A couple nervous laughs scatter. Someone clears his throat. I see a cook peeking from the door.
The sake hits the table and I don’t even wait for the waiter to set it right. I grab the bottle, pour until the cup floods over, then drink straight from it. The burn hits my throat good.
I lean back, light a cig and blow smoke straight toward Naoya-san’s table.
“So this is where the salarymen crawl after working like dogs, huh? No wonder you all look so fucking miserable. Shit, you people don’t evendrinkright.”
The woman next to Naoya-san flinches when I lock eyes on her.
“You—yeah, you, sweetheart—what’s the fun part of your job? Filing papers or sucking your boss’s dick?”
Someone chokes. The old bastard at the end of the table pretends he didn’t hear me. I grin wider and lean forward, elbows on the table.
“No? None of you talk now? What, afraid I’ll bite?”
Naoya-san doesn’t move. He keeps that dead corporate face like he’s not two seconds from grinding his teeth to dust. His jaw’s tight as hell. That vein in his neck—yeah, I see it.
Looks fucking hot.
I light another cigarette even though the first one’s still burning in the tray. My hands itch. I want him to look at me.
But he doesn’t.
So I keep pushing.
“Oi,Takahashi-sensei,” I call, dragging his name. “Didn’t know you hung out with suchlivelypeople. Thought you’d be home polishing your ropes or something. Do ropes need polishing, sensei? But I guess, after all that cum, huh?”
A few heads turn to him, and he finally stops pretending not to hear me. Looks up slowly, eyes cold as fuck even with that calm, disciplined mask he puts on. Fucking perfect. It makes me want to rip it apart.
I smirk, pour another drink.
“What? No hello? You ignoring me now? That’s not polite.”
He exhales once, almost a sigh, and turns his face away. Keeps talking to the guy next to him like I’m not even here.
That pisses me off more than if he’d yelled.
Heat crawls up my neck. I toss the cigarette into my sake cup and watch the flame go up.
“Guess I forgot my manners too. Maybe you should come teach me some.”
The girl tries to whisper something to him again, nervous. He gives her that fake smile.
And that’s it. That’s fucking enough.
I stand, drag the chair back, wood screaming against the floor. “You’re all boring as shit.”
Naoya-san stands the same second I take a step. Straight spine, tight jaw, eyes cutting through me—I don’t think I’ve ever seen him this pissed. The whole table goes dead quiet. The girl beside him freezes, hand stuck halfway to her glass. Everyone looks like they’re watching a damn car crash they can’t stop.
“You’re being loud,” Naoya-san says, voice even. “Disruptive. And entirely too restless, behaving like an untamed dog.”
My first thought is to laugh. My second is to break something. But the way his mouth shapes the wordsuntamed dog—fuck, it hits somewhere it shouldn’t. My fingers twitch toward my tanto. My dick twitches too. My brain’s trying to decide which side wins.
I open my mouth anyway, ready to bite back, but he cuts me off immediately.
“I didn’t allow you to speak.”
The words land like a fucking punch to the teeth. I don’t even process it before my whole body goes wired, every vein trying to crawl out.No onetalks to me like that. Not the guys, not the underlings, not even Kobayashi-san—and the boss could only get away with it because I respect him enough for that.
