Second Sighting

'Hey, Kamijou-kun. Or should it be Kamijou-chan?'

Russet eyes snapped away from where they'd been contemplating the street corner visible from the window. They regarded the man sitting on the other end of the table with some annoyance and thinly veiled reproach.

'Cut that out', Hiroki snapped. 'It's just "Kamijou" to you. I didn't come here to be patronized—if you've got nothing better to do, I'm leaving. Excuse me.' He really did make to rise from his chair, but was stopped by a hand resting on his upper arm—a hand that rested lightly for now, but that Hiroki knew could also come down heavily.

'No need to be hasty, is there?' his companion purred lazily. 'And face it, Kami-kun…you're here for the same reasons as I am, so you've got nowhere to go if you leave.'

Point taken.

Reluctantly, hoping the man would take his flush of mortification to be one of anger, Hiroki sat back down.

'How old did you say you were?' Satou. Did he say his name was Satou? Or was it Suzuki?

'Eighteen', Hiroki said quietly, his eyes daring Satou/Suzuki to disbelieve it. 'Want some ID?' No, it's definitely Satou. Satou raised an eyebrow, then smiled in a way that was a whole lot less evil than the younger man had expected. 'There's no need for that. If it's good enough for you, it's good enough for me.'

The atmosphere having cooled off somewhat, Hiroki found his eyes being irresistibly drawn to that same corner again. He was no stranger to this curious fascination-he'd been fighting the urge to look there for an hour. Even before he bumped into the mysterious Satou, who was after all the very sort of person he'd been seeking for days.

Specifically, he was looking for the pair of eyes that he'd caught staring at him from the evening gloom of the alley. They'd appeared for the merest of seconds before blinking out of existence again, but he couldn't forget them: piercingly blue, wide with surprise, and most certainly looking straight at him from across the street. In any case, wondering about them was more pleasant an activity than remembering why he was eating with Satou in the first place.

Because he'd never done this before and Satou knew it, but there was no way he'd admit that was nervous; the nerves just reminded him of the way he felt around Akihiko and Akihiko was—

'Kami-chan?'

'Hiroki, I'm in love with-'

Hiroki turned back to his companion, fuming silently. 'Yes?' His heartbeat sped up sickeningly when he realized how close Satou's face was to his own; the man had leaned across the table and Hiroki could see every laughter line around the handsome but careworn mouth.

Are you going to kiss me with that mouth?

But the deep green eyes were gentle. 'Nervous, are you?' There was no flicker in them when the younger man stayed silent. 'Not the first time I've seen this, so there's nothing to be afraid of.'

He leaned back with another one of those unnervingly nice smiles. 'How about I pay for dinner? And if you don't like the...' he coughed delicately, 'for lack of a more creative word, "dessert"...we split the bill. Sound good?'

While bringing money into the equation gave Hiroki the funny feeling that this was no more than a business transaction, the neutrality of that same feeling also stabilized his precarious equilibrium and enabled him to keep his face passive. He really does know what he's doing, he thought. Only...how many other people has he fed the same lines to?

'Sounds good.' His tone was unwavering as he now watched Satou's hand dip into a pocket, emerge with a muted brown wallet, and flip it open with a gracefulness that the eighteen-year-old envied.

Are you going to touch me with those hands?

'What say we get out of here now?' the older man asked pleasantly, waving the waitress over to where they sat. Hiroki cast one last helpless glance at the alley where he'd seen the eyes before nodding.

'Yeah', he mumbled. 'Let's…let's get out of here.'

Akihiko's name streaked through his mind for one miserable second and he shivered, a movement that did not go unnoticed by the alarmingly suave Satou. 'Something wrong, Kami-kun?'

Nothing more than usual. 'No', Hiroki said flatly; his voice sounded thick to his own ears, trying to be heard over his pounding heart. He caught another glimpse of those patient green eyes before fixing his gaze on the table again and found himself thinking, are you going to see me naked with those eyes?

It would be galling to show his nervousness, but even more so to have Satou walk out on him now. He wasn't sure of many things right now—and he would have given a lot to know what the deal was with that creepy pair of blue eyes over at the corner—but he knew that if the older man left for any reason before their little "dessert" could be finished, he was never going to live it down.

He squared his shoulders and looked up. 'Well, what are we waiting for?'

The amused sparkle in Satou's face said: precisely this moment. Hiroki scowled. When he stood this time, he was not stopped but accompanied.

With how many other people have you done this?

'That would be a breach of confidentiality if I were to tell you, now, wouldn't it?'

'Huh?' Hiroki looked at him, taken aback, then bit his tongue so hard it almost bled. 'Fuck! I mean, crap—whatever—I was talking to myself. Sorry.' He turned away to hide the color on his face as they stepped into one of Tokyo's summer nights. All these years, and I still can't stop thinking out loud?

If Akihiko enters the picture at any time tonight, I might just have a problem…

What am I doing?

Apropos of nothing, he felt a lean, shirt-sleeved arm land around his shoulders; the contact was not unpleasant, and certainly a distraction from his progressively moodier thoughts, so he welcomed it as such. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Satou smile at the lack of objection and stifled a weary sigh.

'There's no need to apologize', the man said presently.

'I'm sorry?'

'Just a moment ago', said Satou, waving his free hand as an aid to explanation. 'You said "fuck", then apologized and substituted a "crap". Do you honestly think I care about you saying something like that when—'

When we're going to be doing the real thing in some time? He didn't need to say it; both men understood. Hiroki shrugged as well as he could with the arm still around him. 'I'm just not used to swearing in front of elders. My parents were particular about that sort of thing when I was growing up.'

'In that case, they're both obscenities, so you might as well pick the one that expresses your feelings better.' Satou winked at the younger man, who considered for a while, then nodded.

At least you're nice. And intelligent. They were straws that he wasn't even going to try and clutch at.

You're going to hold me with these arms.

He felt gooseflesh creeping up his own arms and knew that Satou must be noticing it too; before he could even think of a conversational topic that would both calm him down and distract his companion, a light pat on the back had him averting his eyes in dismayed embarrassment. It was no use hiding from someone who was years ahead in terms of both experience and age.

'Why are you so nice, Satou-san?' he asked softly, after a few minutes of walking in relative silence down a busy road.

Satou was quiet for a second before laughing. 'I guess you're half-expecting me to say that no one was ever this nice to me, so I decided to be good to the newer ones and make them feel better because I didn't want them to be nervous?'

'Of course not', Hiroki said, rolling his eyes. 'I expected you to say that no one would sleep with you if you weren't nice.'

The laughter receded from the older man's face, leaving behind that same, unexpectedly attractive smile. 'You're a smart young man, Kamijou. Well, that's the truth in a way, but…'

The smile gleamed even brighter, and in the space of a half second, Hiroki could have sworn he'd become more handsome.

'Still think no one would sleep with me if I weren't nice? Would you?'

Hiroki thought for a moment, and Akihiko's gentle smile came to his mind.

'Hiroki, I'm in love with Takahiro.'

'No, I wouldn't', he said apologetically. You've been kind to me. 'Sorry to disappoint, Satou-san.'

He never saw the blue eyes flash in and out of the night again as they watched him disappear into an apartment complex with Satou. Tokyo was huge, and there were too many darkened alleys for him to have noticed.

But while Hiroki did not notice, he remembered.

oOo

[A/N] Oh, and somewhat belatedly: this lady is back! xD Well, you probably gathered as much, but whatever. Coming up is an update for FTR and then maybe I can finally finish that YFF lemon for SHT…*sweatdrop* I've probably lost my fast-updater reputation for good, haven't I? Gomen…I'll bebetter from now, I promise.

This fic is just an exercise in breaking the usual Neko Hiroki/Inu Nowaki tradition (as you may know, I have a thing for scorning conventions. Heh.) by making Nowaki the neko. I seem to be addicted to Nowakis with a hecked-up adorability quotient…OTL

As always, my reviewers have my everlasting love. *showers blessings*