A trail of sweat rolled down Yato's cheek as he stood in front of Vero, who was easily twice his size. Yato was about 5’3 in feet and Vero was 6’1, which made him feel like he could be overpowered any minute.

Vero knew he got caught by Yato, and Yato was desperately trying to come up with some lies on the spot. When Vero put a hand beside Yato, he thought Vero was going to grab him but instead he ended up leaning against a wall, causing him to flinch. Leaning into Yato as Vero bent down, his head low enough beside his ear. Yato couldn’t run as he was pressed more against the wall.

“You really don’t understand privacy. I know you have seen everything on my phone.” Vero started, tsking at him.

“I-I don’t know what you’re talking about.” Yato stumbled with his words as he looked away from Vero. He couldn’t come up with a good lie, Vero was too close for comfort, which was making him dangerously nervous. He was never this close to someone before, even with women. He always kept a respectful distance from others.

He didn’t like being touched, anyone who dared to touch him, Yato would either run off or attempt to fight them off. His past-self would love any type of comfort from anyone, though he had already made that mistake.

Yato’s mind slipped into a flashback as Vero was talking to him, not even listening to the words that were coming out of his mouth.

[His parents were never the type of showing affection towards themselves and towards him. Every day would only be him eating alone, being sent to his room until he was able to leave for school the next day. They told him they would rather eat with themselves instead of him, for when they saw him, they would get so disgusted they felt like throwing up and lost their appetite.

He didn’t know if it was because he was born with white hair, or he didn’t look like them at all. All of his genes came from his grandmother whom they hated. Hated her enough to let her even die in a nursing home alone.

Of course, in a child’s developmental stages they need love and care. If they didn’t grow up with it, usually the outcome turns into a rebel teenager who would seek attention in different ways. Instantly, that was the case for Yato; who sought to be a rebel towards his parents. Demanding love and attention, he would come home and be super loud towards them. In response to him being loud and talking too much towards them, they would seek a different way of dealing with him.

One day when he came home with some cake, he got from his part-time job after school. He decided to share some with them, demanding them to sit with him at the table to enjoy a piece of cake. To his surprise, they did indeed sit with him, but when his mother was cutting the cake, she reached to him. Thinking she was going to praise him for once having a part-time job and taking care of himself without them.

He bowed his head towards her hand, though when the shock hit reality- a knife went into his arm. His mother was screaming as his father was just sitting there in disgust, not in disgust at what his wife just did; instead in disgust at looking at his own son. Yato’s mother rigged the knife into his shoulder and started to cut down to the middle of his arm. Blood gushed from his arm as Yato let out a painful scream in agony; memory flashing back a moment; “Mother! What are you doing?!”

Many years of bloodbath and yet he never once fought back against his mother. It was never his intention to fight back, and fighting a woman would just cause them to just use the law on him- even if it was just self-defense. Yato instead saved up his money from his part-time job and right when he hit eighteen, he moved out into a cheap apartment complex. The landlord was one of his friends’ fathers, which helped him to get the apartment at a low price. Ever since then, he has been living in the same apartment complex, completely alone- just like how he likes it.

For most people, loneliness is painful and also damaging for emotional needs. When someone was so used to being alone, the emotional needs and the physical demands were never in their head. It was normal for Yato, and he didn’t mind it because he thought he wasn’t missing anything. He had everything he needed in his small apartment and he didn’t need anyone else either.]

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Vero sighed and slammed his fist against the wall beside Yato’s head;

“Do not hear me? You've been spacing out ever since I confirmed you were snooping in my phone, Peach.”

Vero, using his nickname as he was testing Yato for a response. “If you didn’t hear me the first time, let me repeat myself. My personal life shouldn’t be taken lightly. Since you snooped into my personal life, I recommend you not anyone. I keep my personal life out of my work life for a reason. You should understand that? Right?”

This narrative has been purloined without the author's approval. Report any appearances on Amazon.

Vero was scared his secret would come out, he knew Japan nowadays were more commonly accepting of people who like the same sex, but he didn’t want others to know. He never even told his parents that he was gay, especially since they didn’t want him not having his old bloodline of kids. They bugged him about it each time they talked to them on the phone or even on the holidays when he went to visit them. It was a pain in the ass and he wanted his secret life to keep secret.

Maybe Vero just didn’t want the drama from them and others? Maybe he had his own homophobia for himself. He never thought of it that way but he didn’t dare to tell others who he was sexually interested in. The only other person that knew was his bandmates, only because they tried to set him up on a date with a woman. It ended up with him yelling at them, telling them he had a boyfriend and that he would rather puke instead of going down on some nasty pussy.

-Yato shook his head, making himself think to stop thinking about the past and to listen to Vero’s threats and words. He glared up at him, disgusted that he was next to him so close,

“Back up, Vero. I get it, you don’t want me telling people you are gay. It doesn’t mean you can threaten me like this, and treat me like shit at work like you always do.”

Yato was enraged, more than Vero was. He just didn’t like people near him and it pissed him off. Pushing him back with his palm on Vero’s chest- “I told you to back off!” He screamed.

The freebie, natural outgoing person Vero knew disappeared right in front of his eyes. Hm, what’s his damn deal? He’s the one who was snooping in my phone, it was rude. Who the hell does he think he is? He shouldn’t get in trouble for going in someone's personal things? I know I should start locking my phone at work or around others but I didn’t know someone would have the balls to even look into my phone.

“It’s because your damn phone kept on going off all day, I was going to silence it but the messages kept on coming. So, I couldn’t just not see it.”

When Yato started to speak again, Vero decided to back off of him since he noticed he was getting more mad that he was too close to him. Noticing right away that he started to calm down more and acting like himself when he took steps back from him.

Yato side glanced to look at the hallway ahead of them, his cheeks blight pink.

“I also didn’t know you were gay or were in a relationship. Seeing someone being handled like that was a bit too surprising for me.”

Yato nervously laughed, not daring to look back at Vero’s face, not wanting to know what his face looked like when he confessed. He knew Vero was pissed off at him and that would always lead up to the other one punching him, anyone who was mad at him had the right to punch him in the face. It was all he knew.

He heard a sigh from Vero, feeling a hand above his head, flinching until the hand touched the top of his head. Those big hands were so damn gentle that he didn’t know how to react to it. He never received a head pat from anyone, he was already clenching his fist in fear. Vero’s fingers ran through his white soft hair as he gave him a pat on the head, “Just don’t tell anyone,”

Vero said in a soft voice- “or I might have to kill you.” Anyone could tell those last words were just Vero being sarcastic. In all reality, Vero didn’t have the heart to really hurt anyone, much less kill.

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Yato’s gaze slowly returned to Vero’s face, seeing how he was just smirking at him, he knew right away he wasn’t going to kill him. However; deep down he knew he couldn’t believe anything from anyone.

“Uh, right. But please, don't touch my ass.” Yato put up his hand to shove his hand away from his head. Glaring up at him as Vero started to laugh, Vero responded

“Please, I wouldn’t dare touch you.”

In the future this wouldn’t be the case; Vero wouldn’t dare to keep his hands off of Yato’s butt. The time will come soon enough when these two will fall in love but hardships would have to happen before the real romance will come.

Yato didn’t know how to love anyone and when he found out someone didn’t actually want to harm him for once, little sparks started to flare up inside his heart. He thought he was dying, as he had never felt this way towards anyone before.

When they both were back in the office, they returned doing each task before the end of the day. When it was time to leave Vero was ready to announce new upcoming events.

“We all should know by now- we have a monthly outing next week. Since we worked pretty hard to get deadlines in each month, we should reward ourselves; of course, the company will be paying for us.”

He picked up a small black box that had votes on where to go for the company outing. “The winner is the Uki Bar and Grill. We will go to the place after work on Friday.” Others started to shout for joy since they voted for that place, however, Yato reached his out in front of his face in a waving motion.

“Well-well I guess everyone will see how much of a drunk I am that day, please take care of me.” Everyone, of course, started to laugh at him. Vero cleared his throat.

“-On a serious note we have a new contractor. They were very demanding, though after a while they signed a contract with us. We will be starting working on a manga project with them after Friday, as well as continuing our daily assessments with our other clients. I know; this seems like a lot of work and all of you will get extra pay for this. I will be working on task sheets for each one of us. So we can keep up with everything in a timely manner. Overtime will be double pay as well during these couple of weeks until we finish the manga project with them.”

Vero looked at everyone, one by one, looking at their faces of panic.

"-I hope you understand the company and I am very grateful for you guys, and your hard work. You will be rewarded good pay and bonuses. If you have any more questions, you will have to wait until after Friday. I am still receiving the proper documents from them, and the plan they agreed with.”

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Everyone respectfully bowed to him, no words given as they gloomily walked out of the office building to go home. Yato stayed behind, folding his arms and shaking his head.

“But you still want me to do overtime tonight? How dare you.”