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[lakebrat]

Hello. You've reached Goro Akechi, known as Frog. Please leave a message.

[Beep.]

[[ooc: WARNING that threads with willowandoak may contain unmarked NSFW. Tread lightly. Blame Sunflowren.]]

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[lakebrat]

For you, always.

[He still perks up when Ren texts, and thinks he might always. But there's something about this he doesn't like.]

Well, that's a lie. I'm feeding Morgana. But by the time you get to Leblanc, yes, free.

[willowandoak]

[ The first text makes him feel squirmy and uncomfortable, but also as though he could look at it for the rest of his life and never get tired of it. He stares at it for a moment, unblinking, before he shakes himself. ]

cool omw

[ And, indeed, it's only a minute or two later that Ren steps into Leblanc. His expression is complex. ]

[lakebrat]

And Morgana is still on one of the tables, ears slightly back, eating poached egg over rice. He lifts his nose long enough to say, "Not you again—"

"Mona," Goro says firmly, cutting him off and offering Ren a complex little smile. He's midway through preparing a pourover, with no customer in sight.

It looks as bad as he thinks; they'll need to go upstairs, if Morgana doesn't clear out. "Hey."

[willowandoak]

"Hey."

But he's distracted by the cat, and what he suspects is the first of many similar welcomed. "And hi to you too. You know, you shouldn't put your paws where people eat. You'll track germs from your litter box."

[lakebrat]

"I don't have a litter box!" Morgana spits, eyes wide and ears flicked back. "Frog, are you going to let him talk to me that way?"

The pourover is resting; Goro emerges from behind the counter, offering to scratch behind the cat's ears, an odd, sad light in his eyes. "You've got to behave with the customers, you know. Might be tuna in it for you if you do."

"You can't bribe me!" Mona insists, ears still half-back but allowing the petting. Goro nods at Ren's counter seat, behind the cat's back. "I've got to get back to this coffee. Finish your egg. Then, if you leave, you get to keep it down."

Smiling at Mona, he returns to the counter to take up the second pour, mouthing silent words. Sorry about him.

[willowandoak]

It's the look on Goro's face as much as the silent apology that makes Ren back down. He gives Morgana a dark look and turns his back, seating himself at the counter.

"Done anything fun this evening?" he asks Goro, almost as if they're alone, except that he obviously didn't come here for idle chatter.

[lakebrat]

"I've been reading. English language review for the exams, if I survive." His university entrance exams, of course, which are supposed to be in January—though he's heard stories about how January typically goes. Steaming water flows from the gooseneck spout, with his hands expertly poised.

"To tell the truth, I was going to text you myself in a little while." Like, seriously. They have a whole evening. Except Ren is bothered.

[willowandoak]

A cloud passes over his face at the suggestion that Goro might not survive. But he doesn't comment.

"Is that what you do here? Study all day? By the time we get home, you'll be one of those guys that gets perfect scores across the board."

Except that Goro will probably be in jail in January, and that's if everything goes well. The thought shadows the smile he sends across the counter. "You should've texted. I can be a good study buddy. Score high on a practice quiz, get a reward."

[lakebrat]

His own smile returns, a little pointier. "What kind of reward?"

Across Leblanc, Mona, his eggs finished, arches his back in disgust before prowling upstairs to the window.

[willowandoak]

He raises his voice, just enough to make sure Morgana can hear it as he heads for the stairs. "Hm... A really good blowjob."

The second Morgana is gone, though, a measure of tension drains out of him. It leaves him looking tired and distracted. "Fuck. The one back home isn't that annoying. ...Is he?"

[lakebrat]

Goro can't help laughing, imagining the patter of furious claws across some other Ren's attic floor. He pushes the coffee over to Ren with an enticing twist of his wrist. "No. God, no. The one here"—his mouth twists—"is lonely, I think. Resents me for not being you."

[willowandoak]

"Not me. Some other guy who looks like me. I get that a lot, actually."

He takes the coffee and lifts it to his face, inhaling deeply and enjoying the aroma before he takes a sip. He never did shit like that before he started drinking Goro's coffee.

[lakebrat]

He leans over the counter, face cradled in one hand that's still warm from the coffee. "Do you really still want to give me a blowjob?"

Cheer up, Ren.

[willowandoak]

Ren glances up from his coffee, eyebrows raised in mild disbelief. "I've wanted to have your dick in my mouth since I watched you in Kaneshiro's Palace, dude."

He is distracted, at least.

1/2

[lakebrat]

2/2

[lakebrat]

"Is that right?" he manages, attempting to draw Cool around him like a cloak, and pretty much succeeding. "What was it, the cloak?"

All that blue velvet. It is pretty plush, he won't lie.

[willowandoak]

"A little, I guess. Mostly it was how you fought." Vicious and savage, and then when the fight was over, Goro had pulled it all back inside himself as if it had never existed. But Ren had seen it.

[lakebrat]

That's startling to hear. The others sometimes call him on the way he fights; Haru especially has talked quietly to him about it over tea. It's not that he didn't feel Ren's eyes burning into him in Niijima's Palace, it's just....

"And am I living up to your expectations?" It's not quite even; almost a promise of more, and soon. He hasn't let himself rip, yet; the whole business is still too experimental. But there are enough signs of what he might be.

[willowandoak]

He considers Goro for a second. The trace of unsteadiness in his voice; the curl of his lips in the Metaverse, a snarl of triumph as he calls Lancelot. The care with which he treats Ren, always.

"Too soon to tell," is what Ren decides to say in the end. "You want to give me something more to think about?"

[lakebrat]

"Oof. Fish for praise, and see what I get," he murmurs, looking Ren right in the eye in the low light. "What if I'd rather have your dick in my mouth, anyway?"

Like so many things, he's never done it. And the thought is one he returns to.

[willowandoak]

He meets Goro's gaze with the intense, unblinking stare he turns on Goro sometimes, like he's drinking in Goro with his eyes after days of thirst. The image is in his mind now, vividly—and he would be the first, like he was the first to kiss Goro, to touch him.

"Do you?"

[lakebrat]

And Goro doesn't look away, not for a second. That thought's in his mind too—and he wants Ren to be first, he wants Ren to take everything he has, and then he wants some more. "Drink your coffee."

But he doesn't look away.

[willowandoak]

He almost says, Fuck the coffee. Then he remembers entering the café to the sight of Goro already making it, and the strange sensation of being welcome. He brings the cup to his lips and drains half the remaining coffee without coming up for air.

"Now come on," he says afterwards, setting the cup back down on the counter and reaching across for Goro's hand.

[lakebrat]

He comes around the corner to meet Ren, taking his hand and leading him up the steps. "Come on?" he says, as they go. "Really, Ren, your language."

Later, when they're entwined half-under, half-above what to all appearances is Goro's own brown winter quilt, on Goro's bed, which now is improved by the addition of a thick new futon, he squints sideways with a sleepy smirk. "Nice," he says. "Minimal cleanup."

[willowandoak]

"Mm. You would like that."

He flops over and presses close, feeling something start to unknot as he breathes in Goro's scent. When people talk about relaxing fragrances or whatever, maybe they mean something like this...? ...Probably not.