
"Can you invent, like, a force-field for my suit?" Kotetsu asked. "To keep the press away?"
Saito smiled and squeaked, answering Kotetsu's question loud and clear. It wasn't that Saito couldn't invent an anti-reporter shield; it was that, for some reason, he didn't want to.
Kotetsu honestly enjoyed going to work again.
His and Barnaby's schedules started to even out. The 'unfavorite twin' feeling lessened with each passing day. Closer teamwork in the field meant their effectiveness spiked, and Kotetsu frequently picked up points through their combined efforts. Doubles interviews and tandem product promotions poured in. Fans wanted both their signatures rather than just Barnaby's. Even if a few inequalities persisted—fans owned Barnaby stuff, Tiger & Barnaby stuff, but rarely Tiger stuff; Kotetsu usually collected hundred-point rescues while Barnaby took two-hundred-point arrests—but it didn't feel so bad anymore.
With better-synched schedules, the two could more accurately predict each other's daily plans, and the stop-go pheromone soup in the office started to even out. There were times when the two of them had no choice but to appear together, but Kotetsu could now set his watch off of Barnaby's departures from his cubicle. No longer did Barnaby wait until he reached fist-clenching levels before taking a break. Instead, he left at the bottom of the hour and returned at the top, usually completing some helpful favor along the way, like delivering a report or fetching coffee. Kotetsu accepted an offer for Barnaby to bring him a sandwich, but the rookie very blatantly ignored the money Kotetsu tried to pass his way before he vanished from the office.
When Barnaby returned, and Kotetsu's head clear, he called his partner out: "You didn't take my half of the bill."
"I don't need it."
"You just went out and got lunch for me! The least I can do is pay."
"I think the least you can do is eat it, since I went to the trouble of getting it for you."
"I'm not kidding, Bunny. How much was my half?"
Barnaby raised an eyebrow, but he fished the receipt out of the plastic take-out bag and scanned it for Kotetsu's order. "Yours cost ten dollars and fifty-four cents."
"Alright then," Kotetsu fished out his wallet and handed Barnaby eleven dollars. "That wasn't so hard, was it?"
"I can't make change for you. I'll just remember you have a forty-six cent credit." Barnaby said, sitting down at his desk.
"What? It's small change, just forget about it!"
"That would be unfair. Your lunch didn't cost eleven dollars, it was ten-fifty-four."
"You won't really keep track of my change, will you?"
Barnaby glanced Kotetsu's way, and a teasing twinkle in his eye said, Watch me.
The issue didn't come up every day, since sometimes one of them brought a lunch from home. But, Barnaby was always the one to leave the office to buy lunch, even when only Kotetsu needed food. Kotetsu wanted to protest that, too, but Lloyds usually had a reason to keep him in the office to complete overdue forms, and his productivity nose-dived when sitting next to Barnaby. Then, just as promised, Barnaby remembered exactly how much change he owed Kotetsu, down to the last scent. Kotetsu overpaid his next lunch by thirty-three cents, which Barnaby added to his existing balance. Then he used that credit to cover the difference when the spare change in Kotetsu's order amounted to sixty cents, giving him a balance of nineteen.
Barnaby never wrote down this nit-picky total, as far as Kotetsu could tell. He literally memorized how much Kotetsu had cumulatively overpaid for his lunches from one day to the next, even remembering across weekends. Kotetsu started joking exasperatedly about all the things Barnaby could do with Kotetsu's balance: "Go buy a pack of gum! Give it to a homeless person! Toss it in a wishing fountain!" but the two smiled anyway, and Barnaby's meticulous accounting showed no signs of fading.
Sure, Barnaby paid way too much attention to the stupid details like spare change. He teased Kotetsu over the tiniest things, just to get a reaction out of him. He continued to nag, just as he always had, about pleasing sponsors and keeping damage fines low. But Kotetsu woke up one morning with the realization that, yes, he wanted to get out of bed. And he had felt that way for a while now.
The epiphany—somewhat ironically—shocked Kotetsu into staying in bed and staring at the ceiling, thinking this through. He remembered his last few years at TopMag, and how he had to admit he wasn't at the top of his game back then. He wouldn't have quit being a hero—no way!—but at the same time, everything that Kotetsu enjoyed about his job had been leeched away by loss, age, and failure. And then, Barnaby changed everything. Once he showed up, Kotetsu started to enjoy his life the way he had before.
And he didn't understand why.
"So, how's the press treating you?" Antonio asked over drinks.
Kotetsu poked the ice in his shochu. "It's getting easier. I basically say whatever I feel like and let the tabloids decide what I meant."
"Wait, that works?"
"Agnes said to act like Bunny's friend. Since that's way easier than it used to be, the most I have to worry about is getting smothered," Kotetsu explained. "Barnaby's been great about it, too. He deflects questions to me, I say random words, Agnes stays off our backs, everyone wins."
"But isn't Barnaby getting the short end of the stick?"
"He's a good sport about it. He's started being really helpful around the office, too. Still stuck-up sometimes, but that's just who he is. It stopped being annoying a long time ago. Now, it's kinda fun."
"You sound like you're married."
Kotetsu stared at his drink. "C'mon, don't joke about that."
"I'm not making a joke. You're closer than ever, you respect each other, you've learned how to talk without fighting—and it's about time, because you two bickering was really pissing the rest of us off—"
"Hey! Bunny was the one pissing me off!"
"—And with Scenting to take care of the attraction part, you definitely qualify as married," Antonio concluded.
"If you're going to talk about my love life like that, I'm leaving," Kotetsu threatened. "You sound like Kaede…"
"What does she think of all this?"
"She at least knows not to force anything," Kotetsu grumbled. "Tiger can't make Barnaby happy if he's not happy, or something like that… But she's buying into Agnes's subplot that someday, Tiger's gonna fall…"
Antonio hummed, and they sat in silence for a minute. "Hey, if you and Barnaby do mate, what are you going to tell your daughter?"
"We're not gonna mate!"
"I'm just asking—what would you do? If Barnaby's mate is Wild Tiger and then you bring him home—"
"It's not gonna happen!" Kotetsu repeated. "I mean—well, first off, the mating isn't gonna happen! But in that situation, I… I can't just bring Bunny home."
"So you'll hide a relationship from your family?"
"Mom and Muramasa are gonna know," Kotetsu said. "But if it means telling Kaede that I'm a hero, I won't tell her about Bunny. Mom already worries enough about my job. I can't put Kaede through that."
Antonio twisted his beer bottle around a bit, glancing at Kotetsu. "I understand where you were coming from when you were really anti-Alpha. For Tomoe's sake. And then when all those Alpha types treated you badly, like they wanted to control you. They might've even told you to quit your job if they claimed you."
Kotetsu's hand tightened around his glass. Never.
"But Barnaby isn't like them. At least, not anymore."
"You can't just logic it out like that. You think I'm gonna let the first nice Alpha I ever met claim me?"
"It's none of my business whether you and Barnaby end up paired. I don't care either way," Antonio said. "Congrats if you do, nothing lost if you don't."
"Then what's the point of talking about this?"
"It's just, the way you play on TV, teasing tension and pretending you might actually fall for each other…" Antonio paused to drink. "I don't think anyone will be happy if things go bad."
"What d'ya mean, 'go bad?'"
"What you do is your business," Antonio said. "But if you layer a fake relationship on top of a real friendship, the friendship might break."
"Kotetsu looked back down at his alcohol, suddenly unsettled. That couldn't be true, could it? Kotetsu and Barnaby finally had a friendly office life, supportive and playful and kind. They didn't discuss the gossipy romance drama, but Barnaby's attitude ever since Kotetsu's release from the hospital after Jake's attack remained unchanged. And the people would get bored of an overdrawn, failed love story, the same way they would of a story about successful love. Eventually, Agnes would be forced to drop the subplot when it stopped drawing ratings.
And sure, maybe Barnaby's behavior right now was mate-like. He respected Kotetsu's autonomy—in a way, more than Lloyds did—but he still showered Kotetsu with favors that the veteran really appreciated, given Barnaby's own Scent gave Kotetsu a disadvantage in the office. In spite of the pheromones, Kotetsu liked spending time with Barnaby. He liked hanging out with him, talking with him, and he looked forward to seeing him each morning. That all applied to marriage, and maybe even Scented mating.
But it was just friendship, though. Friends like each other, pay attention to each other, hang out with each other. And regardless of a romantic relationship, if something happened that hurt Barnaby, and Kotetsu lost his smile, lost his teasing, lost his consideration or trust, and had to return to that hopeless waste of a life he'd been living in before…
He blinked back the burning in his eyes before he could shed a tear in front of Antonio. Mating or not, Kotetsu couldn't stand the thought of losing Barnaby as a friend.
"You worry too much, you old cow," Kotetsu finally told Antonio. He didn't feel much like drinking anymore, but didn't want to leave. Was this kind of dependency on Barnaby—in spite of all the good things Barnaby had caused to happen in Kotetsu's life—inherently Omega-like? Even as his life changed for the better, was Kotetsu becoming more submissive? Did letting Barnaby take care of him make him weaker? Did relying on him make Kotetsu less of a hero? Even as his job performance improved, the danger of becoming a claimed Omega—an Alpha's plaything—threatened him worse than ever before.
My choice can't change. Kotetsu thought. Hero, not Omega. Hero. Hero. Hero.
If he had to choose between being a hero and being Barnaby's friend… he had no idea what he would choose.