The Nijisanji office hummed with the quiet industry of a building coming to life. Fluorescent lights cast their sterile glow across polished concrete floors, and the air carried that particular scent of recycled oxygen and old coffee that seemed to live permanently in production studios. The collab room had been set up hours ago—chairs arranged in a loose arc, monitors angled for the stream overlay, microphones tested and retested until the audio levels sat exactly where the staff wanted them.
Three of them were already there when Akira pushed through the door. Lauren sat on the wide sofa at the corner of the room, scrolling through his phone with the particular boredom of someone who had been waiting too long. Rou and Sho occupied the chairs near the monitor setup, speaking in low voices about some game neither of them had finished. 3SKM had yet to arrive—Ness, Kaisei, and Kitami were still finishing their own morning schedules, or so the group chat had said.
But Kanato was already there.
He sat at one end of the sofa, arm draped across the backrest in that casual, proprietary way he had—like he owned the room even when he didn't. His amber eyes lifted from his phone when the door opened, and something in them softened when they found Akira.
Akira looked exhausted.
It was written in the slight droop of his shoulders, the dark shadows beneath his eyes that makeup couldn't quite hide, the way he moved through the door like each step required a small negotiation with gravity. His schedule that morning had been brutal—a radio appearance at six, a magazine interview at eight, a prerecorded segment at ten, and now this collab, which would run until evening. The kind of day that would have left anyone hollow.
Lauren looked up when Akira entered, opening his mouth to offer some greeting—but the words died in his throat when he saw what happened next.
Akira crossed the room with the single-minded focus of someone who had a destination and would not be diverted from it. He didn't stop to greet Lauren, didn't acknowledge Rou and Sho's raised hands in welcome. He walked past them all, straight to the sofa, and dropped himself beside Kanato with the boneless finality of a puppet whose strings had been cut.
And then he leaned.
His head found Kanato's arm where it rested along the backrest, settling into the curve of it like it was a place he knew by heart. His eyes slid shut almost immediately, and a long, slow breath escaped him—the kind of exhale that carried the weight of everything he hadn't let himself feel until this moment.
Kanato didn't miss a beat.
His body shifted automatically, angling toward Akira without any apparent conscious thought, his hand lifting from his phone to find Akira's hair. His fingers began to move through the dark strands, slow and gentle, brushing them back from his forehead in a rhythm that seemed practiced, familiar, and natural all at once. His other hand kept scrolling through his phone, as if this—the weight of his boyfriend against his shoulder, the task of soothing him into rest—was just another part of his day, no more remarkable than breathing.
Lauren stared.
Sho and Rou exchanged a glance that said everything words couldn't.
This was not the Akira they knew. The Akira they had met months ago, at the beginning of Voltaction's debut, had been sharp and professional, quick to laugh but careful with his boundaries. He had never been the type for public affection. He had never been the type to let anyone see him vulnerable.
This Akira, who had fallen asleep against his boyfriend's arm in full view of a room full of colleagues, was almost unrecognizable.
"He okay?" Lauren asked, voice low, as if afraid to disturb the quiet that had settled over the room.
Kanato glanced up, his smile easy and unbothered. "He's fine. Just tired. Morning schedule was brutal—he was up at five."
"Five?" Rou winced. "That's insane."
"It's the fest prep season," Kanato said, shrugging. His fingers never stopped moving through Akira's hair. "Everyone's running on fumes."
But there was something in his voice—a note of protection, of ownership—that made the words sound less like an excuse and more like a warning. He's mine. I've got him. Don't worry.
Akira's breathing had already evened out, his body softening into the warmth of Kanato's side. The mark beneath his stomach—that pulsing, insistent symbol of everything he had become—was quiet for once, satisfied by the proximity of his anchor. His tail, which had been hidden beneath his clothes since he entered the office, twitched once, twice, then curled around Kanato's wrist in its sleep.
Kanato's smile deepened. He didn't pull away.
The door opened again fifteen minutes later, and Ness, Kaisei, and Kitami filtered in, the energy of 3SKM bright and immediate in the quiet room. Ness was mid-sentence about something that had happened in a game the night before, his hands moving expressively as he talked, while Kaisei listened with a fond, exasperated smile. Kitami walked behind them, quieter, his eyes scanning the room with the particular awareness of someone who always noticed the details.
He noticed Akira, curled against Kanato's side. He noticed Kanato's hand in Akira's hair, the easy intimacy of the gesture. He noticed the way Lauren and Rou and Sho were all pointedly not looking at them, as if giving them privacy in plain sight.
Kitami's eyebrows rose, but he said nothing.
They settled into the room's rhythm, 3SKM taking the chairs near the monitors, their voices a low hum of conversation with the others. Ness was asking Rou about a rhythm game collab they had done, and Sho was showing Kaisei something on his phone, and the room felt full in a way it hadn't before—full of bodies and voices and the particular camaraderie of people who spent their lives performing for strangers.
"Seraph's not here yet?" Ness asked, looking around.
"He had a meeting at the main office," Kanato said, checking his phone. "He's on his way, but he might be late."
"And Hibari?" Kaisei asked.
Kanato's mouth quirked. "Hibari said he's finishing up a shoot. He'll make it."
There was something in his tone—a knowing, a fond exasperation—that made Kitami's eyes narrow slightly. But before he could ask, the door burst open.
Hibari arrived like a storm that had been building all day.
He was late—the clock had already ticked past their call time—and he knew it, because his first words through the door were "Gomen, gomen, the shoot ran long" delivered in a rush of breath. But nobody was listening to his apology.
They were all staring.
Hibari had come straight from the magazine collab, still wearing the outfit from his shoot. It was nothing like the bright, coordinated idol clothes Voltaction usually wore. This was dark and rough and raw—a fitted black leather jacket over a thin white shirt that was unbuttoned at the collar, showing the sharp line of his collarbone and the glint of his pendant necklace. Frayed black jeans sat low on his hips, and silver chains hung from his belt loops, catching the fluorescent light in flashes. His hair was messier than usual, styled into that deliberate disarray that looked effortless but was anything but. The choker around his neck was black leather with a decorative silver chain that lay flat against his throat, and it made him look dangerous.
He looked like a rock star. He looked like the frontman of a band that would destroy hotel rooms and write songs about it. He looked nothing like the golden retriever energy he carried through most of his streams.
And he looked good.
Lauren's mouth opened. Closed. Opened again.
Rou let out a low whistle that he tried to pass off as a cough.
Even Ness, who was usually never at a loss for words, went quiet, his eyes tracking Hibari's movement across the room with an expression that was probably meant to be casual and was definitely not.
But it was Akira's reaction that drew everyone's attention.
Akira had woken at the sound of the door, his eyes blinking open with the foggy confusion of someone pulled too quickly from sleep. He had looked up at Hibari's entrance the way everyone else had—a glance, reflexive, unthinking.
And then his gaze had caught, held, and refused to let go.
Hibari was crossing the room toward the empty seat beside Akira, still apologizing, still oblivious to the effect he was having. "The stylist took forever—I kept telling her I had a stream but she said 'the lighting is perfect' and I couldn't just—"
He stopped when he saw Akira.
Akira was staring at him with an expression that was almost comical in its frankness. His head was still tilted against Kanato's arm, his body still half-curled into the warmth of the sofa, but his eyes were tracking every inch of Hibari's outfit with the kind of attention usually reserved for mission briefings. The pendant. The chains. The way the leather jacket sat on his shoulders. The cut of his jeans.
Hibari's apology died in his throat. A slow grin spread across his face—not the bright, puppyish grin he usually wore, but something deeper. Something knowing.
"Nani?" he asked, his voice dropping to a register that was pure velvet. He settled into the seat beside Akira, close enough that their shoulders nearly touched. "Ii kao shiteru yo. Am I really that handsome?"
Akira nodded without a single second of hesitation.
Hibari's grin widened. He ducked his head, a breath of laughter escaping him, warm and genuine. "Arigatou," he murmured. He reached out, his fingers brushing Akira's cheek—and then he leaned in and pressed a quick, soft kiss to the corner of Akira's mouth.
"Ore no kakkoii koibito," Hibari said against his skin, the words wrapped in fondness. There was a pause, and then, even softer: "Daisuki da yo."
The room went very, very still.
Lauren developed a sudden, intense interest in the pattern of the ceiling tiles. Rou and Sho both turned to face their monitors with the mechanical precision of men who had seen nothing. Ness was staring fixedly at his own hands. Kaisei had gone pink. And Kitami—Kitami was watching the whole exchange with an expression of quiet, fascinated understanding.
"Sou ka," Kitami murmured to himself, so quietly that only Ness heard him.
Ness kicked him under the chair.
Hibari, apparently completely unbothered by the fact that he had just made out with his boyfriend in front of half of Nijisanji, settled back in his seat and reached for his headphones. He tested his mic with a few words—"Hai, hai, mieru ka?"—adjusting the settings with the casual efficiency of someone who had done this a thousand times. Akira, still pink, was making a valiant effort to look like he wasn't completely flustered.
He was failing.
Kanato was grinning like a cat who had found the cream.
"Okay, okay," Kanato said, clapping his hands together with the efficiency of a leader calling a meeting to order. "Let's get this stream started before the staff kills us. Positions, everyone."
They shuffled into their seats, the familiar choreography of a collab stream taking over. Monitors were adjusted, audio levels were run one more time, and the countdown began.
The stream went live at exactly 2:00 PM.
For five minutes, everything was fine.
The chat was scrolling in the usual chaos of reactions, emojis flying in colors, the viewers excited about the lineup. Kanato was handling the introduction with his usual ease, introducing the 3SKM members, thanking the sponsors for the upcoming Nijisanji Fest, setting up the games they'd be playing. Akira was coming alive in front of the camera, the exhaustion fading from his face as he fell into the rhythm of performance—laughing at Ness's jokes, teasing Sho about his aim, building that easy rapport that made him such a natural on stream.
And then the lights went out.
The screens went dark. The monitors flickered, whined, and died. The overhead lights cut out with a sound like a held breath released, and every piece of equipment in the room powered down at once. The silence that followed was absolute—no hum of servers, no buzz of electronics, no ambient noise of the building.
And then, ten seconds later, the lights came back on.
"Okay," Lauren said, into the dark-turned-light. "That was weird."
"Blackout?" Rou asked, looking around.
"Bleeehh," Ness groaned, slumping over his keyboard. "We were literally five minutes in."
The staff appeared in the doorway, already apologizing, already gesturing for them to wait. One of the engineers was tapping at the main control panel, muttering under his breath. A second joined him, checking the cables, the power strips, the connections.
"Sorry, everyone," the head engineer called out. "The sudden power cut might have fried some of the relays. We need to restart the stream setup from scratch."
"How long?" Kanato asked.
"Thirty minutes. Maybe an hour. We're not sure yet."
A collective sigh rippled through the room.
"You can wait on the sofas," the engineer added. "We'll call you when it's ready."
There was a moment of hesitation—the awkward pause of a group that wasn't sure what to do with itself. And then people began to move, shuffling toward the wide sofa section at the corner of the room, claiming spots in the unspoken social choreography of people who knew each other well enough to find their own rhythm.
Kanato's friends gravitated toward 3SKM—Ness immediately launching into a story about a game bug he had encountered, Kaisei nodding along with the particular patience of someone who had heard this story before, Kitami settling into the corner of the sofa with a quiet smile. Lauren, Rou, and Sho clustered on the other end, their voices a low hum of conversation.
And Akira and Hibari found their own space.
They settled at the far end of the sofa, slightly apart from the others—not obviously separate, just just far enough to create the impression of privacy without actually leaving the group. Hibari took the corner, his body angled outward, his arm draped across the backrest in a gesture that was both open and possessive. Akira leaned into that arm without hesitation, his head finding the warm curve of Hibari's side, his hand coming up almost absently to play with the pendant that hung from Hibari's neck.
The pendant was silver, a simple geometric shape that caught the light each time Akira's fingers turned it. He traced its edges with the focused attention of someone who was using the motion to ground himself, to stay present when the exhaustion threatened to pull him under.
Hibari watched him do it, a soft smile playing at the corner of his mouth.
"Tsukareteru?" Hibari asked, his voice dropping to a register meant only for Akira. "You look tired, Akira."
"Sukoshi," Akira admitted. His fingers kept moving, tracing the pendant's edges, the chain, the clasp. "I had to be at the radio station at six. Then the magazine interview at eight. Then a prerecorded segment that ran until eleven. I haven't sat down properly since—" He paused, thinking. "Since last night, actually."
Hibari's forehead creased with concern. "You should have said something. We could have rearranged."
"I didn't want to cancel on you all," Akira said, and there was something small in his voice, something vulnerable. "It's been a while since we all did a collab together. And with 3SKM here too—I didn't want to miss it."
"You wouldn't be missing it if you slept through it," Hibari teased gently. "You'd be here, just unconscious."
Akira huffed a quiet laugh. "That's not the same."
"I know." Hibari's hand found Akira's hair, brushing through the dark strands with the same gentle rhythm Kanato had used earlier. "But you don't have to push yourself so hard, okay? We've got you."
Akira was quiet for a moment. His fingers stilled on the pendant. And then, so softly that only Hibari could hear: "I know."
The silence that settled between them was comfortable, warm, full of things that didn't need to be said. Hibari's thumb traced a slow arc across Akira's scalp, and Akira's eyes fluttered half-closed, his body relaxing into the touch.
But his hand found the pendant again, the silver cool against his fingers, and the question came soft: "How was the photoshoot?"
Hibari brightened. His default state was energy, and Akira asking about his work was always the fastest way to spark it. "It was fun, actually. Different from the stuff we usually do. More—raw, I guess? The theme was 'urban edge,' whatever that means. They had me standing on scaffolding for an hour, looking aggressively at the camera."
"You looked good," Akira said, and there was something in his voice that was almost shy. "When you walked in. You looked—" He stopped, struggling for the word. "Suteki datta."
Hibari's grin turned wicked. "Suteki, ha?"
Akira's face went pink. "Don't—don't make it weird."
"I'm not making it weird. I'm just appreciating the compliment. My boyfriend thinks I look 'suteki.' I'm allowed to be happy about that."
Akira made a sound that was caught between a laugh and a groan. "You're impossible."
"You love me."
Akira was quiet for a beat too long. And then, so soft: "Un."
Hibari's hand stilled in Akira's hair. His expression shifted—the teasing edge softening into something deeper, something almost tender. "I love you too, Akira."
The words hung between them, warm and alive, a truth that had been spoken before but never lost its weight.
Across the room, Lauren was trying very hard not to look at them and failing. He caught Kitami's eye—Kitami, who had clearly been watching the whole exchange with a kind of academic fascination—and they shared a look that said, are we just supposed to pretend we don't see this?
Kitami shrugged one shoulder, his smile faint. Apparently yes.
"So," Ness said loudly, clearly trying to fill the silence that had somehow fallen over the room, "that game marathon you guys did the other night—the one with the co-op horror game—how long did that actually take?"
Akira's attention was pulled from Hibari with visible reluctance. "Hmm? Oh. Six hours. We kept getting stuck on the third level."
"The third level was brutal," Kanato said, from across the room. He was leaned back in his chair, phone in hand, but his ear was clearly tuned to the conversation. "That puzzle with the rotating statues took us forty minutes."
"Forty-three minutes," Akira corrected. "I counted."
"Of course you did," Hibari said, his voice rich with affection. He nuzzled his forehead against Akira's temple, a quick, warm press of contact. "You always count."
"Details matter," Akira said, but there was a smile in his voice now.
Kanato's friends watched the interaction the way one might watch a nature documentary—with appreciation, fascination, and more than a little surprise. The Akira they knew had always been competent, capable, confident in his work. But this Akira—soft-eyed and pink-cheeked, leaning into Hibari's side like it was the safest place in the world—was a different person entirely.
"The memorial store was great though," Ness said, steering the conversation back to safer ground. "We should go there again soon."
"The yakiniku place near the station?" Sho asked.
"Yeah! The one with the wagyu special."
"Oh, that place is good," Kanato said, perking up. "We went there last week, didn't we?" He looked at Akira. "The night after—"
He stopped, catching himself before mentioning the specifics. The night after Akira had coughed blood in Hibari's arms. The night after Seraph had held him through the weight of old trauma. The night after they had all come home, exhausted and wrung out, and eaten yakiniku in silence because sometimes words were too heavy.
"The night after," Kanato repeated, smoother this time, "we needed comfort food."
Akira's hand tightened on the pendant, just for a moment. "It was good," he said quietly. "The meat was perfect."
"I had this really good kimchi stew there the time before," Ness said, oblivious to the undercurrents. "It was spicy but not too spicy, you know? Perfect for winter."
"Sho, you haven't been there yet?" Kaisei asked. "We should plan a group outing."
The conversation drifted into comfortable logistics—who was free when, which restaurant had the best sides, whether they could fit everyone at one table. Akira listened with half his attention, the other half still on the pendant in his hand, the warmth of Hibari's arm around him, the quiet safety of being held.
His eyes wandered.
They traced the line of Hibari's jaw, the sharp angle of it. The pendant, again, the way it caught the light each time he turned it. The decorative chain on Hibari's jacket, silver and intricate, gleaming in the overhead lights. The bracelet around Hibari's wrist—leather and silver, simple but striking. And then the ring on Hibari's finger, a thick silver band with a subtle texture that caught the light in flashes. It was probably a prop from the shoot, left on because it looked good.
Akira's eyes lingered on it, shining.
Kanato, who had been watching the room from across the sofa, saw it happen. Saw Akira's eyes fix on the ring, the slight part of his lips, the way his gaze tracked the light catching the silver. He looked like a child in a candy store—innocent wonder lighting up features that had been shadowed with exhaustion just minutes before.
Kanato smiled to himself. Akira had always loved shiny things. The moment he'd spotted the necklace Kanato wore during a stream—had spent the entire collab staring at it until Kanato had finally taken it off and handed it over. The way his eyes went wide at anything that gleamed, that reflected, that sparkled.
It was one of the many things about Akira that Kanato found endlessly endearing.
Hibari must have noticed too, because his hand found Akira's chin, tilting his face up gently. "Nani miteru?" he asked, his voice a low murmur. "What are you looking at?"
Akira blinked, startled out of his reverie. "Nothing, just—the ring. It looks nice."
Hibari looked down at his own hand, at the silver band catching the light. "Aa, kore?" He twisted it off his finger, held it out. "You can try it if you want."
Akira's eyes went wide. "I—are you sure?"
"It's just a prop from the shoot. I'm supposed to return it, but—" Hibari shrugged, grinning. "They won't miss it for five minutes."
He took Akira's hand—Akira let him, his fingers loose and trusting—and slid the ring onto his index finger. It was slightly too big, the silver a little too warm from Hibari's skin. Akira looked at it, turned his hand, watched the light catch and break across its surface. His breath caught, almost inaudibly. His tail, hidden but expressive, curled against Hibari's thigh.
"Ookii ka," Hibari murmured, noticing the loose fit. "We can adjust it—"
"No, it's—" Akira's voice was soft. "It's fine. I like it."
He held his hand up again, watching the light slide across the silver surface. It was such a simple thing, such a small pleasure. But the sparkle in his eyes was genuine, unguarded, almost childlike in its joy.
Hibari watched him with an expression that was tender and amused and full—the look of someone who would spend the rest of his life putting shiny things in front of his boyfriend just to see that smile.
Across the room, Ness made a small, strangled sound.
Kaisei patted his arm sympathetically. "We're all feeling it, Ness."
"I wasn't prepared," Ness said, his voice faint. "No one told me Voltaction was like this."
"Like what?" Kanato asked, his smile innocent. Too innocent.
"Like—" Ness gestured helplessly at Akira and Hibari, still wrapped in their own world, the ring glowing on Akira's finger, the soft smile on Hibari's face. "Like that."
Kanato's smile widened. "I have no idea what you mean."
"You're a menace," Lauren said, but there was no heat in it.
"I've been called worse."
The minutes slipped by in a comfortable rhythm. The staff were still working on the equipment, the sound of their efforts drifting in from the control room—muffled voices, the occasional curse, the whir of a machine being restarted. The group on the sofa had settled into the loose, meandering conversation of people with nowhere to be, topics flowing from games to food to a movie someone had seen over the weekend to a meme that had been circulating in their shared chats.
Akira and Hibari remained in their own orbit.
Akira had shifted at some point, slouching lower into the sofa until his head rested against Hibari's arm, his body turned half-toward him. His hand had migrated from the pendant to the decorative chain on Hibari's jacket, tracing its path with the same focused attention he had given the ring. When the chain ended, he found the bracelet. When the bracelet was exhausted, he returned to the pendant.
Hibari let him explore, patient and warm, answering questions when Akira asked them.
"Does the chain dig into your neck?" Akira asked, his fingers light on the choker. "It looks heavy."
"Naa," Hibari said. "It's lighter than it looks. Mostly decorative."
"Does it feel tight? Does it—does it bother you?"
Hibari's eyes softened. He knew why Akira was asking. He knew about the choke chain, the scar, the mission that had left marks that went deeper than skin. He knew because Seraph had told them, because Kanato had held Akira through the flashback, because the weight of that history was something they were all learning to carry together.
"It's fine," Hibari said gently. "It's not too tight at all. See?" He tilted his head back, exposing the line of his throat. "There's enough space. I can breathe fine."
Akira watched, his eyes tracing the leather, the way it sat against Hibari's skin without pressing too hard. And then, in a small voice: "Do you wanna try it?"
Hibari's hand stilled. "What?"
Akira's face went pink. "The choker. I just—I want to know what it feels like. But if you don't want to share, it's fine, I just—"
"No, no, no." Hibari was already undoing the clasp, his fingers working the small buckle at the back. "You can try it. Of course you can try it." His laughter was warm, easy. "I was just surprised."
The choker came free in his hands, the leather still warm from his skin. He held it out, and Akira took it with the careful reverence of someone handling something fragile.
"Mite... kore?" Akira asked, holding it up, turning it in the light.
"Un." Hibari's voice was soft. "You can put it on."
Akira's hands moved slowly, hesitantly. He looped the choker around his own neck, the leather cool against his skin. The clasp was at the back, and he fumbled with it for a moment before Hibari's hands gently covered his, guiding his fingers.
"Here," Hibari murmured. "Like this."
The clasp clicked shut.
The choker settled around Akira's throat, snug but not tight, the leather a weight he wasn't used to, the decorative chain a silver line against his skin. It was—
Akira's breath caught.
It was fine. It was fine. The leather was soft, the fit was comfortable, it was not tight. It was not tight. He could breathe. He could breathe perfectly fine. There was no pressure on his throat. There was no hand closing around his neck. There was no chain tightening, no darkness closing in, no—
Hibari saw it happen. Saw the micro-flinch, the widening of Akira's eyes, the way his breathing shifted from even to shallow. Saw the memory beginning to surface, the old wound trying to reopen.
"Akira." His voice was low, steady, grounding. "Hey. Look at me."
Akira's eyes found his, dark and wide and frightened.
"You're okay," Hibari said, his thumb brushing Akira's cheek. "You're here. With me. In the collab room. It's just a choker. You can take it off anytime you want."
Akira's hand went to his throat, touching the leather. His fingers trembled slightly.
"Breathe with me," Hibari said. He took a slow, exaggerated breath in, held it, let it out. "Sou. Just like that. You're doing good, Akira."
Akira's breathing slowed. The panic in his eyes began to recede, replaced by a shaky sort of calm. He touched the choker again, more deliberately this time, feeling its weight, its presence.
"It's not tight," he said, his voice slightly hoarse. "It feels—it's not tight."
"It's not," Hibari confirmed. "It's just sitting on your skin. That's all."
Akira swallowed. The motion was easier now, the constriction in his chest loosening. He looked at Hibari—at Hibari's steady eyes, his patient smile, the way he was watching Akira like he had all the time in the world.
"Does it look okay?" Akira asked, and the question was small, vulnerable.
Hibari's smile widened. "It looks more than okay." He reached for his phone, swiped the camera open, and held it up so Akira could see his reflection. "See for yourself."
Akira looked at the screen.
The choker sat against his throat, dark leather against pale skin, the silver chain catching the light. It looked—good. It looked like it belonged there. The accidental tightness of the fit had become deliberate, the way the leather framed the line of his neck.
"It does look good," he said, surprised.
"I told you." Hibari's voice was warm, fond. "You can keep it, if you want. My shoot's over. They don't need it back."
Akira's eyes widened. "I can?"
"Un." Hibari reached out, his fingers brushing the edge of the choker, featherlight. "It looks better on you anyway."
Akira's smile was small, shy, but real. His hand found Hibari's and squeezed.
"Arigatou, Hibari."
"Dou itashimashite."
Across the room, the group had gone quiet. Not deliberately—the conversation had simply trailed off as one by one, they had found themselves watching the exchange. Ness was frozen mid-sip of his drink. Kaisei's hand was suspended over his phone, forgotten. Sho and Rou were exchanging a look that was equal parts what are we witnessing and we shouldn't be watching this but we can't look away.
Kitami was the only one who didn't look surprised. He was watching Akira—the way he touched the choker, the way his smile had come back, the way Hibari's presence had grounded him through the moment of panic—with an expression of quiet understanding.
"Hibari-san is good at that," Kitami said, so softly that only Ness heard him.
Ness blinked. "At what?"
"At knowing what Akira-san needs."
Ness looked at Hibari again—at the way he was still holding Akira's hand, the way his body was angled to shield Akira from the rest of the room, the way his smile was gentle in a way Ness had never seen before. "Yeah," he said slowly. "I guess he is."
Kanato, from his seat across the room, had seen the whole thing. He had seen the moment of panic, the grounding, the steady return to calm. And he had seen Kitami notice it too.
Kanato's eyes met Kitami's across the room. There was no hostility in either gaze—just a mutual recognition. You see them. You understand.
Kitami gave a small nod. Kanato nodded back.
It was enough.
The moment held—and then the staff member appeared in the doorway, her expression apologetic.
"Gomen nasai, minna-san," she said, bowing slightly. "The relays are still not working. We have to reschedule the stream for tomorrow."
A collective groan went through the room. Ness slumped deeper into the sofa. Sho let out a long, put-upon sigh. Lauren pinched the bridge of his nose.
"It can't be helped," Kanato said, standing with a stretch that cracked his spine. "It happens. We'll pick it up tomorrow."
The group began to gather their things, the conversation shifting to logistics—who would be free tomorrow, whether the same time slot worked, who needed to check with their managers. The rain had started outside, a sudden drumming against the windows that had come out of nowhere—spring showers, unpredictable and relentless.
"I can drive," Lauren offered, shrugging on his jacket. "I've got the big car. I can drop you all off."
There was a general murmur of thanks from the 3SKM members, who had clearly not brought umbrellas.
But Hibari shook his head. "Ii ye, I drove today. I'll take Akira and Kanato."
"And Seraph?" Sho asked.
"Seraph texted," Kanato said, checking his phone. "He's going straight to the gym. I'm gonna join him."
"We'll meet you at home later," Hibari said to Kanato, and the words were casual, but the warmth in them was not.
Kanato smiled. "Don't stay out too late."
"No promises."
The group filtered out of the room, voices echoing in the corridor as they split off toward different exits. Kanato headed toward the stairs, his phone already out, probably texting Seraph. Lauren led the 3SKM members toward the parking lot, his voice carrying back in easy conversation. Sho and Rou followed, their footsteps fading into the hum of the building.
And Hibari and Akira walked together, down the corridor, toward the parking lot.
Hibari's arm was draped around Akira's shoulders, casual and protective, his hand resting on the curve of Akira's collarbone. Akira walked easily in his orbit, the choker still around his neck, the ring still on his finger, the exhaustion of the day softened by the safety of being held.
Through the corridor, their voices drifted back to the group still gathering their things—Hibari's low and warm, Akira's softer, lighter.
"Nani ga tabetai?" Hibari was asking. "What do you want for dinner?"
"Anoo... ramen?"
"Ramen? After the day you've had? You need proper food."
"Ramen is proper food."
"Ramen is—fine. Okay. Ramen it is. But we're getting extra chashu."
"That's acceptable."
Hibari's laugh echoed down the hallway, warm and unguarded. "Acceptable? I offer you extra chashu and all I get is 'acceptable'?"
"I said thank you."
"You said 'acceptable.'"
"It was implied."
Their voices faded as they turned the corner, lost to the distant hum of the building and the sound of rain against glass. The corridor fell silent, the warmth of their presence lingering like the memory of sunlight.
In the room they had left behind, Lauren paused in the doorway, looking after them. His expression was complicated—fondness, surprise, a touch of something like wonder.
"They're really something, aren't they?" he said, half to himself.
Kitami, who had lingered to check his bag, looked up. "Who?"
"Voltaction. All of them." Lauren shook his head, a small smile tugging at his lips. "I've known Kanato for years. I've never seen him like this. And Akira—" He paused, searching for the words. "I've never seen Akira look that happy."
Kitami was quiet for a moment. Then, softly: "Neither have I."
The rain continued to fall, a steady rhythm against the glass, washing the world clean.
Outside, the parking lot gleamed wet under the streetlights, and a black car's engine turned over, headlights cutting through the dusk. Inside it, two figures sat close together, their voices low, their laughter soft.
The car pulled out of the lot, into the rain, toward the promise of ramen and warmth and the quiet end of a long day.