Neon Rush {M/M} ❀

Ch. 4.2 Don't Touch, I Bite

In double-fuck-you-news, the chef returns with a sushi boat the length of Zef's arm and sets it down between them.

Zef retracts his arm, stuffing his hand between his knees. He chastises himself. He needs to get that data, and he was trying, but he really can't give into Gray's charms. Can't ignore the fact he comes with a neon yellow warning label.

Zef's stomach snarls so loud it's embarrassing, so subterfuge can wait.

"Bon-appe-fuckin-tit," says Gray.

Then he takes the toothpick out of his teeth and stabs one of the sashimi pieces with it, dunks it in the soy sauce and—Zef nearly stands up and leaves—Gray...smears wasabi over the sushi like it's toast and the wasabi is jam? Like the sushi's a brick and the wasabi is mortar. Then he eats it in one go.

Zef and the chef both stare in horror.

"What the actual fuck is wrong with you?" Zef says.

The chef makes a vaguely distraught noise of agreement.

Gray swallows. Testosterone gifted him an unfairly sexy and prominent Adam's apple, which bobs. Sexily. He tips his head back and sighs. "If it isn't burning out my sinuses, what's the point?"

"Enjoying the actual flavour of the food?" Zef takes some sashimi and eats it with a tiny piece of wasabi and the soy sauce, as God intended. It is actually...pretty delicious. Fresh and meaty. The chef nods his approval and disappears behind a curtain, incapable of watching Gray desecrate his food anymore.

"So, I got a question for you," Zef says. He should really avoid the topic of the car, but if he's going to take Gray down then he'll need to get to know the guy. Know thine enemy 'n all that. "Why'd you take me joy-riding in a stolen car, anyway? Doesn't that like...exponentially expand the chances of getting caught?"

A sardonic chuckle. "You're assuming I care about getting caught."

"You don't care if you go to prison? Or have to pay poverty-inducing fines?"

"What prison could hold me? How are they gonna make me pay?"

Cocky bastard.. "You're confident of that?"

Gray swallows another sushi abomination, leans back on the stool and glances down the row of open windows along the boulevard, each cooking up something different. He lifts a hand, fingers poised to snap.

"Watch this."

The click of his snapping fingers echoes loud by Zef's ear. In response, the long line of lit windows wink out one by one, shutters closing in front of the customers, gasps and a couple shrieks following the wave. Then, just as easily, the shutters open, the lights come back on in unison. A choreographed dance of hijacked technology.

"Stop! Jesus, I didn't need a demonstration," Zef says.

"What?"

Zef half covers his face at the stares they're receiving from those who saw Gray's display. "You're gonna get the wrong kind of attention, messing around like that."

Gray scoffs. "You're so buttoned up."

Now Zef is offended. "I am not."

"You are, look at you." Gray leans in, both intimate and intimidating. "Button down and slacks. Don't drink. Scared of cops and jail and fines. Stockholm syndromed to your nine-to-five after your first day. Here." Leaning closer still, his nimble fingers tug open the top button on Zef's shirt. "Loosen up a little."

Caught between affronted and flustered, Zef tries to play it cool. He's supposed to be flirting with the aim of getting his hands on Gray for a single second, but Gray is doing a better job of disarming him. He wants to argue, but it would mean exposing his throat, his belly, his vulnerabilities. The transition care he can't afford. His dad living in a trailer one technical malfunction away from power outages and heatstroke. The indignity of losing his work and hard-earned ideas to a corporate behemoth.