Chapter 16: The Unseen Witness
For a long minute, Taichi didn’t move. The solid wood of the door pressed against his forehead was cool, a stark contrast to the fire in his cheeks.He’d been caught.Like a child. The rhythmic scritch-scratch from the kitchen had stopped.
He could feel Yamato’s gaze on the other side of the door, a physical weight.His own stupid, traitorous laugh echoed in his ears. It had been a soft, breathy thing, pulled from him by the utterly ridiculous sight of a decorated knight, a man who cleaved through armored opponents, carefully navigating the awkward curves of a knobby potato, a smear of earthy dirt on his sharp cheekbone. The contrast had been… strangely endearing.Endearing.Taichi scowled at the word. He didn’t want endearing.He wanted annoying.He wanted infuriating.Things he knew how to handle.
Silence stretched, thick and hot.The tavern around him was suddenly too large, too empty. The usual smells—yeast, wood polish, the ghost of tonight’s stew—were now underscored by something else. The crisp, clean scent of alpha, yes, but beneath it, the simpler smells of raw potato and earth.And his own scent, he realized with a jolt. The low, constant thrum of omega pheromones he usually could ignore was spiking, becoming sharper, sweeter.Anxiety.Attraction.It was a betrayal written in the air.
He pushed himself away from the door, stumbling back a step.He needed to lock up.To bank the fires. To do anything but stand here like a fool.The kitchen door swung inward.
Yamato stood framed in the doorway, the peeling knife still held loosely in one hand. A faint line of concentration was etched between his brows, but his mouth held that same slow, knowing curve. It wasn’t a smirk.It was quieter, more deliberate.It saw everything.
“You’re still here,” Taichi blurted, then wanted to kick himself.It was his damn tavern.
“Sora said to finish peeling,” Yamato said, his voice a low rumble that seemed to bypass Taichi’s ears and vibrate directly in his chest. “And then to sweep.” He held up the knife slightly.“I’m a man who follows orders. When they make sense.”
“Peeling potatoes makes sense to you?”
“It does when the order comes from a friend of yours holding a cleaver.” Yamato leaned a shoulder against the doorframe, his body blocking most of the kitchen from view.He didn’t step further into the tavern. He just… occupied the threshold.“Also, it’s meditative.You can see the result.Clean lines. A job completed.” He wiped his cheek again with the back of his wrist, succeeding only in smearing the dirt further. “Unlike other things.”
Taichi’s heart was a frantic drum against his ribs.He crossed his arms, a feeble barrier. “Other things?”
“Conversations,” Yamato said simply.His blue eyes were unnervingly direct.“Intentions. The way you look at me when you think I’m not watching.”
A hot flush crawled down Taichi’s neck.He’d been watching.Through the crack.He’d been seen seeing. The spiral of it made his head spin. “I wasn’t—”
“You were.” Yamato’s smile softened, just at the edges.“It’s okay. I like your eyes on me. Even when they’re glaring.”
This was the moment, Taichi knew, to fire back something scathing.To reclaim the upper hand with his sharp tongue. But the words clogged in his throat, dissolved by the warmth flooding his system, a warmth that had nothing to do with the hearth and everything to do with the alpha filling his doorway with quiet, unshakable patience.The alpha who had peeled a sack of potatoes without complaint because Sora told him to.
Taichi looked past Yamato’s shoulder, into the kitchen. The bucket was full of precise, curling peels.The potatoes, a humble mountain of pale flesh, sat neatly in a large bowl. The counter was wiped clean.He’d done the work.Properly.
“You missed a spot,” Taichi heard himself say, his voice barely above a rough whisper. He nodded toward Yamato’s cheek.Yamato’s eyebrow quirked. He lifted his hand, then lowered it.“Did I?”
A challenge.An invitation.
The air between them crackled, charged with everything unsaid.The threat from Sora. The promise in Yamato’s vow. The low, sweet ache building deep in Taichi’s belly, an ache he’d spent years diligently ignoring. His omega instincts were a swirling mess of warring signals: danger, protect, submit, claim. He rejected them all, clinging to the one thing that felt solely his: a fierce, burning curiosity.What happened next if he didn’t run?
He took a single, shallow breath, tasting the combined scent of them in the air—spiced omega warmth and crisp alpha cold.It was heady.It was terrifying.
“Yeah,” Taichi said, forcing his feet to move.He took one step forward, then another, closing the distance to the threshold. He stopped just short of touching, the heat from Yamato’s body a brand against his own. He could see the individual flecks of stubble on the smudged cheek, the tiny scar that cut through one blond eyebrow. “Right there.”
He reached out, his movements feeling slow and dreamlike. His thumb, calloused from barrel taps and rough handles, brushed over the smear of dirt on Yamato’s high cheekbone.The skin was warm, firm. The contact sent a jolt up his arm, a live wire of sensation.Yamato went utterly still. His breath hitched, a quick, sharp intake. The playful light in his eyes was gone, replaced by something darker, hotter, intensely focused.The air grew thicker, heavier.
Taichi wiped the dirt away, his thumb lingering for a heartbeat too long. Then he snatched his hand back as if burned, clenching it at his side.His face was on fire.
Yamato watched him, his chest rising and falling with a new, measured rhythm. “Thank you,” he said, the words rough.Taichi nodded, unable to speak.The moment hung, suspended.
Then Yamato straightened, pushing off the doorframe.He turned back into the kitchen, his movement breaking the spell. “I should finish sweeping,” he said, his back to Taichi. His voice was strained, holding a tension that hadn’t been there before. “Wouldn’t want to disobey.”
He walked toward the broom propped in the corner, leaving Taichi standing alone in the doorway, the ghost of warm skin tingling on his thumb, and the certain, sinking knowledge that he was already in far, far over his head.