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“I just don’t want to fuck this up,” he sighs, taking the cup Kenshi hands over to him with a tentative touch, making sure it wasn’t too hot to hold. Kenshi shoots Johnny a humored look with just his brows and a small smirk, moving to sit across from the star with his own cup of tea. Sento sits on the counter, an arm’s length away from them both, the OIA agent having no use for it at the moment.
“Never thought I’d hear you so nervous to date someone,” the swordsman says with a quiet laugh through his nose. Taking a sip of his tea, he smiles against the rim. Johnny isn’t smiling, though—he makes an aborted move to take a drink with him, but the anxiety bubbling up in his chest is starting to rise to his throat like bile, so he ends up letting it awkwardly hover before resting it on the counter. “You can flirt like it’s a second language, but get all shy when it comes to actually asking him out?”
“I’m being serious, Kenshi.” Could Kenshi see, he would’ve witnessed the desperation Johnny let slip into his face, frown so deep it looks uncanny and eyes consumed in a layer of distress. However, Kenshi was able to catch the trouble and sincerity in his voice. His amused smile drops almost instantly, having never heard Johnny like that aside from their dire adventures in Outworld. “I don’t think I could handle losing him as a friend. He’s so…” he trails off, nursing his drink in his hands. For a whole minute, Johnny contemplates being truly transparent about this. His feelings, insecurities, apprehensions. It’s something he’s not used to doing, and living in Hollywood, where any piece of personal information could get leaked and fuck up your rep, after growing up in a household where anything unmasculine like sharing your feelings was shunned, makes it a million times harder. Maybe even a billion.
It’s not even because he doesn’t trust Kenshi. He trusts the man with his life, truly, and knows he would never shame him or expose anything he tells him unless given the permission to. It’s the discomfort of doing something he feels like he shouldn’t.
The star takes a sip of his drink slowly, diffident as he thinks about how to word his thoughts without revealing too much. When he eventually settles on what to say, he sighs and sets the half-empty cup down. “He makes me feel… way different than Cris did.” It’s a revelation he himself hasn’t fully comprehended yet, considering every other person he dated before her felt the same.
Kenshi arcs an eyebrow, tilting his head just barely. “How so?”
“I don’t know,” he mumbles. “He just… does things that make me feel good.” His eyes turn away from Kenshi’s face to Sento, partly to avoid the incredulous look he manages to make. Mostly something about admitting all this makes it hard to stare him in the blindfold, uncomfortable. He goes on before Kenshi gets the chance to ask for examples, sounding equally as unsure as he did a second ago, “I know not everyone likes to listen to me. I know damn well I talk a lot, and a ton of people find me annoying, including friends. Hell, you’re my best friend and even you tune me out sometimes.”
Kenshi looks away guiltily. “It… depends on what you’re talking about.” He mutters. “Like when you talk about your directing process and I don’t get half the things you’re saying.” Johnny waves him off in the middle of it, but waits until he’s done to speak.
“It’s fine, I’m not bothered by it,” he reassures, sensing Kenshi’s guilt. “But that’s what I mean; regardless of it being intentional or not, even you sometimes can’t listen to everything I’m saying because I talk that much, and I can’t stick to one topic for the life of me. Cris did the same thing, too, before and after we got married.” He glances back at Kenshi, once again tone shifting like he’s trying to get him to help him understand this. “But Tomas listens. Like, I mean actually listens. Every dumbass conversation we had over text, every rant I went on about Ryan not being able to follow fucking directions—like, holy shit everything the stunt coordinator says goes through one ear and out the other with that guy—, every stupid story I FaceTimed him to tell, he listens to and fucking remembers.” Johnny throws his hands up in the air. “I don’t even remember half the shit I say!”
“And it’s not like he just sits there, mute, and lets me talk. Sometimes he asks me to talk when we’re on call and it's dead silent, or asks if something’s up when I don’t text him for a few days.” At first, Johnny had thought it was just because Tomas was clingy. Johnny was the only other friend besides Kuai Liang and Harumi that he had unlimited contact with, since he’d bought the ninja a phone specifically for that, on top of the fact that he was the man’s idol. He wouldn’t blame him for being super attached and never did. Then, he started encouraging Johnny’s rambling habit. He never told him to be quiet, and aside from the times their calls would cut off because of god awful reception, never asked him to repeat himself. The American didn’t want to say it to him, but it was weird. That is, before he caught feelings.
“So,” Kenshi prompts, “he makes you feel heard?”
Johnny goes quiet when he says it. The thought mulls about in his head, dragging its feet for a couple of seconds before he replies. “I… guess?” He huffs. “But it’s not just that.”
Kenshi takes another sip of his tea, this one shorter, before encouraging Johnny to continue with a roll of his wrist.
“He also does shit with the things I tell him.”
The Japanese purses his lips in confusion. “Elaborate.”
“There was one time I told him about how I’ve only been to Japan once, and there was this one thing I tried that I loved but couldn’t get because it was from some local shop and I was only there to film. It was this… tanghulu type of candied fruit, but with ruby chocolate under a layer of sugar. Literally the only sugary thing I like. Y’know what he fucking did?”
“He bought some for you?” Kenshi asks, his exasperation at the cliché-written thought slipping into the question.
Johnny, however, worsens the exasperation. “He had Harumi make some for me and shipped them to my damn front door!” Once again, he swings his arms in an eccentric gesture. “And gods bless her, she tried. It wasn’t like the store bought ones, but it was so good because of the effort she put in.” Johnny makes another aborted grab towards his drink, Kenshi gawking at him with surprise, but remembers something and immediately glances back to tell him.
“And then the asshole tried lying to me, saying Harumi ‘just happened to make some’! And I know he was lying because one, the coincidence was too damn perfect, and two, when I went over there to visit, Harumi told me.” With a heavy sigh, he drops his head into his palms, propped up on the table by his elbows and clammy. Talking about it almost makes him feel embarrassed, partly because Kenshi is definitely looking at him right now with some smug ass grin, and partly because remembering that whole thing with her made him realize she probably knows about them. Which, fuck, Kuai Liang probably knows too.
That’s a concern for another time. He can’t handle thinking about that possible future shitstorm today.
As expected, when he looks up at Kenshi, the man’s grinning at him with humor like he was holding back a laugh. It made him irritated and his face hot.
“Remind me again why you’re so worried about asking him out?” He says, his smile so wide his cheeks push his blindfold up a little. “Because it sounds to me like he’s head-over-heels for you.”
Biting the inside of his cheek, Johnny slumps against the table and frowns. His concern was never doubting Tomas’ feelings. God, that guy was as transparent as a window. Johnny knew just months into being friends that he liked him as more than that, and more than an idol. He was as downbad as a guy could get, kinda like a puppy with food, and in his opinion, it was absolutely adorable. The problem was what would happen after.
Exhaling, Johnny gazes up at his friend, his face contorted in both love sickness and stress. “I don’t want to fuck up the relationship. I don’t…” his heart lurches, shoving itself into his throat as if trying to keep him from admitting it. “I don’t want to make him tired of me, like I did with Cristina. I married her thinking we’d last forever, didn’t realize I was changing into someone she couldn’t stand being around until she walked out. I don’t want to do the same thing to him… I don’t want him to deal with all of my bullshit, just to eventually realize I was exhausting him.”
Frowning, Takahashi lowered himself so he could face Johnny better, his reply said with confidence, “I doubt that’s going to happen.”
“It could and might.” The imagery of Tomas looking at him with disdain plagues his mind for just a moment, but it’s enough to frustrate and upset the Hollywood actor. “And God, if he left me I wouldn’t be able to love again. I’d give up there and then, Kenshi.”
“No, you wouldn’t,” he frowns.
“I would. Because if Tomas managed to fall out of love with me, so would anyone else.”