About Love: Chapter 20

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The next morning, Asaka was struck by one of the worst hangovers he’d had in years. The moment he opened his eyes, his head pounded, and his stomach churned like it was about to flip inside out.

"What time… is it now?"

He reached out, expecting to grab his alarm clock. But his fingers grasped nothing but air. As he flailed his right hand around aimlessly, a voice nearby yelped, "Ow!"

"Ah—sorry..."

He apologized reflexively. He hadn’t realized someone was there.

Blinking against the unfamiliar ceiling and the different-colored walls, he took in his surroundings.

This wasn’t his room.

Pressing his throbbing temples, he sluggishly pushed himself upright—only for nausea to surge up from his gut. Clamping a hand over his mouth, he frantically searched for the bathroom with his eyes. Moving his head too fast would be a disaster.

"The bathroom is the first door on the left."

As soon as he heard the answer, Asaka leaped off the bed and dashed for the door.

There, he became a devoted disciple of the porcelain god. He threw up. And threw up. And threw up some more. Only after his stomach had emptied itself did the nausea begin to subside.

Since it was a unit bath, he rinsed his mouth at the sink. Glancing at the small mirror, he winced. He looked absolutely awful.

Dark circles loomed beneath his eyes. That was when he finally noticed his own state—he was wearing nothing but his underwear.

The voice that had told him where the bathroom was… It had sounded like Koenji.

Come to think of it, his memory cut off somewhere in the middle of their time at the bar. Judging by his nearly naked state, he must have caused trouble for him.

The thought made facing Koenji incredibly awkward. But he couldn’t just stay in the bathroom forever.

Bracing himself, Asaka stepped out—

"Whoa!"

The moment he opened the door, he nearly walked straight into Koenji—who was standing there, wearing only his pants.

Both of them froze, startled.

Then Koenji took a big step back.

A heavy silence settled between them.

"Are you okay?" Koenji finally asked.

"I heard you retching for a while..."

Asaka wiped the sweat off his forehead with the back of his hand.

"I feel a lot better now that I got it all out."

"Do you want some water?"

Now that he mentioned it, Asaka realized how parched he was. He took the plastic bottle Koenji handed him and gulped it down.

The cold water seeped into his body, refreshing him. The curtains were drawn, but sunlight leaked through the gaps. Morning had long since broken.

"I must have caused you a lot of trouble yesterday. Sorry about that."

His eyes drifted to the floor, where his suit and shirt lay in a careless heap.

"You just got too drunk to walk. It wasn’t that much of a hassle. You even took off your own clothes."

Having burdened a junior he always scolded felt somewhat pathetic.

Feeling the sting of shame, Asaka apologized again, then reached for his discarded shirt.

Nearby, his wristwatch had been abandoned on the floor. He must have taken it off and tossed it aside.

Picking it up, he glanced at the time—

And was shocked.

"Hey, what time is it?!"

"Last time I checked, it was a little past eleven."

Asaka’s watch read 11:30 AM.

Koenji had been so relaxed that Asaka had assumed it was still early morning.

"It’s already past work hours! What are you doing?!"

Koenji scratched his messy bedhead.

"Kohara-san said you could take the day off today. And he told me to take the day off too."

Even so, Asaka wasn’t convinced until he confirmed it himself.

Flipping open his phone, he found it powered off.

Why?

Tilting his head in confusion, he suddenly remembered—he had turned it off last night after talking to Sasagawa.

Once he called Kohara to double-check, Koenji’s words turned out to be true. He really had the day off.

Still, half of it had already gone to waste in bed. Sighing, he started getting dressed.

After changing, he grabbed his overturned bag from the corner of the room and pulled out a client file. He anxiously checked for any scheduled meetings—but fortunately, there were none.

By some rare stroke of luck, today had been set aside for office work. So, taking a day off wouldn’t cause any issues.

Top of Form

Bottom of Form"Koenji."

At the sound of his name, the junior colleague standing in front of the kitchen straightened his back.

"Think you can eat?"

"Eat…?"

"Yeah. Seems like I caused you a lot of trouble, so let me treat you to something."

Since he wasn’t heading to work, Asaka didn’t bother with a tie. He loosened the top button of his shirt—much cooler.

"If you’re not up for it yet, we can do it another time. Just don’t ask for a full-course French meal—that’d be rough."

No response.

Koenji wasn’t angry.

But… something was off.

There was a faint hesitation in his expression, something uncertain.

Asaka felt an odd sense of unease.

"What? What’s wrong?"

"No, it’s nothing…"

The words were vague, unconvincing. Something about him felt distant.

Why…?

The moment the thought crossed his mind, an unpleasant premonition crept in.

"Wait… did I do something ridiculous yesterday?"

Koenji’s shoulders flinched, twitching like a startled fish.

…Bingo.

"Did I throw up on the street? Go on a rampage here?"

"No, it’s not like that… It’s just…"

Trailing off halfway only made Asaka more curious.

"What did I do to you?"

Koenji pressed his lips together, his expression more serious than Asaka had ever seen.

Then, after a moment of hesitation—

"Um… can I ask you something weird?"

His voice was unusually tense.

"I won’t tell anyone else. I swear I won’t. So please, be honest with me."

Koenji inhaled sharply, then blurted out—

"Asaka-san, you… y-you… you like me, don’t you?"

Asaka’s eyes went wide. His mouth hung open.

"I mean, you like me, right?"

Koenji sounded completely convinced.

The sheer certainty of it—

The next moment, Asaka clapped both hands over his mouth—

And burst out laughing.

◇:-:◆:-:◇

There was a reason behind such an outrageous misunderstanding.

After getting completely wasted at the izakaya, Asaka had been unable to walk and was brought to Koenji’s place. But the moment they arrived, he stripped off his own clothes and collapsed onto the bed. Then, since Koenji found it too much of a hassle to set up a futon for himself, he simply crawled in beside him.

What followed was a drunken mess of complaints—"I like you," "You're so cold," "I wanted to go on that trip,"—culminating in a passionate kiss before Asaka promptly passed out.

Of course, he remembered none of this. Meanwhile, Koenji—having been on the receiving end of that kiss—was utterly shocked.

Did Asaka really like him that much?

Sure, he didn’t have a girlfriend, but he also wasn’t into men. Had he been influenced by Morino-sama and the others somehow…?

He agonized over it for a while, but at some point, he, too, had fallen asleep.

And yet, despite all his overthinking, the fact that he could still sleep soundly next to a man who had just professed his love to him was very much in line with Koenji’s usual lack of sensitivity.

When Asaka finally apologized, explaining that he had mistaken Koenji for a lover, the latter visibly relaxed in relief.

"I knew something felt off! I mean, I don’t remember you ever inviting me on a trip, and after kissing me, you even said, 'You've gotten worse at this.' I mean, Asaka-san, I guess you did seem kind of… experienced, but still…"

Struggling to hold back laughter, Asaka repeatedly apologized.

By the time they stepped out past noon, he treated Koenji to lunch before heading home. It was already past 3 PM when he arrived.

The nausea and headache had subsided, so he decided to make the most of what little was left of his precious day off by cleaning up his apartment.

Yesterday, he had been feeling down after being told they wouldn’t be able to meet for a while. But thanks to Koenji’s absurd misunderstanding, he had laughed so hard that his spirits had lifted—just a little.

As the sun began to set, the exhaustion from cleaning left him too drained to go out. He was just looking through the menu for a pizza delivery when his phone rang.

Sasagawa’s ringtone.

Taking a deep breath, he picked up.

"Hello, this is Sasagawa. About yesterday—I'm sorry."

Asaka had been the one sulking for no reason.

Sasagawa hadn’t done anything wrong. Yet, this man still apologized.

"Are you working right now?"

"No, I had the day off today."

"Oh, you had the day off?"

"Yeah, wasn’t planned, but I drank too much last night and got wrecked. They told me to just take the day. Did you… try calling my phone after that?"

"Only once. My work dinner had just ended, so I stopped by your place on the way home. But you weren’t back yet."

Asaka almost blurted out that he had stayed at his junior’s apartment—but stopped himself.

Even if it was just a colleague, Sasagawa wouldn’t feel great hearing he had spent the night at another man’s place.

Sasagawa probably wouldn’t pry, just responding with a simple "I see."

But Asaka knew he had a tendency to bottle things up. And when Sasagawa bottled too much, he exploded. Not that anything had actually happened. Well… maybe something had. But that was just an accident—he had mistaken Koenji for Sasagawa, after all.

A mere kiss was nothing.

…Except, when he thought about it, he and Sasagawa had never gone beyond kissing either.

Which meant—his situation with Koenji was… basically the same. That was when Asaka decided he would never tell him.

"Sorry, I got back late. I missed the last train… What time did you stop by?"

He apologized while subtly probing for information. The conversation wasn’t flowing smoothly. There was a noticeable delay before either of them responded.

"…I think it was just before midnight."

"That would’ve been while I was still drinking."

A long pause.

Then, at last, a quiet—"I see."

His voice was subdued.

"Oh, right. You had something you wanted to talk about, didn’t you?"

"…Do I need a reason to call you?"

He didn’t sound angry. But there was a distinct coldness to his voice. And that threw Asaka off.

"That's not what I meant..."

"Yesterday, when we talked on the phone, I must have upset you. It was on my mind. And since I couldn't reach you, I decided to stop by your place. That’s all."

"Sorry, I accidentally turned my phone off..."

"You don’t have to be considerate. You just didn’t want to talk to me, right?"

The sharp remark left Asaka speechless.

"Well then, see you."

Sensing that Sasagawa was about to hang up, he let out an involuntary "Eh?" only to be met with—

"Was there something else?"

"Not really, but..."

"I’m still at work. There's a lot I need to hand over before I finish."

The hum of car engines was loud behind Sasagawa, likely from the street. He was probably calling on his way home from work.

...The one who didn't want to talk was Sasagawa.

"Got it. Well, good luck with work—"

"Goodbye."

The line cut off with a sharp click.

Asaka threw his phone onto the bed.

"What the hell was that ‘goodbye’?! Acting all composed like that!"

Sasagawa was pissed. But Asaka hadn’t said anything to make him mad.

So what the hell was his problem? Was it that he had his phone off until noon? Or that Sasagawa had gone all the way to his place, only to find him gone?

Agitated, he couldn’t sit still for even a minute. Grabbing his wallet, he stormed outside.

Destination: the convenience store. He needed a drink to deal with this.

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