Kojiro's POV
I'd been quite awhile since either of them visited.
I can't even tell you how many times I prepared extra pasta before realizing there wasn't anyone waiting at the bar counter to eat it. I was completely out of it.
So out of it, that I lost my touch of seduction. The far worse part being I couldn't care less.
"Good morning, Nanjo~" My female employee greeted me as she usually did before starting her shift in the morning. I hummed in response and the young girl halted before entering the kitchen. She immediately ran over to me and placed the back of her hand on my head.
"What's wrong?"
"Huh? Nothing," I responded quickly and waved my hand dismissively.
"Every morning I come to my shift I say 'Good morning, Nanjo~' and every time you respond with some flirty pick up line. You never miss the chance, so what's going on?"
I sighed in exhaustion and rubbed my eyes with my hand. "Just a bit tired, recently."
"Does it have to do with that pretty boy who used to come here every day?"
I laughed pitifully to myself and raised my head to glance over at her with a sorrowful expression. "Which one?"
She frowned and tried to comfort me by placing a hand on my shoulder. I forced a small smile to reassure her that I'd be fine for the rest of the day and attempted to head off to take orders but she blocked my path. She stood in front of me and shook her head before guiding me to sit down.
"I know you, you're going to work yourself to death if I allow you to keep going on like this."
"I'm fine, sweetheart. Really I am." I insisted and chuckled while patting her head. Though, my effort to convince her was only in vain as her face downturned into discontent.
"Nanjo, I know heartbreak when I see it. Even you aren't immune to it, so just take the day off and I'll handle everything."
"Ryo, I-"
"You're welcome." She interrupted and wink as a gesture to show me that her mind was already made up which meant I didn't have much say.
"Thank you.."
I genuinely said to here with softened eyes but now that my body wasn't occupied, my mind wandered. It started to replay that other night in my head, over and over until I analyzed tirelessly. Where had the night gone wrong?
Where had I gone wrong?
Maybe, under my conscience incompetence I knew the exact words that slipped past my lips and lead the night down a worse road then it was already heading towards. I started to question my own feelings for Kaia and Kaoru. I tried to honestly ask myself if what I felt was even what I labeled it to be; love. I word rolled so easily off my tongue that along the way it really lost it's weight as a word.
I didn't want to admit it but this may have just been lust, couldn't it? Who am I to claim I know the difference when I say it's love but still have been intimate with all those woman.
I found myself in the back of the restaurant leaning my back on the wall. In the midst of my thoughts I had began to drift through the restaurant. I felt my phone buzz in the back of my pocket and roughly fished it out to see the who it was.
'Speak of,' I thought while glancing down at the missed call in disappointment. 'There was one of those woman now.'
She left me a voicemail and I clicked to listen but the words weren't really registering in my mind. I picked up on the fact that she wanted to meet somewhere and "have some fun" or however she wanted to word having sex.
Another voicemail caught my eye that hadn't yet listened to since I didn't recognize the number. I'd ignored it since it was most likely a spam call or some along those lines. I clicked on it out of curiosity and it was mostly silent in the beginning.
"A prank call," I muttered and went to delete it until I heard a voice.
"Of course he wouldn't pick up a call from a random number. What was I thinking?"
It was Kaia.
"Oh, it's already recording!" He muttered angrily and cursed lowly. "Hey Joe, it's Kaia from the restaurant earlier today I just wanted to call you because you mentioned you wanted to get to know me better so I called you. And I just told you that," he lowered his voice to a whisper awkwardly. I chuckled while gazing down at the phone.
"What I mean to say is thank you for being so welcoming today and I hope to see you more often than not. Goodbye."
"Goodbye," I whispered and noticed a tear fall onto the phone. I wiped it off my face and the screen.
This is exactly what I didn't want. For our friendship to gradually fall apart until I force myself to repress those feelings so both of us could move on. Pretend the night never happened, erase everything because that's what is best.
For me.
For Kaia.
For Kaoru...
'Meet me at the usual hotel,' I texted the woman.
About Seven Years Ago
Kojiro laid awkwardly in the bed while trying to steal glances over at Kaoru who was next to him. He couldn't get a good look at his face since he seemed to bundle himself under the covers and hid his body away from him except for a few pink strands of his hair that stuck out from under. The two of them had recently graduate and Adam left to America not too long before. Kaoru seemed more effected by Adam's sudden move than Kojiro and if he was honest, he shamefully felt some relief with him gone.
However, Kaoru seemed heartbroken and he'd tried to comfort him earlier that night but one thing led to another. Now, here they were.
"Hey, are you alright?" Kojiro timidly asked and turned over to face the back of Kaoru's head. "You became so self conscious all of a sudden..."
He didn't respond but Kojiro could hear faint sniffling from under the covers. Kojiro went to reach out his hand and comfort Kaoru by gently rubbing his shoulder from over the blanket. Kaoru turned himself around to face him and his eyes were clearly red from crying. Kojiro's eyes shot open and he began to panic while running through his mind of all the things that could have went wrong. He was mostly sure he'd done it right, Kojiro made sure to do research on how guy's had sex.
"I'm sorry! I didn't mean to hurt you. Maybe I should've been slower-" he began to ramble but Kaoru slapped a hand over his mouth to silence him.
"It's nothing you did, it's just I shouldn't have done this. We shouldn't have done this."
Kojiro wasn't sure how to feel about hearing those words from him. It made him wonder if he was terrible at sex and Kaoru just didn't want to hurt his feelings. He had hoped that maybe Kaoru would recognize his feelings after this. Actions were supposed to speak louder than words.
"Thanks to me, you lost your virginity to someone out of pity. I know how you wanted your first time to be with someone you loved."
'What is he saying? I did do it with someone I love. I did this with you.' Kojiro thought to himself and tried to mask his disappointment from Kaoru.
"Can I tell you something?"
"Uh, yeah. Shoot."
"I confessed to Ainosuke just before he announced he was leaving," Kaoru admitted as he played with a strand of his hair nervously.
"Oh, really?" Kojiro said as he tried to contain himself and lowered his head.
"He said I wasn't his type though. He told me he was into more sophisticated people. Prettier people..." His voice trailed off and he bit his lip in frustration.
"I'm glad that I could be there for you," Kojiro whispered and bit his tongue.
"So for both our sakes we should probably forget this ever happened, right?"
Kaoru didn't actually want to forget anything but the guilt ate away at his conscience. Here he was, heartbroken over getting rejected and not even a week later he slept with his best friend. Even worse, he didn't regret it in the slightest even though he knew should have. How could he just go from one person to another? That question raced within his mind enough to bring tears of confusion to his eyes.
"That would be best for the both of us. It didn't mean anything anyways," Kojiro finally answered and sat up in the bed with a forced smile. He pretended to turn his head to look out the window but in reality, he wasn't sure how much more his heart could take.
"Okay," Kaoru mumbled and tightened his grip on the blanket over him. He reached out his hand to touch Joe but he immediately pulled it back. "Consider it forgotten, then."
"Great..."
"Awesome...
**
Present
I grumbled and tried to adjust my vision to the new scenery filling my eyes as I tried to look around. The last thing I remembered was going to the bar with that woman and I had a couple of drinks. My vision started to get clearer as I felt myself moving and gradually looked around.
I was walking somewhere. But where? Who's this person helping me walk?
"Are you awake? I need a bit of help here, Kojiro."
That voice. I missed that voice. Kaia.
"I missed you," I said lowly and he just looked at me with concern in his eyes.
"You and Kaoru's drinking habits are very worrying. The girl you were with called me to get you. She said I was your most recent contact," he explained and reality slapped me across the face.
"This isn't a dream," I stated and jumped up before stumbling back to be caught my Kaia.
"No, it's real. I just didn't think we'd be meeting again like this."
a/n: the sour album influenced this whole chapter. in fact, it summarized this whole story dynamic in five songs and 12 minutes.
just listen to "favorite crime" while thinking of joe and kaoru. it's THEIR song.