They'd walked into work together.
It was a cursory observation, made when Takano had been smoking his idle way through a cigarette, gazing moodily out of the glass-fronted break room. Smoke tendrils had dissipated into nothing as his mind wandered, like the plot of the books he so enjoyed, to its foregone conclusion. Onodera. Ritsu.
God, he pissed him off. The moment he'd traipsed into Emerald with his stupid stubbornness and stupider green eyes that bespoke all the things the former held back, his fate has been sealed.
Maybe it'd been sealed since that sakura-trellised day in their school library, where those three little words had rushed forth past trembling lips, carried forth by a wave of unbounded emotion.
It was the first time anyone had felt so recklessly, boundlessly for him. He was convinced it'd be the last.
So he'd given and given with eighteen-year-old abandon until there had been nothing left to give. And when Onodera had disappeared from his clasp like a whirlwind mirage, he'd emptied his heart in one clean sweep.
Only to unleash crashing waves of all the emotion he'd taken away with him upon Takano as he awkwardly stumbled his way into the older man's life and faceplanted right into the epicenter of his thoughts.
And before he knew it, he'd been swept away. But Takano had been wrong.
People had felt for him after Ritsu, and the one who'd mattered the most out of all of them was the one he currently espied making a hurried entrance through the gate overlooked by the break room. He was accompanied by a tall figure that stood just that side of too close for comfort. With that distinct chestnut hair, there was no mistaking who he was.
In spite of himself, Takano felt his lips curling into a smirk. Those two were really not two people he could have ever pictured getting together. He hadn't even known they were on speaking terms until recently.
But if someone could coax Yokozawa, who turned up earlier than him even when the beginning of hell week pushed his mornings into misty dawns, into almost-tardiness,
Well, then the wild bear of Marukawa had finally met his match.
It isn't like I can talk, though. He was well aware that few could hold a candle to him in terms of unlikely relationships. Also, he rather liked Kirishima-san personally, although he didn't care much for that lighthearted attitude of his. Despite outward appearances, though, the man was a stickler for his duties and could always be relied on to get the work done. Kirishima-san was one of the few people in his line of work he actually respected and looked up to. He supposed it could be... refreshing to have someone like him around, although he'd never really see Yokozawa go for that type before.
All the same, the women at Sapphire were going to have a field day if they ever found out. He could just picture the titles even now: Steamy Office Romance: Catch a glimpse of the passionate love affair between the editor-in-chief of XXX Shuppen and the head salesman in our next issue!
An amused look flickered across his expression. He'd have to get that story out of Yokozawa someday.
Ah.
The realization that this wasn't exactly a conversation he could have with Yokozawa anytime soon dawned on him.
He'd really, truly been in love with me, hadn't he.
Looking back on it, he wondered how he could have missed the intimations literally radiating through the chinks in Yokozawa's armor. The memories, accumulated over the intervening ten years, flipped their pages in his mind's eye.
Yokozawa hauling his wasted form out of an alleyway. Yokozawa cooking for him, grumbling all the while about how he was going to end up dead in a ditch somewhere if he didn't eat properly. Yokozawa telling him to get his ass out of the rut he was in because he'd found him a job. It wasn't too much of a stretch to say that everything he had right now was at least partially thanks to him.
So couldn't he have let him down a bit gentler?
And a foreign, uncomfortable sensation suddenly pricked at him as the conversation that these very four walls had borne witness to played on a reel in acute clarity, because even then Yokozawa had laughed, made light of it all through a carefully constructed mask, had
tried to spare his feelings.
He could just have left Takano to die in that alleyway, but he didn't.
And he could just have given up on Takano after what he did, but he didn't.
And somehow, he'd always, always known,
That come what may, Yokozawa would never leave his side. And he'd always put Takano before himself.
He owed Yokozawa, he was just realizing, and had conveniently never thought about it. And now? Even Takano understood that he deserved better than awkward conversation and an apology secreted away within the confines of this room.
The least he could do was to give him them back.
Maybe it was too late to mend fences, and maybe Yokozawa just wanted time, but Takano hoped that with the mail asking Yokozawa to meet him for drinks after hell week, sent with uncharacteristic nervousness, amidst teasing jabs and friendly banter, they could strike up again the spark that had initially drawn them to each other like moths.
"Takano-san?! Where are you? More importantly, where is the manuscript you were supposed to hand in today?"
Takano sighed as Onodera's panicked voice floated through to the break room. So much for a relaxing smoke, his cigarette crumbled into ash as he threw it into the bin after putting it out.
About three seconds later, the door quivered on its hinges as Onodera burst in, looking as if he was ready to grab Takano and shake him until the manuscript fell out.
His fingers automatically found his temples as he tried to massage away the headache brought on by Onodera's incoherent yelling as he rounded on him.
"So noisy," he muttered, leaning forward, closing in on Onodera.
Onodera's indignant voice immediately died down as he found his lips otherwise occupied with Takano's own. His entire body froze in shock as Takano gripped his hands to prevent him from retaliating.
When he had given him the job of coordinator, he should have anticipated the earnestness with which he discharged his duties. It was part of what he had fallen in love with, the way he had loved him with a pure, open heart, pouring into it everything he had. It was part of the reason why he gave him so many responsibilities at work, just to see the zeal of the Ritsu he remembered flicker to life.
Takano got in a few blissful seconds of soft lips against his before the shock wore off and Onodera's teeth sunk into his bottom lip, biting down hard as he struggled to rip his hands out of Takano's grip.
"Oww!" Takano hissed, yanking his head away. "What the fuck?"
Onodera's mouth moved in wordless disbelief for a few seconds before he found his voice again.
"What the- I should be asking you that!" he cried, voice steadily rising in pitch. "We're at work! In a public place, where we could get kicked out for this kind of thing! A concept you don't seem to understand!"
He was gesturing expansively, reprimands doing nothing to disguise the pink staining his cheeks. "This is an office! Where, by the way, you're supposed to be delivering the work you'd said you would!"
Takano just exhaled deeply, the deep-rooted contrariness that Onodera always seemed to arouse coming forth. "If you have the time to bitch at me, why don't you finish photo-typesetting the stack I saw on your desk earlier today?"
"That's not the point!"
He just stared back impassively, relishing in the burning green facing him, because he loved this stubborn side of Onodera too, which showed to him his fire in an absolutely different light. It was so unbearably cute.
He got up to leave, ignoring Onodera's outraged expression. His fingers, of their own accord, drew his arm to the younger man's hair, ruffling the russet locks, reveling in the rough-soft texture, and stowing away the expression that graced his features carefully in the private little corner of his memory.
He turned and left the room, pulling out his phone to strike mortal dread into the heart of his unfortunate author again.
It was going to be long day, but as long as he had these little bubbles of warmth buoying his spirits, he would tide over.
"Ah, Takano! I've been looking for you~" Isaka-san seemed to appear out of nowhere, looping an arm around Takano's shoulders.
Takano pinched the bridge of his nose. The man's upbeat demeanor was not helping his steadily building headache.
"Isaka-san," he said stiffly, inclining his head in a bow. Even though the man was a company director, his penchant for acting like a five-year-old had not suffered the misfortunes of age and authority.
"Ah, cut the pleasantries, I've got news for you!" Isaka-san said, smiling away. "Ichinose Erika's Diamond Heart is going to get an anime adaptation."
"Fascinating." Isaka-san might be an outstanding editor, but Takano did not appreciate his upbeat persona in the face of hell week. Also, for an author as famous as Ichinose Erika, getting an anime series was hardly a novelty.
"Yeah, yeah, that's not the important part of it!" he continued, seemingly oblivious to Takano's lack of reaction. "The important part is, you're going to be on the Editorial Board for the anime."
Takano did a subtle double take. The Editorial Boards for anime adaptations of manga series were famously snooty, rarely even deigning to take suggestions from the Manga editors. Let alone give one a place on their Board.
"I know right! I was surprised too," Isaka-san said, wrinkling his nose in distaste. "Those stick-up- the ass editors never condescend to even interact with the other departments, but seems like this time, Ichinose-san put in a personal request to include people from all departments in the board. Though it might help the anime get larger viewing if it was handled by a rounded-out team."
"Ah, I see..." Takano hummed a non-committal response, them tensed up as the latter half of the reply registered with him. "Wait. If you're really including people from all departments, then the Sales representative has to be..."
"Yokozawa." Isaka-san said, nodding serenely. "I recommended him. Thought you'd appreciate the company."
Never in his life had Takano wanted to wrap his fingers around Isaka Ryuuichirou's throat so badly.