The Apartment

[astrangestorm]

Title: The Apartment
Rating: R
Characters/Pairings: Sakurai Sho/Matsumoto Jun
Summary: For the last two years, Sho’s seniors in the company had used a spare key to his apartment so they could be with their lovers in privacy. He was tired of hating himself for letting them walk all over him, but he was mostly tired of it, he realized, because of Jun.
Notes/Warnings: Another offering in what has somehow become one of my favorite AU genres for Sakumoto, the somewhat dark office AU LOL. This exists because I watched the movie The Apartment with Jack Lemmon and Shirley MacLaine and felt like stealing the basic premise. Drama and angst awaits, go figure. Implied sexual situations, adultery, bad language too. Only the best for you Sakumoto fans!



There were dirty dishes in the sink when Sakurai Sho got home, and he really hated when they did that. It was bad enough to come home to rumpled sheets, misplaced couch cushions, and unfamiliar strands of hair in his bathroom. But did they have to eat dinner too?

Of course he could have said no a long time ago. He could have called them all out on their bullshit, could have reclaimed his spare key and put a stop to it. It would have been as good as quitting though, which was probably why he still hadn’t done it. For Sho, it wasn’t enough that he worked twelve hours a day. It wasn’t enough that he gave up holidays, took work home with him, covered for other people when they were out. He was thirty-two and still stuck in cubicle hell, and for what?

Sometimes he wished that he worked at a decent firm, a company he was proud of, a company he’d brag about. Instead his company was fourth in market share for the region, cut corners on basic things, worked their employees to death (and if not, then illness probably), and ran on gossip. Grown men, grown women, it didn’t matter. Sunrise Electronics was no better than a junior high school in terms of bullying and blackmail.

It was blackmail that had gotten Sho into his current mess, and blackmail that was keeping him there. He was in human resources, doing a job he could easily have done at any other big firm in Tokyo. But in a supreme moment of stupidity at an office party, he’d slipped. He was surrounded by old school types who called themselves “family men,” with dutiful wives and fat children at home. Sho, upon his hiring, had probably been expected to develop in the same way. Instead he had let his guard down around one of those family men, his senpai in the department, and had drunkenly confessed that he preferred men and not women.

A good senpai would have completely ignored what Sho had said, would have blamed it on alcohol and would have never mentioned it again. But since he was a Sunrise Electronics senpai, he’d sold Sho out. The human resources department was the epicenter of gossip at headquarters because they had everyone’s personnel files and few scruples. Somehow Sho’s senpai had taken Sho’s confession and turned it into currency. And it had led Sho to a hush-hush meeting with Takaoka-san, a man in his mid-50s who was fairly high up in product development.

Takaoka-san had a wife and four children. Takaoka-san also had a firm interest in young men, so long as they were younger than 25. He was a slimy creep, but because Sho didn’t want to be laughed out of his job and potentially blacklisted at other companies, he decided to hear Takaoka-san out. Apparently there were a handful of men like Takaoka-san at Sunrise, high up in the company, and “just like you, Sakurai-kun.” Sho wanted to believe he was nothing like them. The only thing they had in common was a preference.

“Men like us,” Takaoka-san had explained it, “men like us can’t be seen going to hotels. Especially not with other men. It’s unthinkable.”

For years, they’d apparently played a risky game, waiting for the wife to be out of town or using apartments that hadn’t been rented because someone knew someone in the real estate market. But now here was an opportunity. Here was a young up-and-coming member of the HR team, single and unattached, with an apartment five minutes’ walk from the Metro. A young up-and-coming member of the HR team who was also hiding the truth about himself. Clearly such a person would understand and be amenable to the situation. (Or else, had been the implication.)

And from that point on, for the last two years, Sho’s seniors in the company had used a spare key to Sho’s apartment so they could fuck their lovers in privacy. After all, if it was assumed you lived there (you had a key), who would question it? Two men entering a hotel? A problem. Two men entering an apartment building? Friends or flatmates maybe. Relatives. And neighbors in Tokyo are much quicker to look the other way, to leave the person next door alone.

Sho had been promised a promotion and hefty raise when the deal had initially been struck, but it was two years now and still no promotion. Still a cubicle in the middle of the floor, still one or two nights a week that he spent in a manga cafe or at the office itself, brushing his teeth and changing his tie in the men’s room on the 28th floor. His apartment itself had improved, if only to impress. The men involved had all chipped in together to upgrade Sho’s TV, the appliances. There was art on the walls, even a king-size bed. So Sho had no reason to complain, did he? He spent the majority of his time enjoying the gifts that had been given to him. Those gifts along with the dishes in the sink, sheets smelling of sweat and come, empty beer cans, and ashtrays full of cigarette butts.

That night, coming home to find the dishes hadn’t even been rinsed off, just unceremoniously dumped in the sink still half-covered in food, made him want to scream. He’d wanted to scream for so long, for so damn long. But he hadn’t because maybe this would be the year he’d be upgraded into an office, would get a salary bump, could cut back on his hours and become a human being again instead of a drone. It was that hope that had sustained him, but he was sick and tired of being so obedient, so patient. So easily cowed by those more powerful than him. He was tired of hating himself for letting them walk all over him, for letting something as uninteresting as what gender he preferred to fuck define his work life as much as his personal life.

But he was mostly tired of it, he realized, because of Jun.

-

Matsumoto Jun was a nobody in sales. According to his personnel file (because of course Sho was as shitty as anyone else in his department and looked at people’s files), he was thirty, unmarried, had graduated from a third-rate university. He’d worked for a family business the first few years out of school before getting hired at Sunrise. He was in B2B, tasked with selling Sunrise calculators and printers and office shit to small business owners. The selling point, Sho imagined, was price. Sunrise was always tanking in the market compared to the big players, so they pitched low offers to small companies who couldn’t afford to buy anything decent. Selling shitty stuff to people had to be as fulfilling as Sho’s job of dealing with employee benefits and insurance paperwork.

So Matsumoto was a nobody, but he was a particularly gorgeous nobody and had earned a reputation in HR among the single women (and some of the not-so-single women). His file had circulated when he’d first gotten hired along with a Xerox copy of the photo from his company ID. If the other employees at Sunrise knew just how easy it was for their personal information to get around, they’d jump ship in seconds. Some of Matsumoto-san’s “fans” had tried to find a way to meet him. To figure out when he got in the elevator in the morning, to catch up to him in the cafeteria, to slip a note to him via an equally unscrupulous friend in the mail room.

It was an ongoing mystery among the women in HR. How was Matsumoto Jun not married? Or seeing someone? Someone like him with perfect hair, a big pretty smile, shoulders that properly filled out a suit jacket, how was this possible? Of course it wasn’t obvious to the women because they had convinced themselves that Matsumoto was single only because he hadn’t met them yet. But Sho had seen him before, just once, at a bar in Ni-chome. Sho had only been there because a friend from college had dragged him there, a friend who was way more out than Sho would ever be comfortable with. And Matsumoto Jun, oblivious to Sho’s existence, had been there chatting with the bartender like they were old friends. He’d been comfortable there, at home in a Ni-chome gay bar.

So Sho had unexpectedly become a Matsumoto “fan,” no better than any of the women who fawned over him, a complete stranger from another department. When he was at the office late, especially on the nights when his apartment, his home, was occupied, he sometimes found himself pulling Matsumoto’s file, clicking through it to learn whatever he could. Performance reviews, his sales record. His contact information - home address, emergency contact (Matsumoto Narumi, mother). He convinced himself on those late nights, sipping some shitty coffee, that maybe Matsumoto Jun would be interested in him too. That maybe he would understand why Sho was stuck in this horrible limbo, angry and afraid and alone.

But then he’d let reason sink in. Matsumoto Jun would never give a shit about him, and even if he did, Sho had repeatedly violated his privacy without him knowing. Matsumoto deserved better than a stalker who let colleagues have sex with strangers in his own apartment and never complained.

There’d been a new hire though a month earlier, a few cubicles away, a woman who had immediately found herself in the Matsumoto clique, ramping up the gossip all over again. Sho had wanted to pop up from his chair, bang on the cubicle wall, and tell them how futile their quest to fuck him would be, but it had only stirred him up more. It was the height of summer and lust was in the air. His senpai used the apartment more often in the summer, ducking out of the muggy heat or the hard rain and into Sho’s space, dirtying it and leaving Sho to clean up the mess. And sometimes they gave a really late notice. Sho would be packing up to go home and he’d get a message on his phone to stay out that night.

The night with the dishes coincided with a heavy rainfall, Sho getting home on Friday night at 3 AM, having taken the Metro to a hotel in the neighborhood and waking when his senpai from sales called to say he had left for the night. So it was 3 AM, dirty dishes in the sink, and two used condoms in his bathroom trash, when Sho hit rock bottom.

He cried, furious with himself for what his life was. He’d gone to university with ambitious goals, and he’d achieved none of them, and only because he’d gotten drunk and spoken to the wrong person one night. His life, the life he’d planned down to the day so many years back, was now just a jumble. Nothing but hard work and a fancy TV bought to hush him up.

By some twist of fate, the next day Sho’s senpai, the asshole who’d ratted Sho out for no reason, informed him that he’d been promoted to Benefits Lead, a promotion probably owed to someone else, that he’d have the same amount of work but would have the office he’d always wanted, the prestige that came with it, as well as a pay bump.

“Looks like your fellow queers have finally come through for you,” was what Sho’s senpai whispered coldly, showing Sho to his new office that was equal in size and just down the hall from him.

Sho sat there wondering if he was actually happy about it, some women from office services buzzing around him as they got him set up with a new workstation and congratulated him on his success. Like Matsumoto, Sho knew that he was another curiosity among the women. With his promotion, he was even more of a “get” than before. His new salary, an open secret, would bring the Sakurai fans out of the woodwork and maybe even win some over from Team Matsumoto.

Takaoka-san found him the next day, letting Sho know without even having to say it that the arrangement would continue. “A nice view from here,” Takaoka-san said, looking out the window of Sho’s new office. “I sure didn’t have a view like this when I was thirty-two.”

-

The guy from sales, Tadokoro-san, was actually the most decent human being among the men in the arrangement. Married and with a son in high school, it was Tadokoro-san who was mostly responsible for the upgrade in Sho’s stereo a year back, one of the only perks the arrangement had brought him. There were speakers strategically placed all around Sho’s apartment, and everything just sounded damn good.

He came up to Sho’s new office on a Friday night after 7 PM. “Sho-kun, I’ll be bringing someone by,” Tadokoro said. Of all of them, he at least had the decency to look embarrassed by the whole situation. “I’m sorry for the inconvenience tonight.”

Sho clicked his mouse, opening a series of files he would have preferred to work on the following week. “It’s fine,” he lied. He didn’t even know how many spare keys were floating around. If there was just one and the men talked it out amongst themselves, or if they made duplicates for each person involved. Maybe there was a rock-paper-scissors arrangement. Frankly, Sho didn’t want to know how much he was violating his lease agreement, but there’d never been any complaints from his landlord. They were slobs, but at least they weren’t noisy slobs when they used his place.

“Do you have any food in the house? Anything I could pick up?” Tadokoro continued awkwardly, fingers tapping against the window glass.

“No, thank you for offering.”

Tadokoro didn’t leave, taking a few deep breaths by the window. He was attractive, his hair just graying at the temples, with a strong jaw and an athletic build. None of them had ever asked Sho to participate in the arrangement, and none of them had ever come on to him. Sho wasn’t sure if he was disappointed about that or not. “Sho-kun, you’ve been such a big help. You know that, don’t you?”

“We don’t have to talk about it…” Sho didn’t really need the reminder, nor did he feel like thinking about Tadokoro’s wife and son at home. Where did they think he went? Were they as oblivious as some of the people who worked at Sunrise?

“Well okay,” Tadokoro said, as though he’d wanted to pour his heart out in some dramatic fashion. Now that Sho had an office, was he expected to be a hotel service and a psychiatrist? “We should be done, um, by midnight. I can send you a message…”

“I’m a little busy right now, Tadokoro-san, please do what is most convenient for you.”

The man left without another word, closing Sho’s door after him. Sho leaned back in his chair, rubbing his eyes and trying not to swear out loud. It was almost easier when one of the inconsiderate types let him know his apartment was to be occupied. An impersonal email was sometimes preferable to Tadokoro’s nervous apologies.

He stayed at the office until 10:00, ordering in from his favorite ramen delivery service before heading out. They knew him so well that sometimes they had his order ready and it only took the delivery guy five minutes to get there. Sho ordered a lot of ramen on Friday nights. He dumped the take-out bowl in his trash and locked his office door behind him. The train was busy, salarymen smelling of beer and cigarettes on their way home, young people off to their next adventure for the night. Sho stood near the door, staring out at the blur, the black of night interspersed with lit-up signs and ads for canned coffee and romantic dramas.

He lingered at one of the stand-up bars near the station, drinking in silence and watching some chat show the bar master had on the TV. A woman at the other end of the bar, older than him by a few years and attractive save for a crooked nose, kept trying to get his attention, seeming to want him to chat her up, buy her a beer. He was almost tempted to give it a go, to see if he could get drunk enough to feel up a woman after such a long time. He decided against disappointing her, setting some coins down on the bar top and leaving.

By then it was a quarter to midnight. The last trains would be leaving shortly, so Sho politely took the long way around towards his apartment in hopes that he wouldn’t see Tadokoro-san or his companion rushing for the Metro stop. He loosened his tie. Even this late the air was still a bit stuffy, and he just wanted to get inside and get out of his dress shoes, to peel his sweaty feet out of his socks. He wanted to go home.

Thankfully his phone buzzed at 12:13, just when Sho had walked around his block for the second time. “Thanks Sho-kun,” was all the message said. He made it to his building, taking the elevator up to the fifth floor landing. His was the second to last door in the hall, and he unlocked and pulled it open. Shoes off, socks followed, and Sho tossed his suit jacket into the hall closet. More dishes in the kitchen sink this time, a handful of pots and pans having been used for quite a feast. Some kind of pasta dish, Sho discovered, finding a Tupperware tub of leftovers in his fridge, prominently placed dead center for him to find as an additional thank you.

The rest of the apartment was cleaned up. If they’d used a condom or anything else, they’d taken their trash out with them. Sho only noticed something had been left behind when he was getting ready to get in the tub for a bath. A silver ring with a thick band had been forgotten on the edge of the tub. A man’s size, but from Sho’s guess it wasn’t a wedding band. He almost called Tadokoro, but decided against it. He took his bath, holding the ring between his thumb and forefinger, and was almost tempted to hold it hostage. But then again, Tadokoro or his lover had been kind enough to make extra food for him. Sho was all too easily won over with food.

Instead he set it in an envelope and dropped it off at Tadokoro’s office the following week. “The money I owe you,” Sho said as he handed it over. “From the other day. Thanks again for covering for me.”

Tadokoro caught on, nodding. “Of course, any time.”

-

He thought nothing of it for the next few days until he received a call from Matsumoto Jun in B2B sales. “Hi, I’m trying to figure out how to adjust my vision plan on the HR intranet,” Matsumoto explained. “I was directed to call you.” He had what Sho would describe as a serious voice. There were a lot of back-slappers at Sunrise, people who sounded fake-jovial all the fucking time, as though nothing at all could bother them, like everything was a joke. Matsumoto’s voice was the complete opposite.

Sho swallowed, embarrassed by his pointless crush on the guy, and logged into the HR intranet himself. “Matsumoto Jun-san, then?”

“Yes.”

“We recently upgraded our system, things have gotten moved around. I’m truly sorry for any inconvenience. Do you want me to walk you through it or shall I make the adjustments to your benefits package myself? Any changes go into effect in the next pay period.”

“I want to know how to do it myself in case I want to make further changes some other time.”

Sho suppressed a grin. A hard worker, very earnest, something Sho found repeatedly in all of Matsumoto’s performance reviews. “Of course. Are you logged in to the Benefits home page right now?”

“Actually,” Matsumoto interrupted, sounding a little embarrassed, “could I stop by? I’ve been sitting in this cubicle all day, and I could use a break.”

Sho paled, his hand clenching around the phone receiver. “Sure, I’m on the 28th floor, southeast corner. Sakurai Sho.”

“Thanks, Sakurai-san, I’ll be there shortly if that’s alright?”

“That’s…just, that’s fine, thank you.”

Matsumoto hung up, and Sho let out a deep breath. He was coming. He was coming up to HR (and Sho knew it was ‘up’ because he knew that Matsumoto worked on the 23rd floor). He just hoped the guy’s fan club didn’t fling themselves into his path before he reached Sho’s office.

Sho looked around, making sure there wasn’t anything weird on his desktop or elsewhere. Sho’s office was kind of minimal in design, just his uni degree on the wall and one of the lame pieces of office art that he’d been able to choose from the decorating catalog. It was a harmless enough painting of a red and white striped lighthouse at the end of a sandy beach. Not that Sho had been to a sandy beach in some time. He took out his phone, pointing the camera his way to make sure there was nothing stuck in his teeth from lunch.

Finally there was a knock, and Sho opened the door to find Matsumoto Jun in the flesh, his company laptop tucked under his arm. “I found you,” the man said, his voice a little nervous. Behind him, Sho could see curious heads popped out from behind cubicle walls.

“You found me,” Sho said back, feeling like an idiot as soon as he said it. Aside from his infamous idol-smile ID photo and that one time in Ni-chome, Sho had never seen Matsumoto up close. His suit was a charcoal gray, his lavender tie a pop of color and personality. His hair was different from the ID photo, a tousled dark brown. Sho was halfway to thinking about the guy’s eyelashes before he remembered himself, standing back from the door and gesturing for Matsumoto to have a seat.

“Here, you can set up right here,” Sho mumbled, clearing a space on his desk for Matsumoto to set down his laptop. “Get logged in to the Benefits page and we’ll walk through it.” He was tempted to close the office door, but since this was a five minute help session, something Sho did all the time with the door wide open, he knew he couldn’t do anything differently even if it was Matsumoto.

Sho sat down at his own computer, hoping he wasn’t red in the face or starry-eyed as he pulled up Matsumoto Jun’s personnel file, all his vital stats in case he didn’t have them memorized to enter into the system. Even from behind his laptop screen, Sho could see that the guy was a slow typist of the hunt and peck variety. Slowly Matsumoto got logged in, and then he looked up at Sho expectantly to get started.

He got out of his chair, walked around to stand beside Matsumoto and hopefully not too close. “Okay,” Sho said, “you said you wanted to make changes to your vision plan, so I’ll just need you to click on ‘Plan Change’ there on the left side. It used to say ‘Update Your Plan,’ which I thought made far more sense, but I wasn’t on the team who designed this…”

“Sounds about right,” Matsumoto agreed. “They’ll change everything whether we want it or not. Our team’s intranet portal got completely redesigned last month and they only told us it was happening the day before. Everything’s in a different place now.”

“Okay, and now you’ve got your different options on this page with Medical, Dental, and…”

“There it is,” Matsumoto said, sounding annoyed, moving his finger around on the laptop’s trackpad to click on the Vision tab. And it was then that Sho caught it, the flash of it on Matsumoto Jun’s right hand.

The ring, the silver ring that had been left behind on the edge of Sho’s bathtub.

“Sakurai-san, I think when I was doing my paperwork this year, I checked the wrong box. I’m paying more out of pocket for my contact lenses right now and I don’t…” Matsumoto looked up at him. “Sakurai-san?”

Sho gathered his composure, pointing to Matsumoto’s screen and hoping his voice didn’t crack. “You want this one, the Vision Plus. You’ll pay next to nothing. You’re only allowed one switch on these until the next fiscal year unless it’s a medical coverage change for um, something like pregnancy, a spouse’s pregnancy in your case, uh…”

“Great,” Matsumoto mumbled, turning back to his computer and clicking through to authorize his changes. All Sho could do was stare at his right hand, at the too familiar ring there as his fingers slowly tapped at the keys. Matsumoto Jun had been in Sho’s apartment. Maybe he’d been there multiple times. It was Matsumoto Jun that Tadokoro-san was seeing. Sho tried to focus on breathing in and out, hearing Matsumoto’s fingers tapping around. Matsumoto had been in Sho’s apartment. Matsumoto had been in Sho’s bathtub. Matsumoto had probably been in Sho’s bed.

But what did it matter? Matsumoto had been there with Tadokoro-san. Sho didn’t factor into the equation at all.

“You…once you’ve gotten to the confirmation screen, you…you can just log out. You’ll, um, you’ll get an email or a confirmation by snail mail depending on the uh, the preferences you set up in the system…”

Matsumoto was already closing his laptop and getting to his feet. “I appreciate you taking the time to help. I feel stupid for not figuring it out myself…”

“Don’t…don’t feel stupid,” Sho mumbled, nearly backing into his desk as he stepped back so Matsumoto could get out of the chair. “A lot of people have had the same problem, it’s not stupid.”

“Thank you all the same,” Matsumoto said, inclining his head politely. “I’ll see you around.”

Sho could only stand there, face blank as Matsumoto Jun turned around and walked away.

-

It was bad, it had gotten so bad. Whenever his phone buzzed with a message, whenever his inbox on his work computer lit up with an email, Sho dreaded it now. Because the sender could have been Tadokoro-san, informing Sho that he needed the apartment for the evening. Before it had never mattered. Sho didn’t care who his colleagues were taking there. He didn’t give a shit what they did because two consenting adults could do whatever they wanted. So long as there was no evidence left behind other than maybe a condom in the bottom of the garbage, no jerk-off porn left in the dvd player, none of Sho’s things stolen, he hadn’t cared.

But now he cared and cared too much. He tried to think back to all the times Tadokoro-san had been there. Had it always been with Jun? Had they been seeing each other for two years? Was that how someone from a third-rate university who could barely type got employed here? Or did Tadokoro go through men like tissue? Sho suspected that was the case with people like Takaoka, who aimed younger and younger the older they got, who rewarded some pretty young guy with clothes or cash in exchange for sex with a man old enough to be his father. He almost didn’t know what he wanted more - for Tadokoro and Matsumoto to be a long-term, loyal match or a one-time hookup that had simply ended with Matsumoto leaving his ring behind.

It was hard to take a bath now and not imagine Matsumoto having a soak there, eyes closed and arms resting on the sides of the tub, water droplets dotting his skin. It was hard to sleep in his bed and not imagine Matsumoto there, sucking Tadokoro-san off or the other way around. Did he ever let Tadokoro fuck him or did Tadokoro prefer it another way? Sho could only lie there thinking about it, night after night, wishing he’d been in Tadokoro’s place.

Sho wanted to scratch the itch, to stop dwelling on what he couldn’t have. He contemplated a visit to Ni-chome, calling his friend up and hoping for a connection with someone, a quick fuck or anything to get Matsumoto Jun out of his head. But somehow the thought of sucking off a complete stranger held little appeal for him. He’d been more reckless, less choosy in college, in his twenties. Hell, he’d been with people like Takaoka-san once or twice when he’d been happy to get laid at all. But now here he was, thirty-two, completely alone in a thankless job, pining after someone he’d barely spoken to for ten minutes. What the hell was wrong with him?

August was winding down, a long brutal month going from the frozen tundra that was Sunrise’s air conditioning to the sticky hot Tokyo heat and back again. Takaoka had monopolized the apartment for half the month, ponying up the cash to put Sho in a more decent hotel. He’d been having parties. There’d been too much trash left behind for Takaoka to have been sleeping with just one person. It was odd what money could buy these days, a group of young guys willing to do anything.

It was the 30th, and nobody had sent a message that night. Sho was free to go home. He made it by 8:00 PM, early by his standards, but when he pulled the door open there was a pair of unfamiliar shoes in his genkan and the smell of garlic coming from the kitchen. Sho nearly panicked, fearing he was interrupting and wanting to flee, but he decided to assert himself for once. For two years they’d been doing this, and for two years they had given him proper notice. Whoever was here had crossed the line, and they had to go.

Sho was taking his shoes off when his visitor came from the kitchen. He looked up from unlacing his shoe to find Matsumoto Jun looking at him in confusion. “You…”

“Sakurai Sho, Human Resources,” he said sharply. Was he so forgettable?

“Of course, I’m sorry.” Matsumoto looked ashamed. “I…can I help you? What are you doing here?”

Sho could only laugh bitterly. Is this what they told their lovers? That this was their own place? “This is my fucking apartment. I live here.”

Matsumoto stared at him. “This is Tado…” He stopped himself before revealing too much. “Sakurai-san, what’s going on here?”

Sho got his shoes off, stepped up into the apartment proper and rudely shoved Matsumoto aside so he could get past. It seemed Matsumoto was the cooking culprit, the chef who always left a mess of dishes for Sho to clean. The cutting board was out on the counter, a pot was bubbling on the burner. Matsumoto was panicking, quickly turning it off and fumbling in his pocket for his phone.

“Please, excuse me,” Matsumoto mumbled, stepping around him and heading for the bathroom and closing the door. Sho stood there in the kitchen, angrier than he’d ever been about this stupid fucking arrangement, while Matsumoto presumably called Tadokoro for an explanation. Tadokoro had gone right ahead and given Jun a key to the place without explaining how it all worked, the asshole. Maybe Jun had been planning a surprise for him, which explained why Sho hadn’t been given a heads up.

Matsumoto’s voice, even muffled by the bathroom door, grew louder over the next several minutes, but when he came out, he was quiet. “I’ve been informed that this truly is your apartment, and I’m so sorry for acting inappropriately…”

“Is he coming?” Sho asked, leaning against the counter, watching the spaghetti in the pot probably go bad. Did it go bad when you shut it off early? He never cooked. “Is Tadokoro-san coming? Should I leave?”

“Why should you leave?” Matsumoto muttered, stepping around him to grab the pot and strain the water out into the sink, gathering his half-cooked pasta and dumping it into the garbage, then dumping out his sauce. Sho almost wanted him to stop, to finish cooking so Sho could just eat it himself. He was starving. “Why should you have to leave?”

“Because that’s what I have to do. When you’re here, I’m not. Well, not just you,” Sho explained wearily. “Tadokoro-san, I…I don’t know what he told you, but he’s not the only person who brings people here. There’s other people, at Sunrise…”

Matsumoto was rinsing off the cutting board, shaking with anger or shame or maybe both. “I’m sorry. I’ll clean up and I’ll go. Please forgive the intrusion…”

Sho sighed, somehow willing to forgive him. “Why isn’t Tadokoro-san coming? It sounds like you had plans. I don’t want to get in your way.”

Not that it was any of Sho’s business, but Matsumoto was honest with him. “He’s angry that I’m here. He gave me a key, but didn’t think I’d use it to surprise him. I guess I’m the one who got a nice surprise in the end.”

“I’m sorry about that,” Sho mumbled.

“Just a few minutes and we can forget this,” Matsumoto said, turning off the water and putting his now clean pot and utensils in Sho’s drying rack. “He’s not coming, his in-laws are over, they’re out for dinner. Miscommunication.”

“I’m sorry about your pasta,” Sho said. “I, uh, I had something you made before, the mentaiko fettucine that was left in the refrigerator.”

Matsumoto looked over at him, drying his hands on the towel. His face turned a bit red. “That was for Ken,” he admitted, using Tadokoro-san’s name, “but I think I understand now.”

“It was good,” Sho blurted out. “Even heated up in the microwave, it was really good. You’re a good cook.”

For the first time, he saw a hint of a smile. Nothing like the ID photo, of course, but Sho wasn’t expecting that much. But the smile soon vanished. “I should leave.”

Sho thought it was probably a good idea, but he couldn’t help himself. After all, he had Matsumoto Jun right here. “Do you…do you want to talk about it? If you’re upset, I can listen.”

Matsumoto seemed surprised by this, was clearly having trouble deciding how to respond. It was obvious that he was upset, that he was embarrassed, and that his entire evening had been ruined. If their roles were reversed, Sho would want to sink into oblivion, much less stay in the apartment.

Sho kept rambling on, trying to ease the tension in the room. “I kind of feel bad now. If you were making spaghetti I would have eaten it. If you stay, I can order in. I wasn’t…I didn’t have any plans or anything, you’re not really intruding, I mean to say.”

“You don’t even know me, Sakurai-san.”

That’s not true, he almost said, but was smart enough not to. “You don’t have to stay. Ha, what am I even saying, I’m sorry…”

Sho could see that Matsumoto was even more upset than he initially let on. His dark, serious eyes were almost brimming with tears, and he quickly turned aside to wipe them. “Ah, what the hell. Better than being alone. It’s…” Matsumoto chuckled. “Today’s my birthday, so…”

Sho’s eyes widened. August 30th, something he should have known from all his time creeping around in the guy’s file. No wonder he was upset his plans had fallen through. Tadokoro-san should have been the one treating, Tadokoro-san ought to have done something nice for him. And yet here Jun had been, cooking dinner for someone who wasn’t even going to show.

“Happy birthday, then,” Sho said, pulling open his drawer of takeout menus. “What shall we order? My treat.”

-

Matsumoto didn’t say much, and it had been easiest once the dinner order had been placed and they put in a movie, some gangster shoot-em-up from the 70s that hadn’t initially been part of Sho’s collection but had simply appeared one day. He often wondered if his apartment was also a dumping ground for unwanted things. Tonight Matsumoto Jun was the unwanted thing, hard as it was to believe.

They watched the movie mostly in silence, both of them laughing at some of the oh-so-serious lines spouted by the hero, chuckling at the over-the-top reactions when people were shot. The soba they’d ordered had been great, but Sho suspected that Jun’s spaghetti would have been better.

When the credits rolled, he turned his head to see that Jun had slowly allowed himself to get comfortable, his legs tucked under him and his arms hugging one of the couch’s throw pillows. He looked younger than the thirty-one years he had just turned that day, comfortable and relaxed. Not as uptight as he’d been in the office. He had moles on his face, perfectly placed. One above his upper lip, one on his lip under it. Another even more prominent on his chin. His face was round, and though he had kind of large features, all together they added up to a whole that Sho had been unable to ignore. Seeing him in person, getting to see the real Jun, was just making it all worse. He’d never be able to focus now.

“Does it matter to you?” Sho asked quietly. “That Tadokoro-san is married?”

There was the slightest fracture in Matsumoto’s calm, a slight twitch of his nose. “It bothers me, sure, but it’s mostly unavoidable.” He looked over, raising an eyebrow. “You understand that much, don’t you?”

Sho had a feeling that part of Jun’s call with Tadokoro had come with an explanation that Sho was gay too. Jun would never have stayed if Sho’s own secret hadn’t come out, he was certain of that.

“Yeah I know,” Sho admitted. “It’s never easy.”

“Do you have someone?”

Sho could feel the heat rising in his face, could just imagine how red he was turning. “Not right now, no. Nobody.”

Jun was puzzled. “Ken made it sound like there was this…this whole situation here. With the apartment.”

Sho sunk back into the cushions further. “I’m not part of it. I just let them use the place…I’m a hospitable guy.”

“Bullshit,” Jun said immediately.

Sho turned, seeing that Matsumoto genuinely wanted to understand. And so Sho told him, took him back two years to the office party and his stupid confession, to the blackmail, to Takaoka-san, to the promotion he’d finally received after waiting so long. “And even with the promotion, it seems to only reinforce it. I got what I thought I wanted, you know, the raise and the office. So I have to show my gratitude.”

“Why do you even put up with it? Tell them to find a new place. Why don’t you just to tell them to fuck off? Even Ken would fuck off if you asked him.”

Sho sighed. “And then what would they do to me? Bye bye, office. Bye bye, employment maybe.”

Jun was quiet for a few moments, chewing his lower lip and driving Sho crazy. “Aren’t you in HR? Sue them for harassment.”

Sho rolled his eyes. “And risk them contacting any other employer I have until the end of time, badmouthing me?”

Jun just nodded. “I fucking hate this company.”

“We have that in common.”

They cleaned up the dinner mess, and Jun was growing antsy. Sho doubted that someone as proud as Jun would allow Tadokoro to bring him here again, not now that he knew what was going on. Maybe this was it then.

Sho waited until Jun was lacing up his shoes. “I hope this wasn’t the worst birthday you’ve ever had.”

Jun got to his feet, smiling shyly. “I’ve had better, I’ve had worse.”

“If you want me to yell at Ken-san, I will. He dropped the ball tonight.”

“Good night, Sho-san. Thank you.” He fished a spare key from his pocket and set it down on Sho’s shoe cupboard before opening the door and disappearing into the night. Sho considered chasing after him, shoving the key in his hand, but Sho had never led that type of life. He wasn’t that dramatic.

Instead he locked up, looking across his living room at the abandoned throw pillow for a few moments before putting the delivery leftovers in the fridge.

-

A week passed and Sho came back from a meeting to find Tadokoro Ken in his office, arms crossed as he stared out the window. “Tadokoro-san?”

He looked away from the glass, sheepish as always. Sho swallowed down an angry rant, an embarrassing “how could you do that to Matsumoto-kun?” rant that would just make things harder all around. “Hey Sho-kun, is tonight okay?”

Sho nodded, trying to keep his hands from curling into fists. “Tonight is fine. I’m sorry about last week. The confusion with…well, you know.”

Tadokoro’s eyes were shifty. “Sho-kun, I…I am sorry about that. It’s my fault entirely, but uh…”

“What?” Just spit it out already, he wanted to say. Just say thanks for the apartment and leave.

“Tonight I…I’m not meeting…that person, and I was hoping, uh, I was hoping that you won’t say anything if he asks…”

Sho narrowed his eyes. “Not that it’s any of my business, but I was under the impression that you and…you and that person…”

Tadokoro looked away. “It’s not like that. It’s not…it’s not exclusive, you could say…”

Sho distinctly remembered the muffled, angry phone conversation that night, how Jun had been so miserable he’d almost cried in front of a complete stranger. Tadokoro-san’s behavior didn’t seem to match up. Perhaps Jun had been deliberately misled. Perhaps Jun was the only one actually committed to the relationship.

“Anyway,” Tadokoro said dismissively, “if you don’t mind…”

Sho didn’t know what to say. Tadokoro, the shy and polite Tadokoro, was either sneaking around on Jun or just wasn’t interested in him any longer. And Sho was so angry about this, so overwhelmed by a strange protective feeling towards Jun, that he almost started shouting, not caring if the women in the cubicles overheard. He almost said no. But word would get up to Takaoka-san, word would get to him that Sho wasn’t playing their game.

“Could you…” He fumbled around with the pens in the cup on his desk. “If this is what you’re doing, maybe you should be honest with Matsumoto-kun. So there’s no hard feelings. So there’s no lying.”

Tadokoro, for the first time, stared at Sho with anger in his eyes. He’d crossed the line, interfered where he shouldn’t have interfered. After all, hadn’t Tadokoro Ken made life easier for Sakurai Sho?

“Mind your own fucking business,” Tadokoro said quietly before opening the door and leaving.

Sho watched him leave, heart pounding. Was Ken still going to use the apartment that night? Was he going to go rat Sho out as a meddlesome creep? He didn’t know. God, he didn’t know. He looked around, the four office walls Sho had bought with his cowardice, with his fear. Was it worth it? Was any of this worth it?

He decided not to tempt fate, spending the night at a manga cafe, curled up in front of the flickering computer screen until sunrise. He crept home in his rumpled suit, opening the apartment door. There were no dirty dishes, no signs of Chef Matsumoto’s handiwork. No jewelry left behind on the tub. The bedsheets had been pulled off the mattress and balled up, thrown in a corner. The room still smelled like sweat, like sex. He opened a window, breathing in fresher air before changing into another suit and getting ready for another work day.

The spare key Jun had left behind was in one of Sho’s winter boots, stuck there in hopes that nobody else would find it on a visit. Sho put it into an envelope, sealed it shut with a note reading “Just give me a heads up when you want to use it” inside. He dropped it in the office mail without any trace of his own name, addressed to Matsumoto Jun on the 23rd floor.

-

It was almost October when Sho received an email from Matsumoto Jun: “Tonight?”

He replied with equal brevity. “Sure.” Better Jun than Takaoka-san and some college student.

He stayed in the office until 11:30, as late as he could stay and still get the train. There’d been no other messages from Matsumoto, so he considered his options. He’d done the manga cafe thing sporadically over the course of the month because Takaoka had mostly gone into hibernation, tied up with meetings and a new product launch. Maybe it was worth a bit of a treat, the capsule hotel on the east side of the Metro stop. He had a punch card with them by now, was halfway to a free night’s stay. He was almost in the door when his phone went off with a work email notification.

He opened it up to find a message from Matsumoto: “Where are you?”

Sho was puzzled, shoving his phone in the pocket of his suit jacket and turning back the other way, past the Metro stop and towards home. He entered the apartment quietly, taking off his tie, only to find Matsumoto Jun in the kitchen with an empty wine glass and an equally empty bottle of wine.

“I started without you,” he slurred, wiggling the glass in his hand and probably scattering a few droplets.

Sho stayed in the archway between the kitchen and living room, tie limp in his hand. “I…I thought you were using the place tonight. That’s what I gave you the key for, so you could use it.”

Jun set the wine glass down, nodding. “I guess I misunderstood. You see, I…I thought it was an invite.”

Sho reddened. “You should have said something. You’re welcome any time, Matsumoto-kun. I’m really sorry, I thought that you could…I mean, if you wanted to bring someone…”

“Ken’s seeing someone else,” Matsumoto informed him. His Vision Plus-contact lenses were gone, and he was sitting in Sho’s kitchen in a pair of comically thick black frames. They only made his sleepy eyes look larger. “So who would I have to bring here?”

“I don’t know.”

Jun snorted unattractively, wiping at his wine-stained mouth with his thumb. “Very diplomatic.”

Sho shifted his weight to the other foot, growing nervous. “You’re welcome to stay as long as you like. I can pack a bag or sleep on the couch.”

“I know just the thing,” Matsumoto said, strangely confident as he hauled himself up and stumbled along. “Mentaiko pasta, you liked it, right? You liked my mentaiko pasta. Do you have any here? Fettucine, spaghetti, anything, I’ll work with anything you’ve got. That was my complaint, that Ken never stocked the fridge and cupboards here. I thought it was typical, man with a family and a second apartment doesn’t actually put stuff in the second apartment fridge. But now I know it was yours all along, so Sho-kun you are bad at shopping.”

Sho watched as Matsumoto pulled open the refrigerator door, recoiling a bit at the sudden blast of cool air, holding onto the counter in his drunken state.

“I don’t have any mentaiko. Or pasta,” Sho admitted quietly.

“What the hell do you eat? Don’t tell me just take-out soba?”

Sho shrugged. “Sometimes ramen.”

Jun pushed his glasses up the bridge of his nose, looking annoyed. “Fruits. Vegetables. Eat more of those. You’re killing yourself.”

“Sorry.”

“Sorry,” Matsumoto mimicked him coldly, shoving the refrigerator door closed. “You say that a lot, I bet. Sorry.”

“Matsumoto-san, let me get you a glass of water, and then…”

Jun was somehow there in moments, crowding him, pressing Sho back against the archway wall. He was warm, smelled just like the entire bottle of wine he’d had. He was in jeans and a t-shirt, a tight gray one that clung to him so much better than any of his suits did at the office. He licked his lips, staring somewhere between Sho’s nose and his mouth. “Ken’s seeing someone else,” he repeated. “Did you know?”

“He asked me not to say anything to you. So I didn’t, but that’s why I gave you the key. I’m…”

“…sorry,” Jun finished for him. “You’re sorry.”

He shut his eyes, unable to look at Jun. For so long Matsumoto Jun had been everything, his fantasy, the unreachable, the impossible. Now he was here, drunk off his ass and caught somewhere between furious and pathetic. Heartbroken in a way Sho didn’t know how to fix.

“You knew about it and didn’t tell me and I still came here.”

“Why?”

He felt Jun’s fingers trace along his lips unsteadily, hesitantly. Sho kept his eyes shut tight, practically willing himself not to get hard and give himself away, give away the months of pining for someone he couldn’t have. But Jun’s touch was real, solid, more solid than the ghost imagery he’d left behind, the thought of him in the bathtub, on his back in Sho’s bed, covered in sweat with Tadokoro fucking him.

Jun’s fingers were withdrawn. “You gave me a key.”

He was gone, and when Sho opened his eyes again Jun was back by the table, gathering up the wine bottle and putting it in the recycling, bringing his wine glass to the sink.

“I’ll clean that. Go lie down,” Sho managed to say, fingers still tight around his tie.

“Couch for me. Visitor,” Jun was mumbling as he made his way out of the kitchen. Sho followed him slowly, eventually giving him a little push in the direction of the bedroom. “Didn’t brush my teeth.”

“You can skip once in a while, I won’t tell.” Sho hesitated once they were in the bedroom. “I’ll get you some pajamas, it’ll be more comfortable.”

He eventually had to help Jun pull his jeans off, trying not to linger too long on his red boxer briefs. “Put these on,” Sho said, handing him a pair of plaid shorts.

“Ugly,” Jun remarked, but put them on anyhow and climbed into bed, letting Sho take his glasses and put them on the bedside table.

“You’re not going to be sick, are you?” Sho asked, pulling the blanket up and over him. “I can bring in a pot or something.”

“I won’t puke in your bed.” The fight had gone out of him. His pride had vanished too, probably right along with his ability to get his clothes off without help.

He was halfway to the door when Jun called out.

“Sho."

He turned, seeing that Jun had sat up and was looking at him. Sho hesitated only for a moment before going to the bed and sitting down. Jun’s breath was awful, but he did his best to ignore it. Jun, surprisingly tactile, slipped his hand to the back of Sho’s head, holding him steady. His kiss was rough, sloppy, without a road map. Sho kissed back anyway, heart racing, hearing Jun’s quiet moan of gratitude for reciprocating.

Though he was half asleep, Jun still moved fast, his unoccupied hand out from under the blanket and finding its way to Sho’s thigh. He was still in his fucking work clothes, and he was trying to help, untucking his shirt, fumbling with buttons while Jun fussed with his belt. Jun’s perfect mouth vanished for a moment before appearing again at his neck, half-kissing, half-licking until Sho moved Jun’s hands away from his belt and he backed off.

“Okay, okay. You’re drunk,” Sho said, turning away from Jun and letting out an awkward chuckle. He was a mess, hair in every direction, shirt half-unbuttoned, and belt half out of the loops. “You’re drunk. I won’t when you’re drunk.”

Jun licked his lips and nodded, allowing himself to fall back against the pillow with a sigh. “Gentleman type. Should have known. Bet you walk old ladies across the street too.”

Sho was still catching his breath, trying to think straight. “I’m…”

“You’re not allowed to say sorry for something you and I both wanted that badly,” Jun insisted, turning awkwardly and adjusting the pillow under his head. He blinked a few times, seeming to have just realized his glasses were gone even though he’d easily handed them over before. “I am very drunk. Maybe I should sleep.”

“Good night then,” Sho said, turning out the lights and closing the door before he did anything they might regret. Sho took a long bath, trying to calm down. Should he have even let Jun kiss him? Should he have kissed back? Jun was all out of sorts, he was a mess, and he didn’t need another complication, did he?

After his bath he toweled off, more frustrated than ever. He slept fitfully on the couch, unable to get comfortable. At some point he managed to sleep because he woke up to the sound of his rice cooker beeping. He stumbled his way to the kitchen, knowing his face was puffy and unattractive from a lack of sleep and not really caring. He found Jun there, somehow turning the two or three eggs Sho had left in the refrigerator into an omelette.

“Good morning,” Sho said first, watching Jun cook. It was a downright domestic scene, unfamiliar and uncomfortable. When was the last time he’d woken in his apartment to find someone was still there?

“Morning.”

They ate in silence, rice, omelette, and strong coffee. They both had to be at the office in an hour. There was no apology, no confrontation, no mention of what had happened the night before. Jun, despite everything, appeared to have gotten a good night’s sleep. Sho almost envied him that.

They got up from the table, chairs scraping. “Look, no need to rush home and rush to work. Just borrow something of mine, if it passes your qualifications.”

The corners of Jun’s mouth quirked at that, and while Sho changed in the bathroom, giving himself a quick shave, Jun dug through his closet to find something that both fit and met his fashion requirements. Sho noticed finally that the ring Jun had worn on his right hand was no longer there, the ring that had been left on the tub. Maybe it had been a gift from Tadokoro-san. Sho thought it was best not to mention it.

Jun left first, presumably so they wouldn’t be spotted leaving together by a neighbor. The more astute neighbors were usually morning people. Sho locked up, unsure where things stood with Matsumoto Jun until he got on the train, seeing that Jun had waited for him at the platform and was now crammed into the other end of the car. Sho’s pocket buzzed with an incoming work email. Jun still didn’t have his actual mobile number.

The email from Jun was more direct this time: “If you asked, I’d say yes.”

-

Tadokoro-san and the senpai from market research took Sho’s apartment the next two nights, but on the third when Takaoka said he was going to bring someone over that night, Sho said no.

“What do you mean ‘no’?” Takaoka said, staring Sho down, picking at some invisible fuzz on his suit jacket nervously. “You got a hot date or something?”

“I have plans, yeah.”

“You’ve never had plans, not in all this time when I asked.”

“I’m sorry, Takaoka-san, another time. Tonight doesn’t work for me.”

Takaoka tapped on the glass with his fingers. “This view. I got you this view, Sakurai.”

“I know, sir.”

“I’m always gone before the last train, what is the problem?”

“The problem, Takaoka-san, is that I have plans.” He was scared, but hoping Takaoka couldn’t tell. “I can’t change them, and I would appreciate your understanding. I have been extremely accommodating all this time, and I don’t think it’s asking too much.”

Where Sho expected Takaoka to rant and rave, to threaten him, he simply nodded his head, nearly cracking a smile. “Looks like you got some fight in you, Sakurai. Good for you. Some other time then.”

Sho exhaled as soon as he closed his door. They’d budged. They’d finally budged. Maybe they had another place, maybe they didn’t need Sho to be exclusive any longer. No matter what it was, Takaoka-san had budged and Sho finally had a say, the ability to put his foot down.

He got back to his desk, starting a new email and staring at the screen for a good long while before composing a short message: “Use your key tonight.”

-

Uncharacteristically, Sho clocked out at 6:30 PM, raising a few eyebrows among the women in the sea of cubicles. Sakurai Sho, leaving before others? Who was the lucky woman?

Sunrise Electronics was still terrible. The people who worked there were equally terrible. His apartment was going to be a place for trysts until he went through with the plans he’d made that afternoon, calling up a realtor to inquire about a new condo block an additional thirty minutes away from the office. One would think a longer commute was burdensome, but it wouldn’t be for him. After all, with his promotion and raise, it wasn’t so odd for him to look into buying instead of renting.

The door was unlocked when he arrived, a rather daring move. Thankfully when he got to the kitchen, Jun was still chopping up vegetables and hadn’t actually started cooking yet. “Since you were hired, you’ve had admirers in Human Resources.”

Jun looked up, confusion marring his features. “What?”

“Full disclosure. I was one of those admirers. I’ve looked in your file. I’ve read your performance evaluations. Before I met you that day in my office, I knew who you were. Sort of. For prying like that, I apologize. If there’s anything you want to know about me, I’ll let you see my own file.”

Jun sighed, gesturing at him with the knife. “Shut up and help me with this.”

“What are you making?” Sho asked, sliding out of his suit jacket and draping it over a chair.

“Shrimp salad. You need to eat vegetables.” Jun gestured to the sink. “Can you at least peel shrimp?”

“I…I think so.”

“You are hopeless.”

“I’m…”

Before he could apologize yet again, Jun had him back against the counter, kissing him without hesitation. Sho felt no guilt this time, returning it with equal enthusiasm, slipping his hands behind Jun’s back to grab his ass. He could smell the shrimp in the sink behind him, but at least it was better than the other night when Jun was drunk and trying to jam his tongue down his throat. He could hardly contain himself, arching up against Jun until he was groaning at the feeling.

Jun’s breath was soon tickling his ear. “Damn, how long has it been for you, anyway?”

“You’d laugh.”

“Wow, that long?” Jun muttered, tugging at Sho’s tie. “Then we’ll start fast and save slow for later, just to get you back in the game.”

Within a few minutes, he was barely able to stay upright, shirt open, his slacks and boxers shoved down to his ankles, as Jun got up from where he’d been kneeling. Jun patted him on the cheek with almost condescending affection. “You’re useless in the kitchen. I’ll let you know when it’s ready.”

Sho could only offer a blissful nod in reply, fumbling to pull his pants back up and heading to his bedroom to change. He supposed he could get used to this. Dinner was delicious, if a little more green than Sho was used to. He spent most of the meal wondering how he’d gotten so lucky. They mostly bitched about work, about the people there, but they finally had someone to complain to for once. Maybe after dealing with so much shit, the universe decided to let them have something nice.

They left the dirty dishes in the sink, and at least for that night the apartment was theirs.