Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Clearly, everything was Tomo’s fault. 

After all the time he had spent wallowing in obscurity, an opportunity to make a name for himself again had finally presented itself. Could anyone blame him for taking it? Tomo was only a stepping stone and taking that belt from him was only the first step in taking control of his own career again. Besides, he thought, it wasn’t like Tomo benefitted all that much from being NEVER Openweight Champion. The audience already knew Tomo was strong. And tough. And goddamn-fucking-adorable. What else could that belt give him that he already had and Kenta didn’t? 

How dare Tomo not realize that he had practically done him a favor by taking that title for himself. He needed this. Tomo didn’t, not right now. By shouldering that burden himself, Kenta had probably freed up so much of Tomo’s schedule, he figured. What did heartthrobs do with their spare time? Kenta didn’t know. But what he did know was that, instead of whatever cute and charming things he should have been doing, Tomo had decided to spend all his time harassing him instead.

Not that Tomo was a threat to him. He’d proved that earlier that night in the ring.

The problem was Tomo’s friends.

The ugly one didn’t even deserve mentioning. Kenta had already taken care of him in America. Hiro, though…

He wasn’t worried about Hiro himself. That clown was barely worth taking seriously. The bigger issue was who had been tagging along with Hiro with increasing frequency. 

Kenta had lingered just off the entrance ramp after that night’s main event, waiting for Jay White to finish his victory speech which had somehow managed to turn into a full-blown, four-man debate. He didn’t pay attention to what was said; he was too keyed up listen and he was sure none of it affected him anyway.

When Jay finally exited the arena, Kenta pulled him aside before he had the chance to speak to anyone else. “When you asked me to help out if your match got messy, you didn’t tell me he’d be there,” he hissed.

“No idea who you’re talking about mate,” Jay said.

“You know exactly who.”

Jay chuckled. “Ahh. Right. Well, you disposed of him. And that’s what matters, right?” he threw his arm around Kenta’s shoulders, pulling him in more roughly than he would have liked. “Gotta keep this belt where it belongs. I knew I could count on you to help me with that!”

“Some advance notice about who I’d be dealing with would have been nice, though,” Kenta grumbled.

“Oh no,” Jay said. “Do you really think I knew they’d have Shibata on commentary for my match tonight? I know things, pal, so many things. But I don’t know everything. And believe me, if I had known he’d be out there causing trouble, you’d have been the first I’d told.”

Kenta stared at Jay, trying to decide if he was worth believing. All of his instincts were telling him not to but he also couldn’t help but think this wasn’t worth pressing further. Even though Jay was his leader and technically a friend, and even if he had forced Kenta into attacking Shibata, he was too slippery to ever let himself be blamed for it. He sighed and nodded.

“Good man,” Jay clapped him hard on the shoulder. “It’s not a problem for you, is it? In the future, say. I never took you for being the sentimental type, Kenta. Surely, you’re not still concerned with him?”

“It’s not a problem,” he said.

“Good...good, good man, you. Now, I’ll see you in the locker rooms later with everyone? The Tongans flew in early for tag league and said they’d buy all our drinks tonight if we both retained. Too sweet me, Kenta,” Jay said, poking him lightly on the cheek with his thumb and middle fingers before leaving him to do his post-match interview.

Sentimental. That was a word for it.

It was wrong, of course. He had tried so hard to push those feelings out of his mind. They had kept him stagnant; if he had indulged them, stayed comfortable next to Shibata, he would have only faded into insignificance in his shadow. Was he happier now? Of course he was. He was successful now, despite Tomo and his ridiculous friends trying to do everything they could to take that away from him. 

Despite Katsuyori Shibata’s insistence on still being in his orbit.

Kenta cursed under his breath. A clean break, that was all he wanted. He had done everything he could to push him away at the end of the G1 and yet he still kept popping up all the same tours that Kenta was on. Why couldn’t he just let him forget everything in the past - their past - and move on with his life? Didn’t he have a dojo in America to tend to? At least, prior to that night’s show, Shibata had kept to himself, but just knowing he was there was enough to put Kenta on edge. He could feel the memories of their time together slipping back into his mind. He hated to admit that there were some good ones, but they weren’t of any use to him now. He had new friends that supported him and cared for him and did everything they could to look out for him and his title that he definitely deserved.

But he wasn’t sentimental.

How dare Jay accuse him of such things.

Osaka Prefectural Arena had plenty of separate meeting rooms for individual factions to use for preparations before the show but only shower room for all the wrestlers to use. Kenta had hoped that waiting until the end of the show to shower and change back into his street clothes would give him some degree of privacy but, upon entering the locker room, he was annoyed to see that the better part of the roster had the same idea. He noticed that Jay had beaten him there and had claimed an entire corner of lockers for the Bullet Club. As he approached, Tama threw his arm around Kenta’s shoulders and pulled him aside.

“You didn’t tell me you’d be here for this show,” Kenta said to him.

“Gotta support all my bros, K! And we had some big wins tonight,” Tama said before dropping his voice to a near whisper. “But I should probably let you know, man, Shibata’s here. Just went into the showers with some of those Chaos guys you’ve been picking on.”

Kenta stiffened. Why couldn’t he just be free of him? Their first altercation that night had been irritating enough; the last thing he wanted was a second.

“Well, if you feel like roughing him up some, I’ve got your back,” Tama said, chuckling. “I could stand to loosen up a bit before the next tour.”

“Don’t worry about it, Tama. He’s not worth my time. Besides, I already showed him what-”

“Hey Goto, not looking so fierce of a warrior out there tonight, eh?” Kenta was cut off by the sound of Jay hollering. A mumbled curse escaped his lips. Despite his cocky young leader’s attempts to draw the attention of Goto’s posse with his heckling, he didn’t have to turn around to know exactly who was staring him down instead. He wasn’t in the mood for another fight that night but it appeared Jay was looking to drag him into one more.

“Since when did you know anything of the ways of warriors?” Goto growled. “You’re a weasel, Switchblade. A greedy child among men, with your ill-gotten title that you’d never still have without your band of cheaters and interlopers.”

“Are you jealous, Goto? Is that what you tell yourself when you see me achieving everything out of your reach? I have all the support and friendship now that you Chaos fools could never have given me. I know you want it, Goto. Look what I have!” Jay said as he gestured to the Bullet Club members gathered in the corner. Kenta could have sworn Jay smirked at him, urging him to involve himself. 

“You delude yourself if you think this band of vermin is capable of friendship, child,” Goto said. “That’s all the lot of you are, vermin. You’re pests at best and at your worst? Traitors.”

Goto didn’t even try to hide that his last word was directed right at Kenta. He could practically feel the daggers he was staring at him. And yet, Kenta could only keep his focus on the man at Goto’s side. Shibata had stood there the entire time, arms crossed, silent, his eyes boring a hole directly into Kenta’s own as he seethed. He had seen Shibata boil over with rage plenty of times over all the years they had known each other, but he couldn’t recall the last time he’d seen him this close to snapping outside of the ring. Serves him right, Kenta thought. Why did he even need to use the locker room anyway? Why was he so insistent on getting in his way? 

“If claiming what I deserve makes me a traitor,” Kenta said with a smile, “then I’d betray you again without hesitation. And then I’d do it once more for good measure.”

Kenta didn’t flinch as Shibata pounced, pressing him against the lockers. He didn’t blink, didn’t resist, didn’t do anything but smirk, goading his former soulmate into channeling every ounce of rage he had into his hold on Kenta’s body. He wanted to feel Shibata’s hate and nurse it, replacing any fondness he might still have for him with pure antipathy. Maybe, Kenta hoped, that would be enough to drive him away for good. He felt Shibata grip his chin roughly in his hand and the smirk turned into a full-blown grin.

“Need us to do something about him, pal?” Tama said as he rose to his feet, every muscle in his body tensed and ready to spring as soon as Kenta said the word.

Kenta didn’t break his gaze on Shibata as he waved Tama off. “No need. I want him to think he’s in control of the situation. That if he tries hard enough, I’ll take him back.”

“You take me back?” Shibata said. “Don’t make me laugh. You’re the one who left me, remember? And I don’t seem to remember ever relinquishing control of anything to you.”

Shibata’s fingers wrapped around Kenta’s neck, pressing firmly into his skin. “You never had control of me to begin with,” Kenta hissed as he smiled and tilted his chin upwards, daring Shibata to choke him harder.

“Is that what you think? Is that what you’ve told all your new bastard friends?” Shibata growled, his voice growing louder. “Did you also tell them about how I fucked you? Did you tell them about how it felt to have me in your mouth? In your ass? Did you tell them? Did you tell them how much you begged for it? Did you tell them how hard I could make you come? About how you couldn’t keep your hands off yourself in my presence? And how you got so hungry for my cock that I’d have to hold you down? Did you tell them about how loudly you moaned when I touched you and how you screamed my name when you came like it was the only word you’d ever learned? Did you, Kenta? Which one of them are you fucking now and did you tell them that they’ll never be as good to you as I was? Did you tell them?”

Shibata pressed his forehead to Kenta’s and tilted his wrists to put extra pressure on Kenta’s jaw as he squeezed. “Did you tell them you loved me?” he said quietly.

“I don’t...lie to my friends,” Kenta gasped.

“No, you just lie under them. You can get fucked by every single one of them for all I care. Hell, I encourage it. All it’ll do is remind you of who you had to give up to get here.”

Kenta barely registered Shibata pushing him roughly to the floor. He could feel himself stumble and land hard against the cold tile as he watched Shibata turn to leave, never looking back at where he had fallen. He knew everyone in the room was watching him, trying to process what they had just heard, but he didn’t care. Their opinions didn’t matter to him. They weren’t real. None of it felt quite as real as Shibata’s hands around his neck. He rubbed at the skin, trying to wipe away any lingering sensation. To erase every touch, every sentiment. All he wanted was to be free of Katsuyori Shibata’s presence in his life but now he felt more tethered to him than ever. 

As he collected himself, he could hear Jay telling their crew which bars he intended for them to hit up on the Tongans’ dime that night and how any nasty rumors about Kenta’s personal life being spread were definitely not his fault. He changed quickly and slipped out of the locker room, hoping no one would notice his exit. A stiff drink or ten was probably his best bet for erasing Shibata from his mind but he definitely didn’t have the energy for a Bullet Club bar crawl now. Kenta was halfway to his rental car before he noticed his phone vibrating in his pocket. He pulled it out, intending to just turn it off for the night, and noticed a text from Tama Tonga.

“Hey bro, you coming out tonight?” it said. Kenta typed out a response, stating that he was too tired. Hopefully, that would be enough to earn him some alone time.

He had a message back from Tama within the minute. “I still owe you a drink, though. If you want to come over to my place tomorrow night and split a case of beers and like, talk about stuff, that’s cool too.”

Talk about stuff, he thought. That was the last thing Kenta felt up to doing. He felt exhausted and empty; there wasn’t anything left in him that warranted discussing. He liked Tama well enough, and was definitely open to drinking with just him, but the thought of talking about everything Shibata had just said about him was too much to bear.

“Not really feeling up to talking, sorry,” he typed. “I’ve got a lot on my mind and I want to deal with it by myself.”

Kenta silenced his phone and drove back to his hotel. He didn’t notice a response from Tama until several hours later.

“Let me distract you then.”

A distraction was a far more tempting proposition than a conversation, Kenta thought. He was still dwelling on what Shibata had said to him. He sent back a message asking what he had in mind. At this point, he figured, anything Tama could do to get his mind off what had gone down at the show that night was welcome. There was a long pause before he got a response.

“Shibata thinks you getting fucked will only remind you of him? I’ll do you so well you’ll never think of him again.”

He felt distracted already.

Chapter Text

“You sure this is what you want, K?”

“Absolutely,” Kenta said as he pulled his shirt up over his head. “I’m too worked up right now. I could use a distraction and you did offer to give me one.”

Kenta sat on the edge of Tama’s bed and slid his hand around his friend’s neck, burying his fingers in his thick, curly hair as he pulled his face in close to his own. He leaned back against the bed, pulling Tama down on top of him. Their mouths brushed against each other and Kenta hoped it was just as intentional for Tama as it was for himself. The kiss that followed, with Tama’s breath hot and salty in his mouth, confirmed that it was.

“Wasn’t expecting you to take me up on that. You sat out one hell of a bar crawl, man. But if a drunk text gets you in my bed, I gotta do this right, yeah?” Tama said before pressing his mouth against Kenta’s once more, letting him taste his lips, before slowly working his way down Kenta’s chin and over his jawline. “What do I gotta get off your mind?”

“It’s...well, you know how fucking Tomo gets,” Kenta mumbled, quietly thankful that Tama apparently hadn’t looked too closely at his sent messages once he had sobered up. “All these tags and then our rematch last night? He’s too adorable. It’s just too much.”

“Suuuure he is.”

“Yeah. He is. That fucking sphere is too cute and it’s starting to mess with my head.”

“Really? After that scene in the locker room, I don’t think Ishii’s the one you’re in your head about.”

Kenta didn’t respond for a minute. He stared up past Tama, focusing on nothing in particular. “Can we...not talk about him,” he said, almost too quiet for Tama to hear.

Tama sighed. He rose up slightly, letting his weight rest on his elbow and holding Kenta’s face in his free hand, directing him to look at him. “We don’t have to talk about anything, man,” he said. “Hell, you’d rather just have sex? I’m down. But I just need to know that’s what you really want right now, K, because you’re not doing a great job convincing me.”

“Sorry,” Kenta said. “I’ve got a lot of shit going on and I just want...fuck. Can we just do this, Tama?”

“If you say so,” Tama said as he fiddled with the fly of his jeans. 

He stripped down quickly before grabbing Kenta by the waist and slowly working what little clothing he was still wearing down his thighs. Kenta raised his hips off the bed to facilitate the process, lifting one leg slightly as Tama removed it from his pants. As he did so, Tama let his fingers stroke along the back of Kenta’s bare thigh. He grasped his leg behind the knee, holding it upright as he leaned in and pressed his mouth against the soft skin.

“Do you mind if I…” Tama started to say, his teeth scraping gently across the fleshiest part of Kenta’s leg.

Kenta moaned slightly, only to then shift his positioning on the bed, pulling his leg away from Tama’s lips. “Umm, actually, not like that,” he mumbled. “Please. That was kind of his thing.”

“Sorry man. Anything else I should avoid?”

“Would you mind, uhh...can I just roll over?”

Tama shook his head and loosened his grip on Kenta’s leg so he could roll onto his stomach, bent at the waist over the edge of the bed. “Seems strange he didn’t care for this view,” he said as he spread Kenta’s ass cheeks apart with one hand and released them, letting the flesh jiggle as it fell back into place.

“Actually...more like our proportions didn’t line up quite right. He was just tall enough to make it awkward,” said Kenta. He thought about mentioning that Shibata also liked being able to see his face while he fucked him, that their eye contact was a huge turn-on for him, but decided against it.

“Well, that lanky bastard was missing out,” Tama said before leaning forward and pressing his body against Kenta’s back. He slid his hand between the mattress and his teammate, palming Kenta’s dick as he started to grind his own fervently against his backside. “Fuck, man,” he whispered before nibbling gently on his ear. “You look damn good underneath me and feel even better. I bet you feel amazing from the inside too. Tell me how much you want me all up in there.”

“Just...do it already,” Kenta growled.

“Nah man, I want to know you’re enjoying this,” Tama said, his voice velvety smooth. “Tell me how much you want me, how much you need me, how much you’re craving my cock to fill you all the way up.”

“I want you in me, okay? More than anything else right now, Tama. Now can you please cut this sensual crap and just plow me already so I don’t have to think about anything?”

Kenta felt the pressure of Tama Tonga’s body against his own lift. 

“I don’t think that’s what you want right now, K,” Tama said quietly, his lips brushing against the back of his neck.

The air in the room was cold against Kenta’s back as Tama pulled away from him. He could hear his footsteps rustling against the carpet and turning softer as he left the room. Kenta gripped the sheets in his fists and muttered every curse he knew into Tama’s bed. He didn’t want Tama to be right. He didn’t know what he wanted. And as he laid there, frustrated, all he could hear was the sound of Katsuyori Shibata implanted permanently in his brain, telling everyone that mattered to him now that he had loved him once. That they had loved each other for nearly fifteen years and now it was over. And that everything he had tried to do to keep it out of his mind had failed and now it had failed again and now he was alone, naked, in his teammate’s bed.

“He was telling the truth, you know,” Kenta yelled as he rolled over onto his back. “All of it. Every single fucking thing he said. About me, about...us. Fuck. It’s all true.”

Tama returned from the kitchen with a beer in each hand. “Heh, doesn’t surprise me,” he said as he popped the tab on one of the cans and offered it to Kenta, who accepted. “Shibata never struck me as someone who was good at lying.”

“He really isn’t. He’s an absolutely terrible fucking liar and he knows it,” Kenta said between sips. “I didn’t realize you knew him, Tama.”

“I don’t, not really. But I’ve fought him before. Tag league, though, that kind of thing. Never really had the chance to get a singles match out of him before, well...you know. His injury.”

“I’m jealous. I never got to fight him at all until I joined up with you guys and that doesn’t count.”

“Glad I could make that happen for you, then,” Tama said.

Kenta didn’t respond. He stared up at the ceiling, holding the beer at his side. He could feel Tama’s eyes on him, examining him, making him feel small and pathetic. He wondered what Tama thought of him. Was he disappointed? Was he judging him letting Shibata affect him like that? Even if Tama wasn’t upset with him, Kenta was definitely upset with himself. All he wanted was a distraction and here he was, dwelling on his past more than ever. He glanced over at Tama and saw that he’d put his pants back on. He felt crushed. Was sex off the table then? Kenta knew he’d been surprised and curious and a little bit desperate when he’d gotten Tama’s drunken text about it the previous night. He’d never thought of fucking Tama Tonga as something he would have wanted but now that his offer had been presumably rescinded, he wanted it even more. Or did he just want someone who wasn’t Katsuyori Shibata? Kenta wasn’t entirely sure what he wanted. He wanted something stronger than the beer Tama had given him. He wanted Tama to not be mad at him. He just wanted to move on.

“What’s he like?” Tama said, interrupting Kenta’s train of thought. “Like, as a person? If you don’t mind me asking.”

Kenta sighed. “I’d rather not...no. No, it’s fine,” he said. “Honestly? If you’ve known him in the ring he’s not that much different out of it.” 

“What, like he hit you or something?”

“Fuck off,” Kenta grumbled. “Not like that. He was never like that. At least, not with me he wasn’t.”

Tama mumbled affirmatively and took a long sip of his beer.

“He was just very...intense? He doesn’t know how to half-ass anything, including his emotions,” he continued. “He’s very private about his feelings but if he cares about you, you’ll fucking know it. He’s insanely protective of the people that are important to him.”

“Sounds exhausting. I can see why you left him, dude.”

“That’s not...it’s complicated, okay?”

“What’s complicated about that?” Tama said. “I’ve dated some girls like that, back in my 20s. They just, like, love too hard. It’s overwhelming.”

“It’s complicated because I fucking liked it!” Kenta growled. “It’s complicated because I’ve always loathed people trying to coddle me like that but for some reason it was different coming from him! I wanted his attention and god damn he fucking gave it to me. He cared about me and supported me and yet still always treated me like his equal. Sure, it was overwhelming at times, but don’t think for a second that I didn’t want to be overwhelmed by him!”

“So why…”

Kenta sat up and slid next to where Tama was sitting at the head of his bed. “Not sustainable,” he said. “Among other things. Doing the G1 Climax under his watch didn’t help.” 

“Well, yeah. That tournament strains more than just your body. Why do you think I sat it out this year?” 

“Straining things, huh,” Kenta chuckled. “Sounds about right. I hadn’t counted on how frustrating it would be to only be known through my connection with him. Like, no matter how well I wrestle, I’d never be more than just the sidekick of the company’s modern-day legend. Their tragic hero! How could I ever compete with that? After how much they stripped away from me in America, I thought I’d be happy with just being able to do what I’m best at, with the support of someone important to me. I wanted to be beside him but, well...”

“You were always underneath him,” Tama said. “In more ways than one, apparently.”

Kenta smirked and punched Tama on the arm, just enough to sting but not enough to linger. “Fuck off,” he said. “I wasn’t always underneath him.”

“What, so he let you take him sometimes?” Tama grinned. “That’s a mental image I never expected to have.”

“For good reason. I don’t think he ever had any interest in that, at least not with me. Hell, I don’t know if he even has interests in sex at all outside of me. He’s never mentioned any previous lovers. But if I got on top of him, I could ride his dick so well that I doubt he’s ever even thought of anyone but me.”

Kenta noticed him raise an eyebrow at that. “He wasn’t lying about me, but he did leave some stuff out,” he said. “Mainly that I was the one who had to teach him how to fuck me as well as he did.”

“Including how to nibble on your thighs so well you won’t let anyone else have a go?”

He felt Tama pat him on the leg as he said it. Kenta knew he was teasing him but still he felt somewhat comforted by the gesture. Tama’s hands were warm and, even in jest, he touched him confidently. As if he knew those hands belonged on his thighs, caressing his skin and opening him up both physically and emotionally. Shibata had touched him like that too, once. His hands against him had always implied something different, though; an arm around the shoulder to pull him close, a palm against the small of his back to support him. And now fingers gripping his throat to show he’d moved on. Had he moved on?

Had he moved on?

Kenta could feel the weight of Tama’s hand and the memory of Shibata’s mouth against his thighs and desperately wanted to replace one with the other. He wanted to be done with these feelings. He wanted to be free of them, but it felt like his own brain was rebelling against him, trapping him in the past.

“He...no...I should just go. You wanted a hookup and I’m just talking about stuff I want to forget and making a mess of everything. Thanks for the beer, Tama. And listening, I guess,” Kenta said, pulling away from his teammate.

“No way, dude, stay!” Tama said. “Like...for a little bit longer, at least.”

Kenta sat up on the edge of the bed and sighed heavily. “I don’t want to bother you with my shit.”

“You’re not bothering me, K,” Tama said as he crawled over next to Kenta and wrapped an arm around him, giving him a firm squeeze. “Look, we’ve known each other for a while now. Even before you signed over here and it was just me running into you at Fergal’s - well, Finn’s now, I guess - house parties. You’ve never talked about yourself much and I was always kind of curious what your deal was. So it’s cool that you’re opening up a bit, man. Like, to me at least. You’re part of the club now and I finally get to know more about you.”

Kenta snorted. “I’m not sure how me talking about the guy I used to fuck tells you anything about me, though,” he said.

“It’s the way you talk about him,” Tama said. “Body language and shit. Like, your shoulders relax when you’re talking about Shibata. Your face looks less tense. I know you said you don’t want to think about him now, but you just seem so much calmer when you’re telling me about him, K. Like you’ve been holding all this in for way too long.”

“Heh, maybe I have. Maybe I wanted out even before the G1.”

“Or maybe you never wanted out at all.”

Kenta shot Tama a glare. He met his gaze, unflinching, and Kenta knew that Tama’s interpretation of his feelings was far less complicated than they actually were. 

“You don’t know what youre talking about,” Kenta said quietly.

“No. I don’t,” Tama said. “I only know what you’ve shown me. And you know what I see right now? I see a Kenta who decided to prioritize his own success and made some difficult decisions in order to do it. A Kenta who doesn’t want anyone to know that he’s struggling with those decisions because he doesn’t want anyone to think he’s weak. A Kenta who knows he’s not over Shibata and is doing everything he can to channel those feelings elsewhere.”

“I would be over Shibata if he didn’t insist on inserting himself into my business all the time,” said Kenta.

“Would you though? Do you really want to be over him, K?”

“Of course I do!” Kenta shouted. “Fuck...do you really think I would have beat his ass if I still wanted him in my life? Yeah, I loved him. Yeah, I called him my soulmate once. And he did the same for me. And then I saw how much it was holding me back so I fucking ended it!”

Kenta stared down his teammate, daring him to have some sort of reaction. To give him any evidence that he didn’t believe him. That he didn’t trust that he was sincere in how much he wanted to move on. He didn’t know what else he could do to convince him of that and it frustrated him. Wasn’t just him responding to that horny text message enough? He was here, naked and willing, and yet Tama refused to believe that he wanted anything other than the man he had left behind months ago. Was it something he’d said? Fuck, he thought, it was probably everything he’d said. Kenta bit his lip, every recollection of Shibata that he’d shared with Tama that night replaying in his mind. As frustrated as he was with Tama for thinking that he was still pining, he was infinitely more frustrated with himself. Of course Tama thought he wasn’t over Shibata. He’d been telling him as much the entire night.

Kenta could feel Tama pulling him in closer, his arm around his shoulders heavy and strong. He wished he could be that strong right then, but he only felt exhausted. He felt every emotion he’d had in the past year, about his career and the Bullet Club and - as much as he hated to admit it - Katsuyori Shibata, weighing on him along with his teammate’s arm. Kenta’s head dipped to the side, resting heavily on Tama’s shoulder. He was tired of feeling this emotional but at least, right then, Tama felt sturdy enough to be some comfort.

“Why do you even care so much?” Kenta mumbled.

“I dunno,” Tama said. “You’re easy to care about, I guess.”

Kenta snorted.

“I’m serious! I wouldn’t have recruited you if I didn’t care about you to some degree. You’re one brutal mother fucker and tougher than anything, what’s not to like? I mean...shit, I like you, man. And I’m glad I finally had an opportunity to shoot my shot, even though it didn’t really work out.”

“Because I’ve got baggage.”

“Fuck, who doesn’t have baggage?” Tama laughed and squeezed his shoulder. “Yours just happens to be just as tough and scary as you are. And despite how much you both rage, I don’t think either of you are ready to give the other up for good. But when you do, K...I’m here for you. Believe that.”

“How about being here for me right now?”

“You know I am. You’re my friend or something. Maybe more someday. I don’t know. But I’ll listen to you vent until you figure out what you want.”

“It sounds like you’re just as confused about what you want as I am,” Kenta said.

“Well, yeah, dude. Have you seen yourself right now? I’m a good guy but I’m not that good. And fuck, if I’m not seriously tempted by you naked and pressed up against me.”

“You’re the one holding me here. What do you want, Tama?”

“Depends on what you want, K,” Tama said. “Do you want to be with Shibata?”

“I want to get what I came here for. And I’d rather have my cock in your mouth than his name. Stop making me think about him.”

Kenta lifted his head from Tama’s shoulder and turned to rest his mouth against his neck. He could feel his teammate’s curls brushing against his cheek. He buried his face in Tama’s hair as he let his lips drift upward, following along his jawline to his ear. Tama smelled nice, like musk and smoke and coconut oil. He let his scent burn itself into his memory and tried not to think of how it compared to Shibata, who had always just smelled clean. Or like him. He’d always smelled familiar. Kenta had never been sure if was the scent of his own sweat on Shibata’s skin, intermingled from all the time they’d spent pressed against each other, or it was just what happened when they had started sharing soap and shampoo so long ago that he’d forgotten when.

Shibata had smelled different when he’d came onto him in the locker room the previous night. It had probably been the soap all along.

“Stop making you think about Shibata? I didn’t make you do anything you weren’t already doing,” Tama said, his hand sliding down Kenta’s back and coming to rest at the base of his spine. “And I can’t make you forget. I don’t think anyone can do that but yourself.”

Kenta knew that already but damn, if it didn’t hurt to admit it to himself.

Chapter Text

When Hirooki Goto had learned that he’d be paired with a young lion for World Tag League that year, he initially felt that he should take it as a slight by the company. He suspected, if he was truly honest with himself, that he was on the cusp of aging out of the New Japan heavyweight title scene. Tagging with a trainee normally should have cemented that status; that he was graduating from main-eventer to mentor, respected but no longer a threat. Being half of a young lion team in the tag tournament should have been an immediate sign that he was no longer considered a serious contender.

He liked Karl, though. He was flashier and more charismatic than any young lion in his days could have gotten away with, but Goto couldn’t help but be fond of the kid. He was fond of all of Katsuyori Shibata’s trainees. They worked hard and were tough as nails and, despite their occasional irreverence, knew when to keep each other in line. He still would have preferred to do so with a wrestler on equal standing with himself, but tagging with Karl still felt like an opportunity to squeeze out a few tournament upset wins before the company wrote him off entirely. 

Besides, working with Karl meant he had an excuse to schedule another training trip to the LA Dojo.

Goto knew Shibata would never turn him away from his dojo. Shibata had always insisted that he had an open invitation to visit and help him work with the boys whenever he liked, but Goto was always concerned about being an imposition. He never wanted his catching up with an old friend to overshadow any actual wrestling training that needed to be done. 

The last thing he wanted was to distract the young lions with what he’d learned about their coach at Power Struggle. They hadn’t been in the locker room, after all. The intricacies of Katsuyori Shibata’s private life weren’t intended for them.

Those same intricacies weren’t meant for him either; Goto knew that well. In all the years they had been friends, he could only recall Shibata mentioning a few dates he’d been on, and certainly never in detail. He had known he’d taken Kenta’s betrayal at the end of the G1 hard, but if he was still upset enough about it months afterward to assault him after a show and reveal his sexual history to half the roster…

Their history. Shared. And most certainly sexual.

No wonder he had barely seen Shibata during the G1 that year, Goto thought. He had been distracted.

Perhaps that outburst had been a source of catharsis for his friend, an outlet for all the feelings he had apparently been bottling up since the tournament finals back in August. Goto hoped that would be the end of it. He didn’t enjoy seeing his friend this emotional out of the ring. He knew that, if the topic of Shibata’s secret tournament fling and its violent end came up, he would gladly discuss it, but the last thing he wanted was for it to derail his and Karl’s own tournament preparations. The only Kenta dramatics the young lion needed to informed of was his own curious pairing with the Tokyo Pimp for World Tag League. That, and how Kenta’s recent fondness for antagonizing him meant that their inevitable tournament matchup was bound to be a nasty one.

An annoyance for them both, to be sure, but nowhere near as scandalous as his tryst with the dojo’s head coach.

Goto wasn’t surprised that Shibata didn’t acknowledge the Kenta problem when he expressed his concerns about its potential for disrupting their tag league preparations. Instead, he assured Goto that there would always be room in the dojo schedule for him. And when the tag league schedule was announced to the public, he’d sent him a draft of his training plan for Karl. He hadn’t asked if Goto would be in America before writing in a full week’s worth of in-ring work for him and Karl prior to the tournament, each session followed by a private nightly workout for just the two of them.

“I have a pretty solid circuit planned out that I think will suit you, Goto-san,” Shibata had told him over the phone. “Then we’ll lock up the dojo and have a few beers. I know some nice places nearby.”

Goto booked the plane tickets and departed for California only a few days later.

From the moment his flight landed, Goto’s mind was preoccupied with the potential disruption to their training plan that Kenta offered, but was soon pleasantly relieved to find Shibata was his normal, focused self with his trainees. The days at the LA Dojo passed quickly and the nights were more than pleasant enough as Shibata led him on a tour of every restaurant in the neighborhood worth running up a bar tab at. 

Just like old times, long before Kenta had inserted himself into his best friend’s life and made a mess of everything.

“Are there matches you’re concerned with?” Shibata said one evening as he adjusted the chain mounting a heavy punching bag to the dojo ceiling. “Any teams you think might be a problem for you and Karl? I asked him the same question but I know you’ll have more insight.”

“Did he have an answer for you?” Goto said.

“No. He didn’t. He’s excited to just have a chance to participate and swears that he’ll do his best to beat everyone they throw at you both,” said Shibata. “Exactly what you’d want to hear from a young lion.”

“I like his spirit! Your student will be a good asset to me, Shibata-san.”

“One would hope. But all this raw courage and youthful energy in the face of adversity doesn’t help me prepare him for specific challenges in a big tournament like this.”

“Oh, to be young again,” Goto chuckled and threw a tentative punch at the sandbag. “I do have one team I have concerns about. No...one person specifically, his partner is merely an annoyance.”

“So we strategize. You’ve proven before that you’re a force to be reckoned with. And I trust that Karl will be a fantastic help in the ring. He works well with you.”

Goto was silent before hitting the sandbag once again, this time closer to full strength. “I do not know how much strategy will help against Kenta-san’s animosity towards anyone with connections to you though,” he said to what suddenly felt like an empty room given the scope of Shibata’s non-reaction. Goto glanced at his old friend briefly before throwing three more strikes at the bag in quick succession. He had no reason to doubt that Shibata’s focus wasn’t entirely on their training session right then, but the way his brow tensed and his muscles in his jaw twitched, almost imperceptibly, led Goto to think he might have had more on his mind than he had been letting on.

“You’re favoring your left side, Goto-san,” Shibata finally said after a punch landed more poorly than he had intended.

“And you’re avoiding the topic, Shibata-san.”

“There isn’t anything else to say on that topic.”

“You had plenty to say on that topic in the locker room in Osaka. Dare I say your outburst brought up more questions than it answered.”

Shibata stiffened as he watched Goto increase his speed. “Were you always this bold?” he asked, his voice flat, as his training partner punctuated a series of punches with a low kick to the sandbag.

“Hrmm, perhaps. It is something I’ve been working on as of late,” Goto said, cracking his knuckles. “Although could you be referring to that strike combination or my attempt to get you to open up about your personal problems, Shibata-san?”

“That’s none of your concern, Goto-san,” he said. “And I don’t wish to discuss my past...connection with him any further.”

Goto turned away from the sandbag and took a long swig from his bottle of water. “I understand that. Truly, I do,” he said before taking another sip. “But this entire situation is no longer your concern alone. Kenta-san has been a thorn in all of our sides but he’s been saving a particular level of hatred for those with a connection to you. And now that he’s tired of Ishii-san, he’s moved to targeting me because of it. Because he can’t fight you.”

He offered Shibata the water bottle, only for him to wave it away. Instead, Shibata gestured to the bag. “Can we continue?” he asked.

“Actually, I was thinking you might like to take a turn, Shibata-san.”

“I’m not the one with a tournament to train for.”

“No,” Goto said, “but I am led to believe you have some frustrations you’d like to work out and this way you don’t have to discuss them. If that’s what you prefer.”

“I’d prefer to focus on something that’s actually productive.”

“Is this not? Think of it as practice for the next time Kenta-san and his fellow hooligans decide to rile you up.”

Shibata snorted. “There won’t be a next time. I have nothing else to say to him, with either my words or my fists.”

“Perhaps,” Goto said. “And in that case, just humor me and take a turn with the sandbag while I catch my breath.”

“Don’t tell me you’re already tired.”

“Youth is fleeting, Shibata-san.”

“I’d have you doing squats for the rest of the night if you said that as one of my trainees,” said Shibata. A smirk crossed his face, which Goto took as a positive sign.

“Good thing I’ve long outgrown that phase of my career then,” he said before gesturing to the bag. “Your turn, Shibata-san.”

There were many sounds Hirooki Goto had come to cherish in all his years spent close to New Japan dojos but one of his favorites was the sound of his old classmate’s fists connecting with their target. He often felt he had been close to those specific strikes for so long that he could identify them as belonging to Katsuyori Shibata by their noise alone; their stiff thud against the sandbag sounded of intensity and rage barely contained by self-discipline. As his blows to the bag picked up their pace, Goto was comforted by the fact that Shibata’s retirement hadn’t changed their timbre.

“Is that what an entire G1 Climax’s worth of catharsis sounds like, Shibata-san?” Goto said, his voice raised to compete with the sound of his friend’s punches.

Shibata paused to wipe a trail of sweat from his brow. “You misjudge the situation more than you realize, Goto-san,” he said.

“Hmm. Perhaps. I do remember you mentioning at the time that you’d been talking to him about signing with us once his WWE contract was up. So surely that would add on another few months at least.”

“A few months? Do you really think that’s how long this was going on between Kenta-san and I? Try fifteen years!” he growled, punctuating his thoughts with jabs to the sandbag. “Fifteen...fucking years!”

Goto took a slow sip from his water bottle, hoping it would prevent Shibata from noticing how much this revelation had startled him. “I must say that is... well, quite a situation indeed.”

Shibata’s forearm landed hard against the sandbag, the rattle of its chain echoing in the empty dojo. “A situation,” he said quietly before firing another strike at its target. “That’s a word for it.”

“Forgive me for not having a better one. I must admit the extent of this all has caught me off guard.”

Shibata only grunted in response.

“Well, to your credit, you two did an impressive job keeping your, ah, extracurricular activities secret for all that time. Recent revelations notwithstanding,” Goto continued. “I was aware you two had worked together when you went freelance but regarding interactions outside of the ring? I never expected a thing.”

“I didn’t think it would have been of any interest to anyone.”

“You are my friend, Shibata-san. I care about you, not just professionally but personally as well. Your life is of great interest to me, especially when parts of it have affected you so negatively as of late.”

“You think I’m angry about this?”

Goto watched as Shibata threw another punch. “Are you not?”

“I’m not mad, I’m...it’s complicated,” Shibata said. “I’m frustrated with how much of a mess this has all turned into.”

“Well, surely if things had been going poorly-”

“That’s the problem!” he interjected. “Things weren’t going badly! He just up and ended things, and he did it in the most public way possible. And I still fucking don’t know why!”

“He never said anything?”

“Nothing. The most explanation I’ve gotten from him is that bullshit he said in the locker room.”

Shibata grunted as he slammed a kick hard against the sandbag, then walked away. He sat heavily on a nearby weight bench, his shoulders hunched and his fingers laced in front of him. He didn’t make eye contact with Goto. Despite what he had said about not being mad, his rage was palpable; Goto couldn’t help but hesitate before joining him on the weight bench and wrapping an arm around his shoulder.

“I didn’t intend for you to see me like this,” Shibata muttered.

“Pay it no mind,” Goto said, offering him what was left in the water bottle. Shibata accepted, but didn’t drink from it. He sat in silence, squeezing the bottle between his hands. Goto wondered if he would crack the hard plastic, given how tense he was.

Eventually, Shibata broke the silence. “I feel like I should have known he wanted to end things,” he said. “Was he unhappy and I just didn’t notice? Were there signs I should have picked up on? Did he even want to bring the Takeover back in the first place?”

“You can’t blame yourself for his omissions, Shibata-san.”

“But what if he did tell me and I missed it?”

“Then he’s still at fault for not being clear enough.”

“That would be a first,” Shibata said. “He’s always been very explicit about his needs.”

Goto sighed. “Well, perhaps this time he wasn’t.”

“Perhaps.”

Goto could feel Shibata’s shoulder rise and fall with every breath. Each inhalation felt slow and intentional and, if he didn’t know better, Goto would have taken it as evidence that his old friend was calmer than he actually was. Shibata had never been keen on talking about his emotions for as long as they had known each other, preferring instead to channel them through something physical. Being put in a position where he was upset enough to talk as well was new, or at least it felt that way to Goto. He gave him a hearty pat on the back, only for Shibata to turn and stare him down, clearly confused.

“What was that for?” he asked.

“I thought it might provide you some comfort,” Goto said.

“I’d rather have closure. I’ve spent far too long dwelling on him already and I doubt I’ll ever be able to move on without some sort of explanation for why this all played out the way it did,” Shibata said. “Still...thank you though.”

Goto sighed. “You know, I cannot believe I am saying this, but perhaps you should try talking to Kenta-san about why things ended the way they did.”

“Fuck, you saw how well that went before.”

“Do you really think he was going to give you any answers if you cornered him in a locker room after a show and strangled him in front of his entire faction of ne’er-do-wells?”

“It wasn’t ideal, but where else was I supposed to find him? Besides, he provoked me. I hadn’t planned to confront him like that.”

“He was your secret lover for how long, Shibata-san?” Goto couldn’t help but chuckle. “You must have some idea how to get in touch with him. Just do it privately this time. I admittedly don’t know Kenta-san well, and quite frankly don’t know what you ever saw in him, but I want to believe he’ll be honest with you if he doesn’t have a pack of Bullet Club degenerates backing him up.”

“And if he isn’t?”

“Then that’s on him.”

Shibata stood and handed the water bottle back to Goto unopened. “I think I need something stronger than this if you’ll join me, Goto-san. Will you help me lock up?”

Goto grunted affirmatively and began to collect his gym bag.

They wiped down equipment and racked the multitudes of weight plates they had scattered throughout the dojo that evening in relative silence. Goto kept an eye on Shibata as he cleaned. He appeared to have settled down once he had given himself a manual task to focus on but Goto had his doubts that starting up a conversation again, even a neutral one, would help improve matters. He stayed quiet and observed, waiting for Shibata to break the ice.

It wasn’t until they were both changing back into their street clothes before he said anything. “You know, I did think he was beautiful once. That’s the only word for it, truly.”

“Hmm?” Goto mumbled as he fiddled with his shoelaces.

“You said you didn’t know what I saw in Kenta-san? I’m telling you now,” Shibata said. “There’s a ferocity to him, an intense need to be respected and seen as a threat that still speaks to me. Despite everything he’s been through. And despite everything he’s done these last few months. Everything I’ve ever admired about him is still present, but it’s twisted now. He’s difficult to love but impossible to hate.”

“And that makes him beautiful to you?”

“Do you see why I’m so frustrated with him?” Shibata smiled, just barely. Goto took that as a good sign.

“I shall take your word for it,” Goto said. “What do you think he is now then?”

“He’s...complicated. Perhaps too much for me.”

“Perhaps he is. Only Kenta-san can say for sure.”

Chapter Text

Katsuyori Shibata wasn’t a patient man by nature, but he could recognize when a situation called for it. He knew when to act and when to wait. And so he’d waited, doing his best to keep his temper in check and anticipate any moment when his actions would result in fallout for those around him. The last thing he wanted was more fallout. 

If only Kenta hadn’t taken a liking to falling out with him in the past few months.

So he had waited. Shibata waited until all his acquaintances had exhausted their opportunities to take back the title Kenta had stolen, until he was too involved in the tag tournament to worry about his individual vendettas, until the night when his best friend and his boldest student had beaten him in that tournament. The last thing he wanted was to leave openings for Kenta to seek revenge if things went poorly.

He’d lingered backstage, just long enough to congratulate that friend and trainee on their win, and then caught Kenta by the arm as soon as he’d done his post-match interview and slunk off to the showers.

“We need to talk.”

Kenta pulled his arm away. “Could have sworn you’d said everything you wanted to in the locker rooms back in Osaka,” he grumbled.

“That was...fuck,” Shibata said. “You goaded me into that and you know it. Now can we please just discuss this properly and be done with it?”

“So discuss.”

Shibata watched as Kenta stared him down, arms crossed and hip cocked. The pose wasn’t unfamiliar to him; he’d seen it countless times in the ring, whenever Kenta felt like someone was wasting his time, but now the perspective had shifted. This Kenta had no time for him. That familiar body language from their past felt completely foreign when those dark eyes of his, beautiful and hard and cold as steel, were trained on him for once. 

“I mean in private,” Shibata said quietly.

Kenta sighed, then jerked his chin in the direction of a nearby storage room with its lights off and door cracked. He waited for Shibata to enter before following him in and pulling the door shut behind them.

“This private enough?” Kenta said as he leaned against the wall. “Now make it quick. You’ve dragged this out long enough.”

Shibata had prepared for this. He could feel the rage simmering at the suggestion that he was the one instigating here, just as it had been every time Kenta had forced himself into his life after their breakup and slammed his fist down on every single one of his buttons. Patience.

“How am I the one dragging this out when I don’t even know what this is?” Shibata said, his tone as level and unemotional as he could manage.

“You know exactly what it is.”

“What? Us?”

“Of course us!”

“So let’s talk about us then.”

“There isn’t any more us,” Kenta snapped. “Us ran its course and now it’s over. The end. Great talk. Can I go now?”

“Not until you tell me why!” Shibata slammed his fist hard against the wall just to the side of Kenta’s face. Patience be damned. He needed answers and clearly Kenta wasn’t looking to hand them over easily. His former soulmate only stared at him, unblinking, daring him with his icy glare and pursed lips to take what he needed by force.

In another timeline, Shibata knew he would have kissed him then. He would have grabbed Kenta roughly by the chin and pulled those beautifully soft lips of his hard against his own, letting their actions speak for themselves when words had clearly failed. His kiss would be frantic and desperate, as if they had been waiting all those years for that one moment of unrestrained passion that would reconnect them, that would absolve everything, that would remind them of how they once understood each other on a level far beyond anyone else in their lives. In that other timeline, they still understood each other like that and kissed pressed against that wall only to remind themselves of it. But the Kenta that stared back at him wasn’t one he understood any more, and every second he spent staring into those cold, dark eyes closed him off even more to him.

“What happened to us, Kenta-san,” he asked, his voice barely above a whisper.

Kenta sighed. “Reality happened,” he said.

“What the fuck does that even mean?”

“It...fuck, can you chill with this intense confrontation shit for once?”

Shibata relaxed his fist.

“I mean it,” Kenta said, waiting until Shibata dropped his arm. As soon as he did, Kenta slipped past him and crossed the small room to sit on an old folding chair, his body turned away from him. “It means things weren’t working any more. At least, they weren’t for me.”

Shibata sighed. “So why didn’t you say anything? We could have dealt with it then and avoided-”

“What was there to say?” Kenta interjected. “You heard the exact same crowds I did this summer. You saw how they reacted to me! You must have noticed their apathy! Those crowds only tolerated me because it meant they could see you.”

“They would have warmed to you eventually,” Shibata said.

“I didn’t sign here for eventually! Do you think I don’t remember what it was like to be a main eventer? To be known worldwide as one of the best in the game? I did that for nearly ten years! Why the fuck would I settle for being outshone by my own manager?”

“So why not go back to Noah then? I know they would have done anything to sign you back on. Fuck, you showed me the contracts they offered you back then. And imagine the matches they could have given you. Their prodigal son returning? They would have let you take their heavyweight belt off that kid that’s holding it the second you set foot in that green ring. You could have picked up right where you left off. So why come here? Why turn down a sure thing like that?”

“Because I didn’t fucking know my G1 would play out like this!” Kenta snapped. 

“And that justifies ending everything just like that? Because you had a mediocre tournament?”

“Considering cutting you off got me a title and made me a threat to the rest of the roster? Yeah, I’d say the end justifies the means here.”

Kenta’s words had barely escaped his lips when Shibata strode across the tiny room and clocked him hard under the chin with a stiff uppercut. The strike clearly caught him by surprise, knocking him from the chair. Shibata watched as the man he had once called his soulmate crumpled to the floor at his feet, landing hard on his side before gingerly propping himself up on his elbow. Kenta never looked up at him and Shibata was glad he didn’t. He could feel his face burning with anger at Kenta’s words and, for reasons he couldn’t quite put words to, he didn’t want him to see how emotional they had made him. Surely, Kenta knew that he’d hit a nerve - he hadn’t held back with the punch, after all - but somehow, the thought of him seeing his face red and his eyes wet was too much to bear.

“I’m glad at least one of us is content with how this all played out,” Shibata muttered, struggling to keep his voice emotionless.

Kenta wiped a bead of spittle, tinged pink with blood, from the corner of his mouth with his knuckle.

“And you know,” he continued, “I always knew you were ruthless, Kenta-san. Driven. Relentless. That brutal ambition was something I admired about you. I guess I always figured we had a connection strong enough to withstand that, but apparently not. You had your fun and now you’ve moved on. No regrets, hmm? That’s how this works, right?”

Silence weighed heavy in the storeroom. Kenta stayed sprawled on the floor, not looking up at him. His nonresponse was the only answer Shibata needed; clearly, he didn’t care. He’d moved on months ago. There was nothing else to say and, upon realizing that, Shibata turned to leave.

“You dumbass,” Kenta mumbled. “Of course I have fucking regrets.”

Shibata’s hand loosened on the door handle as he snorted derisively in response.

“Look...I knew what I had to do and I did it and I’d do it again given the chance. For my career, yeah? But don’t think for a second that I didn’t agonize about it.”

“You expect me to believe that?”

“Fuck no,” Kenta said, glancing at him out of the corner of his eye. “But...just listen, okay? I thought a clean break would be the easiest thing. For both of us. And you saw how that went.”

“Yeah. I did. And so did everyone else on the roster. And every spectator in Budokan. And all the ones who saw the video. For a clean break, you sure were messy about it.”

Kenta shrugged.

“That wasn’t a clean break, Kenta-san. You caused a scene, and for an audience of thousands,” said Shibata. “All you accomplished was making everyone hate you.”

“That was what I wanted!”

Shibata turned and caught Kenta’s gaze, his brow furrowed and the look in those hard, powerful eyes of his burning right through every inch of his body.

“I...fuck, I wanted you to hate me,” Kenta said, every word clipped. “You. Specifically. Because if you hated me, I thought it might be easier for you to move on.”

Katsuyori Shibata could feel a lump growing in his throat. He sighed heavily and let his arms fall to his side. His first instinct was to punch Kenta again for even suggesting that his intentions were logical, but he couldn’t even bring himself to clench the muscles in his hand. What was the point? He would have just been giving him what he wanted. Kenta narrowed his eyes at him and gave him the tiniest of smirks, no more than a twitch at the corner of his mouth. Shibata had loved that smirk once. That effortless, devilish charm of his had drawn him in and intoxicated him, cementing Kenta as a constant, irreplaceable presence in his life for as long as he cared to remember. He knew a part of himself couldn’t forget how much it loved that smug little grin and he resented himself for it. After everything Kenta had done to him, how could any part of him still be fond of him? And yet, even the parts that did hate him still felt like his own heart betraying him; the last thing Shibata wanted was to give Kenta the reaction he desired.

Shibata stepped over to where Kenta had lain on the floor and crouched down next to him. “Do you mind?” he said, leaning against a pile of storage bins behind them. Kenta mumbled an affirmative but didn’t do anything to stop him. He sat up against the bins as well, leaving a noticeable gap between their bodies that, to Shibata, felt kilometres wide. 

“How could I ever move on from you, Kenta-san,” he said quietly. 

“If you really cared about me, you would.”

“And why is that solely my responsibility? If you cared about me, you would have never turned on me in the first place.”

“Why don’t you want me to succeed?” Kenta asked. “Didn’t you say you’d do anything to support me? Here’s your chance. Just move on so I can thrive on my own.”

Shibata let out a sarcastic chuckle. “You make it sound so easy. Don’t tell me you already have.”

“Of course I fucking haven’t!” Kenta snapped, turning suddenly to face his former partner. “But I could have if you’d just leave me alone.”

Kenta’s face was ruddier than it had been when he’d first cornered him after his match and Shibata wasn’t sure if it was from his punch or something else. Had he been crying? Surely not. In all the time he had known him, he had never known him to let his emotions get the better of him like that. But despite that, his red cheeks and wet eyes had him thinking there might always be a first time for everything.

His gut reaction was that he should pull Kenta in close and keep him there, hugging him tight with his hands caressing his lower back and buried in his thick hair. He wanted to feel Kenta’s weight against his own body, his muscles first tense and then relaxing as he melted into his arms. He wanted to protect Kenta from himself and pretend that the G1 had never happened, that they were stronger than that, that they were still a single unit, inseparable. That they were still, and always, soulmates. But Kenta’s words echoed in his mind, reminding him of every single bit of pain he had inflicted and how much he didn’t deserve his comfort any more. The Kenta in front of him wanted him, and yet didn’t. He had loved him and hurt him. He had done everything in his power to drive him away, to deserve his hatred and scorn, and all it had done was shift their orbits around each other into a series of constant, violent collisions instead of flinging them apart for good.

“It doesn’t work like that,” Shibata shifted his weight and turned to face him, making a conscious effort to keep space between himself and his former partner. “You have meant far too much to me for far too long for me to let you go without a fight.”

Shibata watched as Kenta’s face slumped forward as his breath grew slow and heavy. He watched as Kenta’s hair fell over his eyes and his lips parted the tiniest bit, beckoning Shibata to come in closer. His body reacted before his brain could tell himself no to, leaning in as well and letting his own forehead rest gently against his antagonizer’s. It was a gesture long familiar to both of them; one they had often fallen into naturally in their younger days after rough matches and lost title opportunities. He hadn’t felt Kenta’s face against his own like this in ages, though Shibata wasn’t sure if that was due to their physical separation until that past year or his own subconscious avoidance of that sort of touch after his injury. It wasn’t important. He was here now, with Kenta pressed against him, and for a moment it almost felt like everything was fine. Everything was right, despite what they’d felt and done and said and hadn’t said, and perhaps they could go back to what they’d once had, no matter how impossible. Shibata’s hands drifted up to Kenta’s face, cupping his jaw in one hand and running the other over the closely-shaved hair on the back of his head. The stubble prickled against his fingers and he wanted to believe they belonged there, holding the man he’d once loved so close, so tenderly, that he’d never abandon him again.

“Don’t,” Kenta mumbled, his voice barely above a whisper, but he didn’t pull away.

“Or else what?”

Kenta let out a heavy sigh and Shibata couldn’t help but wonder how long it had been since he’d last felt his warm breath against his skin. “Or else I might want to kiss the man who just punched me in the face,” he said as he leaned back, slipping out of Shibata’s grasp.

“You goaded me into it.”

“And you tried to strangle me in front of half the roster.”

“And you kicked me in the face and humiliated me in front of the entire roster. And a live audience.”

“That was in the ring! That’s different,” Kenta snorted. 

Shibata sat back against the stacked bins, turning away from his former soulmate. He was quiet for several minutes, only staring down at his crossed arms, as he tried to wrap his mind around the assertion that anything that he had done to Kenta in the past month was at all comparable to how Kenta had hurt him at the end of the G1 Climax. How could it be? How could one punch be equivalent to a violent, public betrayal? 

“It’s not different to me,” Shibata said.

Kenta chuckled softly. “Of course it fucking isn’t.”

He heard shuffling to his side and assumed it was the sound of Kenta standing to leave until he felt the warmth of his body plop down next to him. He felt his shoulder brush against his own, and he didn’t know whether to allow Kenta to lean in or to pull away. He didn’t know what to feel at all.

“Would you have kissed me if I hadn’t hit you?” Shibata muttered as he glanced over at the smaller man resting against his arm.

“I don’t know. Maybe,” Kenta said. “Would you have let me?”

He thought for a second. “I don’t know. Probably,” he replied. “I think part of me still wants this to be salvageable, even though I know it’s not.”

“That makes two of us.”

“I’m sorry I punched you earlier.”

“You’re a shit liar. When have you ever regretted a strike like that?” Kenta said.

“When it’s caused by me letting my emotions get the better of me.”

Kenta laughed, more taunting than jovial. “You did always anger too easily. I figured coaching at the dojo would have tempered that a bit, but clearly not.”

“And you were always too fond of provoking people, Kenta-san,” he said. 

“And you always let me get away with it.”

Shibata felt Kenta’s head tilt sideways and rest lightly against his shoulder. He was hit with the urge to wrap an arm around him, like he had countless times in the past, and pull him in close. Would Kenta have wanted that now, to be comforted by his touch? He didn’t know what Kenta wanted any more. He said he wanted to move on, and yet he couldn’t stay away. Every word that he had said that night had only made Shibata even more confused about where they stood. 

“You know,” Kenta said, “sometimes I wonder how we managed to last as long as we did.”

“And here I’m still wondering why we didn’t last another fifteen years at least. Sure, we’re aggressive and confrontational, but you can’t deny that we complemented each other well.”

Kenta didn’t respond, and Shibata felt his weight shift against his side as he wedged himself in under his arm. They’d always fit together so well like that; Shibata had wanted to believe that this had changed when Kenta had left and the sudden realization that it hadn’t, that their bodies just naturally fell into place beside each other, pained him. He wanted the touch of the man who had hurt him to be unfamiliar to him. Knowing that it wasn’t only amplified the pain.

Tentatively, he wrapped his arm around Kenta’s back and let his hand rest on his hip. Kenta didn’t recoil, but he didn’t sink into his touch like he would have in years past. At least that was different. 

“I thought you were trying to get over me,” Shibata said.

“I don’t know what the fuck I want,” Kenta muttered as his head dropped against his former partner’s shoulder. 

Shibata didn’t know what he wanted either. Whatever rational thoughts he still had about Kenta - his lover, his betrayer, his soulmate - were telling him that this wasn’t it, this would only be more painful in the long run, but the last thing he could bring himself to do was push him away.

 “You know,” Kenta continued, “for a while I thought there was a way to keep things separate. Break up publicly but still keep seeing each other in private.”

“Why are you bringing this up now? Why not back during the tournament, we could have worked something out.”

Kenta snorted. “Do you really think you would have stood for that? I thought you said everything in the ring isn’t different from outside it for you.”

“That’s not what I-” Shibata’s voice began to grow in volume before he stopped himself. “You’re probably right though. Maintaining something like that would be complicated.”

“You’re too straightforward for a secret relationship with your enemy.”

“And you’re too dangerous to be trusted with such a thing.”

Shibata didn’t even have to look at Kenta to know that he was smiling at that. “Yeah. I know,” he said. “Isn’t that why you fell for me in the first place?”

“We were dangerous together back then. Things are different now.”

“And yet you still can’t stay away from me, huh.”

“You keep telling yourself that,” Shibata gave Kenta’s waist a little squeeze. “And yet you’ve done nothing but antagonize me ever since you left.”

“Fuck off, I’ve only had my eyes on Tomo, and Hiro, and that other one...you know, with the dumb stick,” Kenta scoffed. “Besides, they all deserved it anyway.”

“For having ties to me?”

He could feel Kenta grumble against his shoulder. “For a lot of things,” he said. “And...maybe that one too.”

Shibata sighed. “Don’t tell me you’re planning to go after Tana-san next.” 

“He’s not worth my time. And I think he’s found another campy Canadian dork to save your company from.”

“It’s your company now too.”

“If you say so,” Kenta let out a little chuckle.

Feeling emboldened by how easily Kenta was shifting back into their old routines, Shibata let his hand drift up his former partner’s side. The affectionate teasing, the casual intimacy, everything about Kenta drew him in just as easily as it had back in 2005, when they had been young and cocky and reckless. When their shared passion in the ring quickly turned into a shared passion for each other outside it. They had been simpler then, Shibata knew that, and yet every cell of his body ached to abandon their present complications for that simple past where they could just love each other and channel that love into their wrestling. His fingers caressed Kenta’s shoulder and the way he nuzzled as his neck in response sat at odds with everything the tiny voice in the back of his mind kept trying to tell him. “Kenta hates you,” it said. “He hates you and he’s hurt you and he needs you out of his life. This can’t last.” He knew all this, that Kenta would only hurt him again the longer he stayed, but the piece of him that still loved what they had wanted to savor this moment as long as it could.

“Hey,” Kenta mumbled. “Are you sure you can’t, well...you know. Do this. With me. Secretly.”

“I thought you said that would be too complicated for me.” 

“Look...it’s fucking complicated already. Maybe it would be easier to be complicated together.”

“Even though us together supposedly held you back? Why the change of heart?”

“Because I miss this!” Kenta said. “I don’t want to, but I do. And I can’t fucking help it. I was stagnating with you but I’ve still got this hole in me where you were. And no one else can fill it. Believe me, I’ve fucking tried.”

“With who?”

“None of your fucking business who,” he pouted. “It...it doesn’t matter. It wasn’t you and all it did was remind me that it wasn’t.”

“I made an impression.”

“We complemented each other. You said so yourself, Shibata-san.”

Shibata sighed. It felt so perfect in theory, that man nestled at his side could just love him again, despite everything that had happened between him, and he could love him in return. That they could put everything behind themselves, just write it off as a rough patch in their relationship, and carry on. He wanted to believe that soulmates meant something more powerful than anything that could come between them in the ring, but if that meant ignoring everything that had separated them in the first place...

“Don’t tell me you don’t also want to try again, just a little bit.”

“I do, but…” Shibata’s voice trailed off. His arm slipped out from behind Kenta’s shoulder as he rose to his feet. “It’s too soon, Kenta-san. You hurt me. And while I’ll admit it’s hard to forget how fond I was of you, I…”

“And you hurt me too in return! We’re even, right?”

Shibata shook his head. “I just want to know you won’t hurt me again. That this is what you really want, despite everything you’ve done that should convince me otherwise. Even if I could love you, how am I supposed to trust you?’

“I want this, okay? I want to be able to be with you, even if it has to be in private. You’ve meant too much to me to ever replace. What else do you need to hear?”

“You’ve got to earn it, Kenta-san. Prove to me that you’re still worth caring for. I know how I feel. Show me that you’ve still got enough honor left to deserve it.”

Kenta slumped back against the stacked bins. “Honor, huh?” he said. “What do you suggest I do to prove that?”

“You figure it out,” Shibata said, his hand already on the supply closet door. “But...Goto-san earned the right to challenge you tonight. Fight him clean when he does. I know you don’t need cheating and interference to get through a match, so don’t give me a reason to be there to back him up.”

“And that’ll convince you to give us another chance?”

“It’s a start.”

Katsuyori Shibata didn’t look back when he left the room. The sensation of Kenta’s body against his own lingered in his brain, reminding him of what he once had. What he could have again, perhaps, if Kenta put in the effort.

Would he, though? All he had was his word. That would have been enough for the Kenta he remembered, the cocky young star who had called him his soulmate when they barely had any friends between them. He wasn’t sure about the Kenta he knew now, who lied and betrayed and had the world convinced he didn’t need him while suddenly insisting that maybe he did, but only where no one could see. And even if he was sincere, would that even be good enough for him? Did he want the clandestine affection of the man who insisted on hating him publicly, no matter how much they had cared for each other once? 

Katsuyori Shibata wasn’t a patient man by nature, but perhaps this might be worth the wait.