Chapter Text
The Madame had been clear: small, pretty, and perfect. Tonight he’s meant to be the charismatic offset to Endeavor’s less than inviting personality. As Nemura put it, Keigo needs to make the hero sparkle. He finds the idea so ridiculous he has to actively resist rolling his eyes.
Arm candy doesn’t make the number two fucking hero sparkle. Know what makes him sparkle? Money. Rank. A suit that’s literally on fire. The brusque, harsh hero trying to buy a fucking personality is a bad joke, but Keigo can’t help but laugh anyway. He can’t make Endeavor sparkle, but he can make sure no one in the room cares if he says something rude.
“Hawks, I need you to turn this way, love.” Nemura’s four arms all move at once—one combing his hair back and styling it into a rakish curl over his eye, two holding him in place while the last one shoos his feathers away from his back. Her buggish eyes blink at him with excitement. “This is the biggest contract you’ve ever gone on! He’s going to be number one, soon! Once All Might retires.”
Keigo flexes his arms beneath the black silk she’s wrapped him in. The tight fit threatens to split, rippling and stretching. Gold and red flecks through the black, like little flames catching against his skin. The top is cut deep, showing off his golden chest and the bright blue stone on the choker. He won’t keep any of these, of course. They all belong to the HPSC and would be repurposed for someone else later. But for now, the clothes, the jewelry, all act as the wrapping they present him to Endeavor in.
“You look a dream,” Nemura twirls him, then sighs when he stops short. His feathers sit beside her, tied and tucked away. He wants to throw up. “Not a bad deal, right? I think this is the most you’ve ever been paid. And you get to drink fancy champagne, eat expensive food, rub elbows with heroes.”
“Yeah, not to mention the big guy himself,” Keigo injects as much sweet sarcasm as he can into the sentence. Nemura only squeals, continuing to chatter as if she doesn’t notice.
To be honest, she probably doesn’t notice. He’s hard pressed to remember a time when Nemura has ever listened to him. She’s been his handler since he was sixteen and the HPSC picked him up for stealing a box of watches. The expensive accessories had conveniently fallen off a truck and into his waiting talons. Nemura scouted him, in the end. His feathers are too pretty and useful. He gathers information from heroes, from businessmen, from politicians, all in their most vulnerable positions.
And vulnerable positions are the only positions the HPSC wants him in. His training had been extensive and lightning fast. Not that he hadn’t had experiences on the street. With a dead father and a mother at home on a grocery list of medications, survival required more than the few scores he made off trucks. Not to mention actual groceries aren’t easy enough to steal for him to stave off starvation with a few candy bars and peanuts slipped into his pockets.
Nemura’s right about one thing: he’s never had a mark quite as powerful as this one. A beat of anxiety slips through the apathy that has a firm grip on his heart. If Endeavor suspects him of looking for weaknesses, of feeling out his suitability for his upcoming position, Keigo has no doubts he’ll be fried chicken before the sun comes up. Endeavor’s reputation includes a hot-ass temper and excludes most of anything else.
“I’d look better with my feathers,” he tries, without any hope of success. Nemura’s adamant—no feathers until after the event. They’ll be locked up until then.
“Hm.” She pastes on a plastic smile that Keigo wants to smack off her pretty pink face. One of her four hands smooths over his back, where only a few downy feathers still stick out. These are too new to remove. She tugs on one and he clenches his teeth to smother the hiss of pain. “Not this time, little bird. Gotta keep you under wraps.”
“You said it was a small party.”
“And it is.” She hums, happy again. “It won’t hurt you to trim up.”
Trim up is what she calls plucking all his feathers, shoving his talons in a pair of gloves, and hiding his eyes behind sunglasses. She’d tried once to make him wear colored contacts–the gold is too distinctive and heteromorph, of course–but his nictitating membrane had not reacted well. The third time the lens popped out on its own, she decided having shedding eyes was a worse problem than a quirk based sensitivity to light, which is the lie he’s supposed to tell anyone who asks why he’s wearing sunglasses inside.
##
Endeavor appears in front of the safehouse the HPSC had repurposed for the night to pick up Keigo at exactly 8 pm. He’s dressed in a black suit—though his face is still on fire. Keigo tries not to imagine how he’s supposed to work around that later. Maybe he can get away with avoiding it all together, though despite all the movies and books, most clients do want to be kissed. Can’t exactly have a facsimile of affection without it.
Of course, most people also want to believe they’re the one exception, the one he liked enough to kiss them anyway. A trick he’d plucked from his hat more than once when a client holds out on being seduced. Everyone is weak to a little romance.
Endeavor eyes him as he purposefully shifts to show off the gold and red shining in the black of his top. His downy feathers feel like they’re slicing through his back, but its almost worth it when Endeavor’s gaze trails down his narrow waist and hips. The tailoring shows off the work he and the HPSC have put into his body. If nothing else, he shouldn’t have any problems dragging the Number Two into bed tonight.
“Ready to go, big guy?” Keigo flashes his widest, most charming smile.
Endeavor grunts. “Don’t call me that.”
“Right.” Keigo carefully avoids touching Endeavor. Yet. The big, broody types always want to take the lead. Especially when they’re not comfortable indulging in this kind of service. Keigo doesn’t speak with the other pictures in the binder—it’s heavily discouraged for him to even know they exist. Even still, Endeavor’s pink cheeks and clenched fists clearly signal he’s never done this before.
“So, did you pick me out yourself, hot stuff?” He prods the conversation forward a smidge, reminding Endeavor who holds the power in their set up. Endeavor initiated this, chose this. Keigo is here because Endeavor picked him out. It’s enough for the hero to look at him, at least. “What caught your eye?”
“You’re short.” Endeavor looks down at him. He’s not wrong. Keigo barely reaches the center of Endeavor’s chest. “You were the only one who looked normal.”
Keigo laughs. Maybe he should be surprised, but Endeavor’s not the first customer to choose him because he didn’t bother making a coquettish face. Nemura calls it down home charm, which he hates. His picture in the binder looks safe. Clueless.
“Glad to be a short king, then.” Keigo winks. Endeavor ignores him.
And that’s basically how it goes for the entire party. For whatever reason, Endeavor—number two hero, not hideous to look at—bought a date for a party with his peers. Maybe it’s the guarantee—Keigo can’t exactly go off and rat him out to anyone if he’s got a weird dick or is bad in bed. Or maybe Enji Todoroki is just an asshole who can’t get anyone else to agree to go with him.
Endeavor’s shitty manners are literally newsworthy. He’s rude to reporters, screams more than he doesn’t, and his collateral damage rates are twice as high as the next nearest hero. In real life, he’s not much different. He doesn’t yell, but he also doesn’t talk. He doesn’t make small talk, doesn’t seem to be friendly with others, doesn’t really bother with anyone else. Keigo almost thinks he might have been paid just to hold conversations for him.
“Hey,” Endeavor says, for the fifth time this night. “Take this. Please.”
Keigo picks up (another) champagne flute and places it on the table beside him. He quit drinking them a while ago. Eventually Endeavor will hold his hand out and instead of flagging down another drink, Keigo will just hand him this one. Many of the heroes and businessmen, including his “date”, are several drinks down. Everyone at the party is loose-lipped and affectionate, with each other and occasionally with Keigo. He wishes he had his feathers. No doubt a metric fuck ton of information slips between tongues here. He will have to tell the HPSC how much they’re missing out on by not sending him with his tools to events like this.
A long haired, blonde man with a pair of sunglasses sees his yellow glasses and salutes him. “Hey, man, me too! What’re you wearing ‘em for?”
His whisper hisses across several seats, loud enough to hear over the music and conversation, and Keigo laughs. “Quirk related, buddy.”
“Pssh.” The man waves him off, rubbing his thumb over the little mustache he’s sporting. “They’re good for migraines, too. I get a wicked pain riiiight here.”
The man points to his temple. His partner pulls him back with a heavy sigh, hands rubbing through his hair. “Don’t think the glasses will be helping with this one. You’ve drank enough to fill up both hollow legs.”
“And you can feel up my third one, hmmm?”
Keigo snorts, spilling a bit of his water. It’s part show and part surprise as the darker haired man–Keigo recognizes him from interviews his mom’s watched as Eraserhead–drags the blonde’s face against his shoulder to shut him up. Eraserhead.
“You’ll have to forgive him.” Eraserhead sighs, running his hands through his partner’s hair. “Mic gets a little mouthy when he drinks.”
“Hey,” Keigo manages to keep the starstruck awe from his voice. “Whatever keeps things fun, yeah?”
Eraserhead only sighs, moving the champagne glass further from Mic’s hands. “We passed by fun a few drinks ago. We’re lucky if he remembers this tomorrow.”
Keigo laughs again at that, taking a glance to his own burden of the night. Endeavor still sits prim and proper at the table, glaring at everything like if he stares at it hard enough he can explode it with his mind. Maybe he can. Keigo allows himself a moment to be concerned.
“Your hands are full, too.” Eraserhead jerks his head towards Endeavor, as if Endeavor may sink against the table in the drunken haze Mic is in any moment now. “I haven’t seen him like this in months.”
Keigo quirks a brow, giving Endeavor another look. His cheeks are red, his glare determinedly pointed at a single spot on the table. Oh, Keigo keeps his laugh internal, but based on the snort beside him, Eraserhead noticed. “Never seen someone do it like that before.”
Eraserhead shakes his head, taking a sip of his own drink. “You get all sorts here. How’d you two meet?”
“Oh, you know. Through work.” Vague, dodgy. Most heroes will drop it, and Eraserhead proves no less considerate. Keigo is just glad he got to have at least one good conversation through the night.
Not that he can take Endeavor’s silence as a personal slight. The man has barely done more than glower at anyone the entire time they’ve been here. Whenever he looks at Keigo he makes a guilty sort of grimace and downs another drink. By the time his appearance has been well noted and Keigo has gathered enough secrets to at least give the HPSC a few more strings to pluck if they need heroes to behave, the alcohol has softened Endeavor to the point he allows Keigo to weave their arms together.
They still aren’t comfortable, but Keigo notices how Endeavor leans into him, hot enough that sweat drips between Keigo’s shoulder blades. He can tell by the way the hero leers at him from the corner of his eye that Enji remembers the extra perks he’d paid for. Not like the heroes who indulge in this offer from the HPSC aren’t aware of what kind of extra companionship they’re requesting. He’s never seen one even hesitate to take it, either. Heroes are used to getting what they want. Keigo has learned intimately how demanding heroes can be when they feel like they’re owed.
“You know, big guy.” Keigo tilts Endeavor against the car, leaning his body weight into the space between the big man’s thighs. Sure, he’d love to go home and sleep off the little bit of champagne and the many, many, fancy sandwiches he’d eaten. But he has a fucking job to do, and he’s good at it. No point in backing out now. “I’m surprised you brought a car. I thought you’d fly in and swoop me off my feet.”
“Everyone would have noticed that.” Endeavor grumbles, but his hands rest against Keigo’s hips. “Don’t be stupid.”
Keigo hides the irritated twitch of his mouth against Endeavor’s suit. “Haha, right. Silly me.”
“Let’s go.” Endeavor’s hands tighten on him, just barely, and Keigo flashes another smile, sliding into the driver’s seat.
“You know, I’m several drinks safer than you. Let’s avoid those newspapers a little longer, yeah?” Keigo pats the passenger seat, surprised he’s even gotten this far. Sure, no one would let Endeavor drive like this, but Keigo’s never driven a car this fancy. He doesn’t know what kind it is—just that it’s black and sleek and the seats are leather and everything is clean. “Let’s get you home.”
And Enji Todoroki, number two hero, useless man, gets into his own passenger seat and directs Keigo to his home, leaning against the dashboard like he may roll right off to sleep any moment now. When they pull into the mile long driveway for his insane estate, Keigo has to flip up the sunglasses so he can see the top of the gate parting to let them in.
“Park wherever you want,” Endeavor sighs, rubbing his temples. “Not like the boys won’t complain about it wherever it is.”
It must mean the car. Keigo very carefully does not ask about the boys he mentioned. Everyone knows Enji has kids. Keigo doesn’t need information on the children. The ex-wife, however, is one of the top items on his list. Where is she? What happened to her?
And why doesn’t Enji allow anyone into his expensive estate? Not just journalists, which are to be expected. According to the records, none of the kids have ever had a friend over. Endeavor’s never held a celebration here. Most curious of all—the ex-wife has never been seen on or off property. Keigo is the first outside person to get a wing in. This, certainly, is to do with Endeavor’s trust in the HPSC.
Keigo ignores the flutter of nausea in his stomach. He knows its not anything special about him. He gets into all sorts of places no one else is supposed to. He calls it the fork effect. A fork may not belong in most rooms in the house, but everyone uses a fork at some point in most rooms. A fork is just a tool. And tools could be anywhere and not arouse suspicion. If someone finds a fork in the bathroom they go hm, weird, and sometimes they’ll take it back to the kitchen.
A tool. Not human, not important. He’s been invisible most of his life. At least now its useful.
“Nice place,” Keigo traces a fingertip against a curio cabinet in the entryway. The home smells expensive. Sandalwood, overwhelming in the entrance, and an underlying winter scent. Like fresh snow and sharp cold. Not what he expects from a fire hero. Everything is strangely devoid of volcanic rock and garish red. “Pretty traditional, yeah?”
“This estate has been in my family for generations.” Endeavor huffs, narrowing his eyes at an open sliding door. He shuts it with force, but not without checking outside. He doesn’t seem worried about burglars. His movements are more irritated than frightened. Not that Keigo expects much to frighten a hero like Endeavor. More likely, one of his kids left a door open and Enji’s having the typical dad reaction.
Keigo can just imagine Enji glaring down at his son and saying something like “Were you raised in a barn?” The thought makes him laugh.
Well cared for tatami floors cover each room. Paper paneled doors and windows separate the living area from the rest of the house. None of the panels are punctured or patched and the tatamis are clearly freshly brushed and clipped. All the paint is bright, not worn at all. The minimalist décor would be worrisome to Keigo if he hadn’t been in many older homes before. Somewhere all the junk the Todoroki’s have collected over the years is shoved into an old room or attic and forgotten. Keigo slips one of his poor down feathers free and lets it explore while he entertains the oversized man ahead of him.
“Oh, big guy,” Keigo lures the hero away from the open windows, allowing Endeavor’s angles and expressions to lead him towards he bedroom. “Wanna see me in my wings?”
Endeavor’s eyebrows shoot up into the deep red of his hair. He doesn’t bother to wait for an answer. The haze over Endeavor’s expression is answer enough. A few seconds later and his scarlet feathers suspend themselves in through the room, wiggling in under windows and doors, lifting Hawks so he hovers over Endeavor like some kind of sinful angel, and Keigo allows his hands to slip under the hero’s black suit.
The theatrics achieves what Keigo’s usual methods wouldn’t with a hero this accustomed to being special. Endeavor stares up ant him, enraptured, and from there the rest of Keigo’s job is easy.
To his credit, Endeavor does seem to actually enjoy himself. Or at least, the big man tires himself out. Keigo puts in the expected amount of effort for a man who is surprisingly wobbly and far too inebriated to be doing well, before hitting that sensitive sweet spot at the bottom of the neck that always seems to catch people off guard. They never remember it in the morning, either. Not when they’re like this. Endeavor slips into sleep, sprawled over his gigantic bed.
He deploys his feathers as he yanks his pants back on. The single downy he’d let go earlier buzzes at the back of his head in a silent signal of treasures hidden deeper inside the house.
He slides past a few bedrooms, careful not to touch the walls. Socked feet slip through the shadowed hallways as quiet as he can manage. Endeavor has no expectation that Keigo will be sticking around in the morning. His absence won’t seem out of place.
His feathers tell him there’s three others in the house—two boys and a girl. Only the girl is awake, scribbling something in a book he’s not interested in. These are the Todoroki children, and the only real surprise here is that there’s one extra. The oldest is never here, the youngest is also never here but always in school, and the middle two almost never leave. Except when Natsuo has to go to school, and then he was also never here. This happens to be winter break, so school is out and the youngest’s high school officially kicked everyone out for safety concerns.
He plants a few feathers in the rooms just to keep an eye on things and listen for any unlikely secrets dropped while sleep talking. Besides, if any of them decide to go out for a midnight snack, it’ll be good to know before they catch him ruffling through their valuables.
The downy feather found a moderately sized storage closet, stacked with neatly organized boxes covered in an inch of dust. His feather quickly reattaches itself to his back, nestling into the base of his wings.
He ignores any boxes with tops askew or any moved too close to the front. Anything likely to have been look at recently would show tampering too obviously. The dust is the biggest problem—touching too much could mean leaving behind fingerprints on the cardboard. He could just wipe down the dust afterward, but he’d rather leave the boxes untouched as much as possible. The number one rule of any thief, as he’d heard his father blabber on and on about before he’d died in a robbery gone bad when Keigo was a teen, is to leave no trace.
Keigo always found it funny that this is also the number one rule for camping, which his father did plenty of while he was on the run. Maybe he got his wires crossed somewhere between the bottles of booze and the nonstop blows to the head. Takami was a thief, but he wasn’t exactly a great one. All the heroes wouldn’t have known his name if he was.
He scoops a handful of bubble-wrapped trinkets, cutting through ties with his talons to ensure the baubles—oh, netsuke and old too—are worth the trouble. His pockets aren’t deep but he doesn’t need them to be. He’s learned how little he can take and make a profit, and with a house as traditional as this one, he expects it to be full of forgotten antiques.
He slips a few of the netsuke into his wings, allowing the feathers to tuck them away invisibly against his back. There are pictures back here, too. Pictures of a family: four kids and a woman with her arms wrapped around them. It’s stacked against the wall with others like it, all of them featuring the woman prominently. A ghostly smile stretches across her face, though none of the children manage the expression. Only the littlest seems to bother trying, though only for a few of the pictures.
He pulls his wings to look for other clues—if he can find some sign of what fell apart in Endeavor’s family, maybe the HPSC will stop freaking out about how to handle him as the number one. All Might had never had a family man image, had only ever been a singular support beam for society. Endeavor’s desperation for his son’s success had been no secret, but everything else about their relationship—about all of Endeavor’s relationships—had been.
He continues shoving antique heirlooms—delicately carved ivory netsukes, sectioned and embossed wooden inros, porcelain combs and hair spines—into his wings and even a few in his pockets. The cut in the box won’t be noticed for ages, and by then Endeavor will have forgotten he was here. If he even remembers what was in this box to begin with. Nothing is labelled.
He’s just started to slice through the side of another box when he hears the sliding door open. A curse, the obvious sound of stumbling, and then quiet.
He looks back at his wings—the trinkets are mostly hidden, but maybe it’d be best to send the feathers off to hide until whoever stumbled in stumbles back out. He’s just sent them off to hide in the corner when the light to the storage closet flicks on.
“You gotta be the bravest designated driver my dad’s ever had.”
Keigo hadn’t even heard him approaching. He’d thought he’d still be in the living room. How’d he even know Keigo was in here?
“Uh…”
“You got any reason to be cutting open our old boxes?”
Keigo’s wings—tiny bits of fluff since his occupied feathers are hiding—shiver at the sound of the stranger’s voice. It’s low and rough, like he just woke up instead of just got in. The man is tall and gangly, striped with lilac scars and threaded over with silver seams that catch the light. Keigo’s eyes keep zooming in on them, bird instincts wanting to pick at the silver.
“Uh.” Surprise has his mind dragging, tripping over nothing. “I was curious about the number two hero?”
“That’s a lot of curiosity sticking out from your pockets.” The man grins and all the silver thread on his cheeks sparkles. “Where you planning on selling it?”
“I’m not—”
“You’re right, probably best I don’t know.” He shrugs. “Don’t worry, I don’t give a shit. Please, take what you want. In fact, I know where the high dollar items are. Wanna see?”
“You’re offering… to show me better stuff to steal?” Keigo’s brow furrows, but the man seems sincere. He keeps snickering, like this is the most hilarious thing he’s seen all year. “Why?”
“My dad is the biggest piece of shit I know.” He shrugs. “Besides, you’re searching through old dusty boxes. Doesn’t look like you’re trying to take anything that could cause any damage.”
“I’m still stealing from you.”
“He’s rich as shit. He’s already put in his will that none of his shit goes to his kids unless we meet some literally impossible standards. You’re not stealing anything from me.”
“But your dad—”
“You’re a weird one, aintcha?” The man steps closer, placing an impossibly warm hand against Keigo’s back. “Never met a thief that would argue he should be in more trouble. You sure you’re cut out for this?”
“Runs in the family,” Keigo flashes a smile, reminding himself to pull his act together. If he doesn’t want the HPSC yanking him from all his contracts after this, he better salvage this interaction. “You really wanna show me better stuff to steal? From your dad?”
“Oh, I really do.” The man finally leads him from the room. He glances behind him and shrugs, flipping the light off. “In fact, I got the perfect shit.”
The perfect shit turns out to be a room filled with enough kimonos, silks, accessories, beauty products, jewelry and even an entire corner of expensive paints and canvases that it could be a wedding dowry ten times over. Keigo has never seen this much money in one room. He runs his hands over one of the kimonos set up on a dress form, careful to just barely touch it. The dark blue outfit glitters with silver, a pattern of rindou and blackbirds climbing up the sleeves.
“This is… what is all this?” Keigo is certain that Endeavor’s ex is truly an ex. Basically the only thing the HPSC knows about her is that they divorced and Endeavor’s behavior turned for the worse. Which is saying a lot, since he already wasn’t doing great in that department. If he had some kind of fiancé or girlfriend, he wouldn’t have needed Keigo.
“Think of them like bribes. When Enji doesn’t get what he wants, he tries to bully his way through. When that doesn’t work, he tries to buy it. We’re still waiting to see what the next step is.”
“We?”
“Aren’t you full of questions?”
Keigo shrugs. “Who can blame me?”
He doesn’t get distracted by the deep laugh that rumbles from the man’s chest, or the way his pale fingers push back his white hair and show off his ember-bright blue eyes. Fuck, Keigo hasn’t felt attraction to anyone in ages. His knees feel a little weak. “Wanna try one on? You can take your favorite and get outta here. I won’t even tell anyone.”
He badly wants the one under his hand now. Sure, they’re all women’s kimonos, but he’s never really given much of a shit about that. Not like he’s really going to wear it, anyway. It’ll just get passed off to his contacts and sold somewhere else. He really shouldn’t be doing this at all. The absurdity of the man beside him and the night itself must be scrambling his brain.
“You’re part of this now,” Keigo says. “Conspiracy to commit a crime or something. What’s your name?”
The man looks at him with narrowed eyes for several seconds as he sorts through the other kimonos. He finds one, black with silver birds and grey smoke over the bottom, made of a cool, smooth silk. There are dozens of options, each one costing no less than thousands.
“Touya.” The man leans forward and Keigo can smell fire, can feel heat emanating from his skin. “Eldest Todoroki. Yes, he has more than one.”
“Oh,” Keigo grins and lifts the black kimono until it acts as a screen between them. “I know that. You, Fuyumi, um. A middle son? And, of course, Shouto Todoroki.”
He didn’t forget Natsuo’s name, but most people would have. A quirkless son going into medicine doesn’t get much attention from anyone. Keigo figures that’s probably on purpose.
Touya’s infamous. A Shouto prototype who burned out, died, and came back to haunt the Todoroki family months after his funeral. They hadn’t been able to hide from it—the funeral had been extremely public, and then Enji had been forced to announce his son was alive on television. Keigo remembers it well. It had taken ages to trickle down to his family, stuck and cut off from society as they were in their trash den. His father had returned with all the magazines his mom liked so much and there had been the boy’s face on the cover, eyes glinting angrily like he still wanted to burn down the world.
Keigo had read that story many times. He read all the magazines his mom hoarded. There wasn’t anything else to do. But that story stuck out to him. It’s not every day a kid dies and comes back. When his father had died just a year later, Keigo remembered that story and dragged his mom to a different safehouse as fast as possible. He didn’t stop looking over his shoulder until he got picked up by the HPSC when he was 16.
“I’ve never worn one of these.” Keigo shrugs off his shirt. Sure, it’s going to make things fit a little awkward, but he’s not taking his pants off for this. “Do you know how to do… all this?”
Touya does know how to do all this. He hands Keigo a white underlayer, helps him arrange it so it’ll sit right under all the layers to come. The black silk slides over his shoulder, cool to the touch and contrasting sharply with the heat on his skin wherever Touya touches. The flutter of his downy feathers under the clothing hurts, just a bit. Not enough to distract him from how ridiculous this is.
“Why are you letting me try this on?”
“Please, you were practically green staring at the other one.” Touya shrugs. “Besides, if you’re gonna take it, might as well take one you like.”
“Not like I’m keeping it…” Still, Touya ties the koshi himo belt once everything is wrapped. The kimono is heavy and thick, obviously well crafted with quality materials and Keigo doesn’t think he’s ever had this much money on his body ever.
“So, you gonna tell me your name?” Touya’s breath ghosts over his ear while he adjusts the front and reaches behind him to tug against the back. The back of Keigo’s neck is warm even as its exposed. “Rules of the game, right?”
“Game?” His head spins—proximity, the situation, the danger of what they’re doing, all of it makes him feel like he’s been drinking buckets of champagne. “I’m not playing a game.”
“Hm,” Touya grins and he’s so close. Why is he so close still? “Just ‘cause you’re losing doesn’t mean you aren’t playing.”
“Keigo.” Keigo takes a step back so he can breathe. “My name’s Keigo.”
“Nice to meet you, Keigo.”
He blames Touya flustering him for the fact he doesn’t hear the footsteps coming up the hall. He’s too concentrated on the heat of Touya’s body seeping into him as he adjusts the obi to pay attention to anything else. And his feathers are practically useless where they’re hiding. As far as why Touya doesn’t hear anything—that he can’t explain.
“What are you doing here?”
Keigo’s breath stops, but his heart beats with fury in his chest. “Uh—”
“Nice to see you met my friend Keigo here,” Touya winks before turning around. “Imagine my surprise when I stumble in from a party and see my college buddy trying to sneak away after dropping off my drunk dad.”