Chapter 27: The Breakfast Inquisition
The fluorescent lights in the dorm kitchen buzzed, a sound that always made Yamato’s teeth ache. He leaned against the counter, sipping bitter black coffee, watching the door. The usual morning chaos swirled around him—Kenta scrolling through dance videos on his phone, Hiro arguing with Ryo over the last yogurt, Jun burning toast. It was all background noise.
Then Taichi shuffled in.
He moved with a careful, stiff gait, trying to smooth his perpetually messy hair. The high collar of his sweatshirt was turned up, but it did nothing to hide the dark, purpling love bite just behind his earlobe. Yamato’s mark. A quiet, savage satisfaction warmed his chest.
Taichi made a beeline for the coffee machine, his usual sunny greeting lodged in his throat as he moved.
Jun spotted it first. He lowered his burnt toast, eyebrows climbing. A slow, wicked grin spread across his face.
“Whoa, whoa, whoa,” Jun drawled. The room’s chatter dipped. He let out a sharp, piercing wolf-whistle that cut through the microwave’s hum. “Someone had a seriously good morning.”
Taichi froze, hand hovering over the coffee pot. A flush crept up his neck. “Shut up, Jun.”
Ryo snickered, pointing with the end of his chopstick. “Dude, your neck. You look like you got into a fight with a vacuum cleaner. And lost.”
“A very enthusiastic vacuum cleaner,” Kenta added, not looking up from his phone. His voice was flat, factual. “Finally. We’ve been taking bets for two years. I just won three hundred thousand yen. Thanks for the new speakers, guys.”
The confession landed like a grenade. Taichi’s head whipped around, his warm brown eyes wide with dawning, horrified comprehension. He looked from Kenta’s deadpan face to Jun’s glee, to Ryo’s sympathetic smirk, to Hiro’s slight, knowing nod.
They all knew.
Every whispered conversation that stopped when he entered a room. Every lingering glance between Yamato and the others. The way Hiro always suggested Taichi room with Yamato on tours. The specific, reverent way Kenta programmed the lights for Yamato’s solos—always golden, always warm.
The song. “Honey Eyes.” The lyrics about morning light and trembling bodies and tasting sweetness. Taichi had heard it in practice, had thought it was beautifully intense. Now the words replayed in his head with vicious, explicit clarity. Yamato had written a song about making him come. And everyone in this goddamn kitchen had known it was about him.
The walls of the brightly lit room seemed to lean in. The cacophony of voices, the buzzing light, the smell of too many bodies and instant noodles—it thickened the air. His breath hitched, a familiar, cold finger tracing his spine. Too many people, too close. He shoved the claustrophobia down, burying it under a wave of sheer, flaming embarrassment.
He was the Sunshine Prince. He was supposed to be in on the joke, not be the joke.
“You… you all…” he stammered, his voice barely a whisper. The heat in his face was nuclear.
Yamato watched it all unfold, the panic and realization dancing across Taichi’s face. He didn’t move to help. He savored it. This was the other side of possession—not just the private marking in the dark, but the public, unspoken acknowledgment. Taichi, glowing with his love bites, belonging to him in front of everyone.
With a fluid motion, Yamato reached for a clean mug. He poured the coffee, added the obscene amount of milk and sugar Taichi loved, and slid it across the counter towards him. The scrape of ceramic on laminate cut through the laughter.
Taichi’s eyes lifted, meeting his.
Yamato’s lips curved, not in his stage smirk, but in something softer, more intimate. A smile just for him. He let his voice drop, a low murmur that somehow carried to every corner of the suddenly quiet kitchen.
“You’re glowing, sunshine.”
The words were a caress and a brand. Taichi made a small, strangled sound and buried his face in his hands, his ears burning crimson. The group erupted. Jun whooped, Ryo slammed the table laughing, even Kenta cracked a faint smile.
Yamato pushed off the counter and closed the small distance between them. He didn’t touch Taichi, not with everyone watching. He just stood beside him, a solid, silent presence amid the riot, and picked up his own coffee. He took a slow sip, his eyes never leaving the hunched, mortified figure of the boy he loved.
“Leave him alone, you vultures,” Yamato said, but there was no heat in it. Just a calm, settled ownership that silenced the room more effectively than a shout.
Taichi, still hiding behind his hands, peeked through his fingers. He saw his coffee, steaming and perfect, right next to Yamato’s black. He saw Yamato’s bare foot, tap-tapping a casual rhythm against the linoleum. The world, which had felt like it was crashing in, reshaped itself. The walls receded. The noise became just noise again.
He slowly lowered his hands. His face was still pink, but a different kind of warmth was spreading through him now, unruly and defiant. He reached for the mug, his fingers brushing Yamato’s where they rested on the counter. A secret touch in plain sight.
“Assholes,” Taichi muttered, but a tiny, reluctant smile played on his lips. He took a gulp of the sweet coffee, letting it fortify him. “All of you.”
“Takes one to know one, loverboy,” Jun shot back, but he was grinning.
Yamato’s shoulder pressed against Taichi’s, a fleeting, solid point of contact. “Eat something,” he murmured, for Taichi’s ears only. “You’ll need your energy.”
The implication, the memory of the morning, of the promise of every morning, sent a fresh, thrilling shiver through Taichi. The embarrassment wasn’t gone, but it was now tangled up with something else, something giddy and new. He was seen. He was known.
And he was, unquestionably, Yamato’s.