Chapter Text
Five steps out of the restaurant, Kao smacks the back of Pete’s bicep three times in rapid succession.
Pete, still laughing, just rubs at the spot absentmindedly. “You said you’re not into hitting,” he says, leaning into Kao’s space with a lascivious smirk. “Had a change of heart?”
Kao shoulders him away with an aggrieved noise. “You’re so obnoxious,” he says.
They turn onto an even smaller side street, this one mainly occupied by bars whose doors won’t open for hours still. The crowd’s thinned out, but Kao still checks the few people he can see for any interested eyes before deciding it’s fine to talk more openly.
“You said you’d stop,” he tells Pete, frowning.
Pete puts a hand over his heart, his expression a performance piece in innocence. “Stop what? What did I do?” he asks. When Kao just stares at him, Pete adds some sad, victimized eyebrows to the mix.
Kao sighs and shakes his head. Just to needle Pete a bit, he turns to go back to the main road rather than continue taking the long way back to MUSE through the warren of side streets and back alleys.
Pete says, “Whoa, whoa, whoa, okay, okay,” and loops his arms around Kao’s chest, hauling him back onto the meandering route. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry.” He settles one arm on Kao’s shoulders and gives him an apologetic squeeze.
While they continue the walk, Kao points at Pete’s nose and says, “Stop talking about Win.”
Pete, his eyes fixed on the path ahead, lets out a disbelieving laugh. “I didn’t say anything about him! You’re the one still talking about him.”
Kao pinches his side and smirks when Pete squawks and dances away from him, but not far enough that he has to let go of Kao’s neck. “Team’s just a kid and MUSE is his first experience with parlors,” Kao says. He pinches Pete’s side again, only slightly gentler this time. “Don’t go bringing him into behind-the-scenes drama he doesn’t need to be involved in.”
“I’m just happy for Win!” Pete says, smiling at Kao with a mouthful of teeth and insincerity.
“Sure,” Kao says.
Pete switches to sulking. “I can’t even be happy for him without you getting weird about it.”
“You’re weird,” Kao says, jerking his chin at Pete. “About Win. None of my regulars ever bother you—not even when you were a regular—just Win. You promised you’d stop being weird about him.”
Pete rolls his eyes and sidesteps the main topic to grumble, “Why would your regulars bother me? They’re customers.”
“Guests,” Kao corrects. “And Win’s a colleague.”
“If they’re paying, they’re customers.”
“Customers pay for a service or a product—MUSE’s guests are paying for an experience.”
“You’re really going to argue semantics?”
“I’m saying there’s a reason they use that term in particular, Pete.”
With an aggravated sigh, Pete hauls Kao closer by the neck and kisses his cheek. “You call me frustrating,” he says.
“I do,” Kao says, tamping down on a grin. “I call you frustrating a lot. Because you are.”
It’s not lost on Kao that Pete has avoided yet another opportunity to acknowledge that he himself was Kao’s regular once.
Apparently it’s not relevant information anymore.
Pete finally changes the subject to something completely unrelated to MUSE, and they manage a good ten minutes of casual conversation until Jarvis II speaks up from Pete’s bag. “Sir, your father would like to know if you’ll be having dinner with your family this evening. Shall I inform him that you’re otherwise occupied?”
Pete’s pause has Kao saying, “You can go. I’ll be working late anyway. Tell them I said hi and I’ll come by next weekend.”
The silence stretches on.
They’ve emerged into the sizzling sunlight, so Kao has to squint to interpret the face Pete’s making.
When he can’t figure it out, Kao asks, “What’s wrong?”
Pete shakes his head. “Nothing. Just—I thought you were free tonight.”
“I was free all day yesterday,” Kao says. “You remember.” He drops his head on Pete’s shoulder as they walk. “You were very much there.”
Pete picked him up after his last session at MUSE on Friday, and then they spent most of Saturday in or beside their pool at home. Hours of uninterrupted time in Pete’s company had Kao feeling lighter than air until a regular wrote to him with an urgent request for a session. Kao couldn’t force himself to decide what to do until he heard Pete in the kitchen singing a pop song off-key while he assembled lunch for them from pre-made ingredients delivered by the kitchen AI.
Kao declined the request gently and offered the time slot he’s on his way to now, which his regular tersely accepted.
Pete drops his shoulder just enough to annoy but not to dislodge Kao’s head. “Who are you seeing tonight?” Pete asks.
Kao asks, “If I say I have plans with my colleagues, are you going to be weird?
“Is one of those colleagues someone I’m not allowed to talk about?”
Kao lifts his head just so he can throw it back and groan. “Pete.“
“You’re the one who said I can’t talk about him!”
“Yes, Win will probably be there,” Kao says. “So will Prae. So will King and Korn. So will ten other people, Pete. None of whom you’re worried about. It’s an activism meeting—nothing sexy about it at all.”
“I’m not worried,” Pete says. “I’m jealous.”
Kao gives him a deadpan look. “Right. Sorry for not getting the nuance right.”
They walk a bit longer in silence, Kao determined not to offer any sincere apologies. He’s not wrong. He knows it, Pete knows it.
Besides, it’s better to say nothing when Pete’s arm on his shoulders feels like home, and a glimpse of Pete’s face proves that he’s absorbing something.
Lowering his guard a little, Kao tucks his hand into Pete’s back pocket, enjoying the flex of Pete’s muscle against his palm with every step.
Last night, before he and Pete left the pool, they stood in the shallow end under the starry sky with their arms loosely draped around each other, Kao reliving some of his favorite moments with Pete in recent memory while Pete ran his wet fingertips over the small of Kao’s back just above his swim trunks.
“I’m not jealous jealous,” Pete says. The expression on his face is contemplative but pinched. “There’s just something different about you spending time with him, and I don’t know what it is. I trust you,” he adds, when Kao opens his mouth, “I do, Kao, I swear. I don’t know what it is. I’m trying to be honest, okay?”
They pause in front of the building with twenty-two minutes left before Kao’s next session.
They stand facing each other in the shade, Pete worrying his bottom lip between his teeth as he stares at the pavement while Kao searches his mind for an easy departing line that will assuage some of Pete’s concerns.
“Sir,” Jarvis II says. “Your sister has sent a gentle reminder to respond to your father’s invitation.”
Pete sighs. “Yeah, tell them both I’ll be there.” He inhales quick and exhales long.
Kao takes both Pete’s hands in his and squeezes tight. “You know you can come back,” he says. “Not as a regular, not if you don’t want. But it was fun having you around.”
Pete’s mouth quirks at the corner. “I think we exhausted every room we were allowed in, plus some of the ones we weren’t.” He leans in and kisses Kao’s cheek, then says, “I’ll see you at home later.”
“You might be asleep,” Kao says, sheepish.
“Don’t care,” Pete says. He thumbs Kao’s cheek. “Wake me anyway?”
“Fine,” Kao says with exaggerated exasperation. “Menace.”
Pete’s boyish smile warms his heart. “Love you, too.”
As Kao’s crossing the lobby to the elevators, Pete shouts, “Tell Win I’ll throw him into the ocean if he flirts with you tonight!”
Kao puts his hands over his ears and keeps walking.