Chapter 24: The Interview
The studio was too warm, a deliberate cocoon of cream-colored sofas and potted ferns. Kettle-pop played at a subliminal volume. Taichi could still feel the ghost of Yamato’s thumb on his cheek, the solidity of his chest, the word always vibrating in the air between them. It made the brightly lit room feel surreal, like he was moving through a dream in someone else’s body.
He focused on the host, Aimi, a woman with a razor-sharp bob and a smile that didn’t disturb the perfect stillness of her eyes. She was known for her surgical questions.
“And Yamato-san,” Aimi said, leaning forward, her voice a silky probe. “Your solo track, ‘Honey and Heat.’ The lyrics are… intensely personal. Fans have been parsing every line. Where did that particular well of inspiration come from? It feels like a departure from your previous work.”
The air conditioning clicked on with a soft hum. Yamato, draped in the armchair opposite, didn’t flinch. He regarded Aimi with his customary cool detachment, one ankle resting on his knee. But Taichi, from his adjacent perch, saw the minute tightening of his jaw.
“Creative energy,” Yamato said, his voice a low, smooth baritone designed for evasion. “It’s less about a specific source and more about capturing a… mood. A sensation.”
A sensation. The memory of Yamato’s mouth tracing the line of his shoulder blade, hot and deliberate, flashed behind Taichi’s eyes. He coughed, disguising it as a throat-clear, and took a sudden, intense interest in the weave of the cushion beneath him. His ears felt like they were on fire.
“A mood,” Aimi echoed, not blinking. “Could you elaborate? The imagery is very specific. ‘Sun-warmed skin, a taste like light.’ That’s evocative.”
Taichi bit the inside of his cheek. Sun-warmed skin. That was him, after dance practice, sprawled on the floor of the studio. Yamato handing him a water bottle, his gaze a tangible weight. A taste like light. That was last Tuesday, in the dim backstage hallway after a win, Yamato pushing him gently against a concrete wall and kissing him until Taichi saw stars behind his closed eyelids. It hadn’t been light. It had been desperation and triumph and something terrifyingly sweet.
Yamato shifted, a barely-there movement. “I think some things are better left to the listener’s interpretation. Music should be a mirror, not a window.”
It was such a polished, pretentious line, so perfectly Yamato-the-idol, that a strangled laugh bubbled up in Taichi’s throat. He choked it back into a weird, squeaky inhale.
Aimi’s laser focus pivoted. “Taichi-san? You seem to have an opinion.”
All the warmth drained from his face. “Me? No, no opinion!” He waved his hands, his Sunshine Prince grin snapping into place, wide and blinding. “Yamato’s just deep like that. Always has been. Moody lighting, vague lyrics, the whole thing.” He was rambling. He could feel Sora, stationed just behind the main camera, glaring daggers into the side of his head.
“The two of you have undeniable chemistry on stage,” Aimi pressed, her smile now showing teeth. “The fan edits are everywhere. How would you describe that dynamic? Is it pure performance, or does it bleed into your private lives?”
The question hung in the overheated air. Taichi’s mind went blank, then filled with a montage of forbidden images: Yamato’s sleeping face on the pillow next to his, the secret brush of fingers when no one was looking, the way Yamato’s voice dropped to a private register just for him. You’re perfect. You’re mine.
He forced a laugh, light and airy. “Oh, we’re just really comfortable with each other! We’ve been friends for ages. It’s like… like wearing a favorite old sweatshirt. You just relax into it.” The analogy was awful. It made Yamato sound like stretched-out fleece.
As the hollow, performative words left his mouth, he felt a shift in the space beneath the low table between their chairs. A warmth. A deliberate pressure. Yamato’s hand, smooth and sure, found his own where it was clenched in a nervous fist on his thigh.
His fingers slid between Taichi’s, prying them open, then lacing them together. The grip was firm, grounding, hidden from the world by the wooden tabletop and a strategically placed ceramic vase.
Aimi was still talking, her words a distant buzz. Taichi’s entire being telescoped down to that single point of connection. The rough pad of Yamato’s thumb stroking the inside of his wrist, over his frantic pulse. It was a silent contradiction to every vapid lie he’d just told.
Comfortable? This wasn’t comfort. This was a live wire. This was the secret heartbeat of the world. The studio lights, Aimi’s probing stare, the future headlines—they all receded into a soft blur. Here, in the blinding, public eye, with his hand secretly held, Taichi had never felt more truly, dangerously seen.
Yamato didn’t look at him. He was nodding at something Aimi said, his expression coolly professional. But his hand was speaking a different, entirely private language. A language of possession, and reassurance, and a promise that started in a stalled elevator.
Always.
Taichi held on, his own fingers tightening their grip. He stopped trying to force his smile. For the first time since they’d sat down, it felt real, softening at the edges, something private warming his eyes as he finally met Aimi’s gaze without fear.
“Yeah,” he said, his voice quieter, more solid. “We just… fit.”
Under the table, Yamato’s thumb pressed once, hard, against his racing pulse. A punctuation mark. A secret truth in a room full of beautiful lies.