Disclaimer: All the cute characters belong to Nakamura Shungiku and Kadokawa Shouten.

Author's note: Yes, it's short, but of all the chapters, I think this is my favorite.

Again I have to thank nyan-chan for editing and telling me her honest opinion.

As always, follows, reviews and favorites are very appreciated.

Maybe unknown words:

Izakaya = a bar to sit, drink and have snacks (basically what you can see in the beginning of the Yokozawa no Baai movie)

shochuu = alcohol made from vegetables or rice (stronger than sake, which is made from Rice and has about 17% alc)

Awamori = a type of shochuu, made from rice, that comes from the region of Okinawa (depending on the brand, it has 30~60% alc)

Return

"Today's meeting was boring."

The female editor of the famous shounen manga magazine 'Japun' gathered her documents and looked at her boss with a weak smile. Her eyebrows were furrowed a little in disbelief at his statement.

"Well, I'm certainly not going to complain about a smooth print run meeting once in a while."

Kirishima threw a glance at the sales representative who was packing his bag in silence. "Don't you think that Yokozawa-san is acting strange today? Usually we would've never got past him with such a high number of copies. He wasn't even yelling."

"Maybe he just had a bad day."

"I wonder. Normally, I'd expect him to yell even more when he has a bad day. It's not like that hadn't happened before."

With an amused grin she turned to him and handed him some of the papers. "Kirishima-san, could it be that you're disappointed?"

He shrugged. "What can I say? Teasing him is kinda interesting, so now I feel like a boy whose favorite toy is broken."

Together they left the room and went back to their floor.

"The end of 'Emerald's' cycle is nearing again?", she asked and pinched her nose.

"Yep, that's the smell of five men who haven't had a shower for three days now. I am glad that we're at the other end of the floor."

"Our cycle ended only two days ago", she reminded him. "When I came home, my boy said 'Mommy, you smell like grandpa's socks', so complaining about 'Emerald' is maybe hypocritical."

With a chuckle he sat down at his desk and started to look through the papers that had been distributed during the meeting. A soft tapping sound behind him caught his attention, so he turned around to look out of the window. "Ah, it started raining. And look at those black clouds - it'll be a terrible downpour."

"Did you bring an umbrella, Kirishima-san?"

"I keep one under my desk, just in case. The trip to the station should be no problem."

'Maybe I should've waited some minutes before heading out?', Kirishima mused as he walked down the street, rain falling heavily on the transparent surface of his umbrella. 'On the other hand, it doesn't look like it's going to cease anytime soon'.

Just as he was pondering if he should stop at a convenience store to buy a dessert for after dinner to share with his daughter, he noticed a man passing him by with fast steps. At first he thought that it was just a poor businessman who had forgotten his umbrella, but then recognized the person. The dark hair, the black leather shoes, already worn out by endless journeys to bookstores all over Tokyo, and the gray overcoat – it all belonged to a certain employee at Marukawa. The man was already soaking wet as he entered the izakaya about a dozen meters ahead.

Although he only managed to catch a short glimpse of Yokozawa's face, something about it was bothering him. Maybe it was those eyes, looking rather dull in the unusually pale face.

"Guess he really had a rough day", he mumbled to himself as he continued his walk to the station. "And what's with that face? If I didn't know him for four years now, I would've mistaken the rain drops on his cheeks for tears."

Little by little the building of the station came into view, but the walk seemed to take eternity. Without him realizing at first, his steps had become slower, as if something was clinging to his feet, not willing to let him enter the building and take the train home. When he had left Marukawa, he had been looking forwards to coming back to his warm home and maybe share some cocoa with Hiyori after having her self-prepared dinner. Recently it was mostly curry, since his mother had taught her how to do it by herself. As long as it was made by her, he didn't mind eating the same every day for the rest of his life.

Usually the thought of his beloved Hiyori, waiting for him at home, made him rush back to their apartment even quicker, but today was different.

He just couldn't forget about the expression of the young salesmen passing him by. Yokozawa hadn't been slow, but his pace also hadn't been an indicator of him wanting to escape the rain. He just hadn't cared.

After some more minutes the editor arrived at the station building and shut his umbrella. Around him people were quickly walking towards the ticket gates, and he could hear the 'beep' of the barriers as people left and entered the tracks in steady flows. A strange thought occurred to him: If he passed the gate, he wouldn't be able to return. But - why would he want to anyway?

There was nothing waiting for him if he turned around and went back. Work for today was finished and grocery shopping also wasn't necessary. He could just walk ahead and go home, leaving behind Marukawa, the supermarket next to the station, the seemingly crestfallen man from Sales at the izakya...

He stopped dead in his tracks, which caused a businessman to bump into him and curse before walking around him. After some seconds of standing there like paralyzed and being caught between his contradictory feelings, he made up his mind.

He started heading back to the exit, fumbling for the mobile in his jacket. His mother picked up the moment he reached the outside of the station.

"Hey, Okaasan. I'm terribly sorry, but I think I won't do it in time today to have dinner with Hiyori. I feel bad for asking again, but could you... Yeah, that'd be great. Give her my kisses. Bye."

Opening his umbrella once again, he started heading for the izakaya, his feet following a quicker rhythm than before.

'I'm pathetic', he thought as he turned around a corner. 'Asking my mother to look after my daughter again, so I can talk to a guy who probably gives a shit if I keep him company or not. That's really not like you, Zen.'

The closer he got to his destination, the less he understood why he was heading there in the first place. At the station it had seemed to be a logical thing to do, but now he wasn't so sure anymore. What was he supposed to do anyway? Talking to Yokozawa, whom he hardly knew anything about? Yes, that would be a good idea... If he was lucky, the Wild Bear from Sales would tell him to fuck off instead of ripping him a new one for disturbing his off time. And even if he accepted Kirishima sitting with him and having a conversation, what exactly should they talk about? As far as he knew, they didn't have much in common besides from working for the same publishing company.

'Hey Yokozawa, I noticed that you look like shit today, so tell me all your worries'? Of course, this was hardly going to be crowned with success.

Before he came to a conclusion, he arrived in front of the bar and opened the door. Despite the place being packed with men in business outfits, he spotted Yokozawa immediately and sat down on the other side of the table without bothering to ask. Strangely enough, the younger man was looking at him but didn't actually seem to notice him.

"It's not like you to look so messed up, Yokozawa-san." The usual Kirishima-esque approach, because he just couldn't stop being himself.

He expected a harsh reply, but there was only a "Couldn't care less" and at this point he started to worry genuinely. The young man in front of him was staring into his almost empty glass of beer, cheeks flushed from the alcohol, and his eyes were just empty. It was kind of... painful to look at.

"Are you going to just sit there, or will you join me?", Yokozawa mumbled. "I'll order more beer."

"No, beer gives me terrible hangovers", Kirishima quickly interrupted before he could raise his voice to order. "Are you okay with shochuu? As long as it's shochuu, you can choose whichever you like."

"Then let's have Awamori."

"Awamori it is, then."

A thing that Kirishima hadn't considered when he had suggested shochuu, was the fact that this stuff smashed people faster than beer, especially the ones who wanted to get drunk badly. And today Yokozawa seemed to be one of them. Of course the editor had noticed that he had been anything than sober when they had started drinking together, but after another hour he wondered how long it would take until the the Wild Bear from Sales would cross the barrier when drunken people started doing things that were unlike them.

And now it was happening.

Despite having been rather silent up until some minutes ago, Yokozawa was now complaining about a variety of things, most of them related to work. Kirishima decided to let him pour out everything, although he couldn't actually fathom why such small things would make a proud person like Yokozawa from Sales want to get hammered this badly. But he felt an itch to find out the real reason all the more now.

"Did something bad happen today? At the meeting I could've totally made mincemeat of you."

"I don't care. Real effort never pays off anyway", Yokozawa mumbled and watched the ice cubes in his glass roll into each other with a soft 'clink' as he lifted his drink again.

The editor sensed an opening and decided to aim for it. "How don't they pay off for you?"

"Ten years..."

Cocking an eyebrow, he sat up straight in anticipation. Somehow he got the feeling that he was about to hear a story of consequence; a story that would change things. For Yokozawa? Certainly. For himself? His subconscious mind told him 'yes'.

Yokozawa's face took on a pained expression as he lowered his head a little, until the light of the lamps over their heads could only reach parts of his cheeks and nose, making the area around his eyes appear even wearier.

"It took me five fucking years to win his trust, to become his friend, to pull him out of his cave", he went on talking, apparently mostly to himself. "It took me another three fucking years to stabilize him, and another two years I was waiting for him to notice. And now this little bastard shows up again and I... I... Why couldn't it be me?"

To say the least, Kirishima Zen was puzzled. He felt like pieces of a book had been thrown in front of his feet and now it was his task to pick them up and bring them in order. Maybe he would have been quicker in his deductions, hadn't the story been about a 'he'. After all, it felt rude to jump to conclusions that easily.

Not losing his focus on the man in front of him, he raised a hand to order some better shochuu. He was certain it would be needed. For a few seconds he allowed himself to remember who Yokozawa usually was hanging around with at Marukawa, and it was only one face that came to his mind. So, maybe it was about a certain genius editor over at 'Emerald'. Not that it actually was of importance to him now. He sighed.

"... Your first name's Takafumi, right?"

"...hm..."

"Listen, Takafumi-kun."

"Don't 'kun' me, asshole", he complained, but his voice was anything but able to follow his words. It was too soft, too weak and too sad.

"Fine, Takafumi-chan", Kirishima corrected himself with a smug smile and leaned his head on both hands, elbows resting on the wooden table. "The best love isn't born out of a feeling of duty and debt. The best love comes from out of nowhere, turns you into a fool and makes you want that person to be happy, with or without you. Ta... that person was lucky, because he got it from you. But someone like you obviously deserves better than feelings connected to such lower motives like indebtedness. You're better off without it, and there are greater things out there waiting for you."

Leaning back in his chair, Yokozawa covered his eyes with his right hand and took in a deep breath. "It was bound to happen. I always knew that first loves cannot last... and I was such a fool."

'Then you should just fall in love with me.'

Startled, Kirishima sat up and almost knocked over his own drink. He could have been shocked or even disgusted by his own thoughts, that had suddenly come crushing down on him like a flash out of the blue. But, to his own surprise, he wasn't. Everything that he had been doing and thinking today - no, since a long time ago - was making ridiculously easily sense now.

His gaze wandered down to his left hand and the ring attached to it. Eight years he had kept on wearing it despite having lost his wife to an illness. Since then he had used this ring to keep women at a distance he felt comfortable with. He still felt deeply connected to his deceased wife, he saw her everyday first thing in the morning in the face of their adorable daughter, and he had always known that he preferred staying part of the father-daughter-duo rather than letting another woman into their life. This little piece of gold had prevented females from getting too close to him and his heart from being touched.

Kirishima smiled at his own foolishness. Very obviously, it didn't work the other way around. It hadn't prevented himself from getting close to somebody. Because this somebody was a man, he hadn't paid enough attention and he had been slowly walking into his own trap. Now that he realized this, it was already too late to go back.

As he looked at the other man again, he noticed that Yokozawa's shoulders were quavering the slightest bit while he was still covering his face. He was crying.

'Sakura-chan, I should apologize to you', Kirishima thought in defeat, as he received the drinks and put one of the two glasses in front of the younger man. 'But I know that you wouldn't wanna have it. Quite the contrary, you'd hate me if I left him like that. He deserves better, and I'll take care of him with everything that I have, even if it's just until he's fed up with me.'

"Come on, Wild Bear", he said to him cheerfully. "Have some more booze and rant to your heart's content. I'll listen as long as you like."

'Because I believe that, even if it's unrequited, the best kind of love always pays off.'

Next time: Yokozawa belongs to Kirishima - including his suit

Dear readers, I thank you for bearing with my rather long editing and uploading intervalls. I just finished chapter 11, and I started chapter 12 yesterday and have ideas for chapter 13 and basically wrote another two chapters which need a lot of revision and might not make it into the web anyway, haha. So, as you can see, I'm far from finished with this. If you wonder if there's a continuation from the last chapter (which didn't exactly have a happy end), there will be one - ch.11

If you have wishes about anything that you want to read, you can post them in the comments. Just be aware that I'll only pick ideas that I agree with (I refuse to write AU, for example) and which fit the general flow of the drabbles.

As you probably noticed already, somehow my plot bunnies decided to connect, so the chapters play all in the same universe, although the timeline is completely out of order (and I like it).

Oh, and - Merry Christmas!