Work Text:
“What do you think of the new supervisor?”
Nicholas sipped his artificially cold water by the cooler, pondering Bobby’s question with as much attention as he could muster during the Three PM Slump. “Seiji?”
“Mr. Katayama himself,” Bobby confirmed, leaning one elbow on a nearby counter. His long hair fell over his shoulders. Nicholas squinted—it looked professionally straightened today, with that frizz-free shine that one could only obtain at a salon. “It’s been a week since he transferred from NYC. I don’t think I’ve gotten any of my assignments done since.”
Nicholas puckered his lips around the lip of his ceramic, coffee-stained office mug. “Kind of an ass, no?”
“I mean…” Bobby’s eyes strayed towards the floor-to-ceiling windows outlining Seiji’s corner office. He was currently at his standing desk, monitor framed by the nineteenth-floor view, perfect posture as he typed with effortless ease.
You don’t pick up those skills with Type to Learn, Nicholas thought.
“He has an ass,” Bobby finished. “A nice one.”
Nicholas’s gaze fell lower. Seiji was wearing an actual goddamn suit jacket with a tapered waist and everything. It cut off the top of his behind, but Nicholas still saw the way his ass curved into his thigh. He could see how Bobby would admire it. Theoretically.
Tipping back the mug, Nicholas chugged the last of his water. It dripped out the corner of the mug and down his chin. He wiped it with the back of his sleeve. “He’s a supervisor. Director of Sales, son of the CEO. Familial hire.”
“He knows what he’s doing,” Bobby said. “You were at Friday’s monthly meeting.”
Friday’s monthly meeting—which consisted largely of the entire company sitting around and listening to profit margins and other boring, irrelevant shit—was more of a monthly meditation session to Nicholas. He hadn’t even known Seiji had presented until this very moment.
“Sure,” Nicholas agreed anyway. “If you say so.”
Bobby hid his face behind his pink tumbler and side-eyed Seiji’s office again. “Do you think I should ask him out?”
“What? Like on a date?”
“No! You know that’s not allowed. More like—coffee? Drinks? Dinner and a movie?”
“Sounds like a date.”
“It’s not a date!”
“Good luck telling that to HR.”
Bobby’s cheeks went pink.
Nicholas buried into his empty mug. “Besides, we don’t know what his preferences are. Guys like that are usually straight. I don’t think he has any siblings, so he’ll be tasked with carrying on the Katayama Corporation legacy. That’s how the world works.”
Bobby nudged his arm with more force than necessary. “What is this, the twentieth century? Even if that is the case, bisexuality exists.”
Nicholas, as a resident bisexual, did not need Bobby telling him this.
He rolled his eyes. “Alright. Whatever. I gotta go back to work.”
“Who can work in such an environment?”
“Me.” Nicholas refilled his mug and saluted Bobby off. “See you later.”
He returned to his desk, a secluded cubicle on the far corner of the office. He’d done a lot to get this desk—and this privacy. A series of skillful swaps and trades over the course of several years at Katayama Co. had brought him to the most private, elusive desk in the office. It was a privilege he did not take lightly.
When Nicholas had first been staffed as an intern, fresh out of the production warehouse and fishing for a salary above minimum wage, his desk had been front and center. Right between the CFO’s office and the door to HR, with no walls on the sides of his desk, and right on the way to the bathroom—it felt like all eyes were on him. Forget slacking off, Nicholas felt like he didn’t have room for a single mistake. Once, he’d spilled coffee down his front while the Chief of Marketing had been on the way back from a piss, and it had stood out as one of the most mortifying moments of his life.
After that moment, Nicholas knew that he had to get out of that desk. So he traded his way out.
First, he’d swapped for a desk that was facing towards the aisle instead of in front of it. The person he’d swapped with had wanted closer access to the coffee maker. Then, when the Social Media Specialist, Angelie, had gone on maternity leave, he’d stealthily moved in. In that time, he’d continuously bragged to a Sales Rep, Steven, about how awesome his old desk was. It was right next to the copy machine, so during the winter, it was the warmest spot in the building. By the time Angelie returned, Steven was all but frothing at the mouth for Nicholas’s desk, so Nicholas executed his scheme and grabbed Steven’s—which was in the back row, right by a window. From there, he’d only needed to trade one seat over. His opportunity arose when the occupant of the corner desk had complained about seasonal affective disorder, and Nicholas had chivalrously offered the spot with the window—more sunlight, more vitamin D. He was so honorable, and now he had the most private desk in the office.
It was a big deal to him.
Back here, he could kick his feet up and daydream. Or shit around on his phone. He’d even laid his head down for a nap a handful—no, dozens of times. No one knew otherwise.
And with the clock sitting at 3:13, Nicholas could proudly declare that he had no intention of working for the rest of the day. He sipped his water, and popped in his headphones. With a 2010s rock playlist cycling, his eyes wandered around the office.
Steven was still at that same desk by the copy machine, currently filing what looked to be tax forms in the nearby cabinet. Angelie was typing away, hard at work, probably betting on getting out early to pick her daughter up at daycare. Bobby was settling back into his desk, playfully toying with the ends of his hair; it was clear he was still thinking about Seiji—who remained the same as when Nicholas had looked five minutes ago. Tapered jacket, wide shoulders, and thighs declaring that Seiji never skipped leg day.
Loathe to admit it, Bobby was right. Seiji did have a nice physique. Despite the suits, he was clearly toned, with sleek, Silicon Valley styled hair and a face that looked like it had never seen as much as a blackhead.
So what? He wasn’t the first hot executive to walk into the building, and Nicholas had never wasted his time with any of the others. Plus he was the CEO’s son, so it was double trouble. Not worth it for a good fuck.
Plus, Nicholas hadn’t been kidding about his ass—that is to say, his personality. He was always shoving his way around, making snide remarks about others’ productivity, and that wasn’t even to mention his emails. Company-wide messages that were so painfully professional, they felt passive-aggressive. It was like he didn’t understand that most people were here just for a paycheck to get them by, rather than actively loving the work they did. The worst kind of supervisor.
But Nicholas was simply a subordinate. One with a better ass, for sure.
He squinted at Seiji’s profile again.
Okay, maybe not.
So of course there had to be an incident that followed. There was always An Incident.
It happened not in the office, but at the indie-run coffee shop downstairs. A place with too many plants—some real, some not—candles and incense always on tap, and fairy lights surrounding the warm, circular tables. The calm aroma was likely crafted with meet-cutes and coffee dates in mind, but due to its location smack dab in the middle of what could feasibly be labeled as New Haven’s corporate district, it was frequented moreso by corporate employees in suits, skirts, and slacks.
Nicholas was holding his latte—triple shot with whipped cream—housing it down beside a plant stand. There was a spider there, dangling its little legs to make a web between leaves.
Nicholas was watching it dance when he heard a yelp and a crash behind him.
He turned, to see none other than the Director of Sales standing, staring at the spider, eyes wide, broken ceramic at his feet.
Nicholas frowned. Poor mug. It didn’t deserve that. “You good?”
Seiji clenched his fist. “Mr. Cox?” The way he said it, like he couldn’t quite believe it, almost made Nicholas laugh. They were two blocks from the office. He ran into coworkers here all the time.
“In the flesh,” he said. “But, you’re really gonna be so formal when we’re out of office?”
Seiji seemed unable to form a reply, incapacitated by fear.
Rolling his eyes and with a pointed air of superiority, Nicholas set down his drink and cupped his palms around the spider. Seiji jumped, but Nicholas just took it outside and dumped it on the sidewalk, then wiped his hands on his jeans and returned to sipping (chugging) his latte.
It took several seconds for Seiji to reboot. Once he did, he brushed off his own palms and redirected his attention to the broken mug on the floor. Slowly, he knelt and began to pick up the pieces.
“No ‘thank you’?” Nicholas teased.
Seiji scowled and said nothing.
Heroically, Nicholas took pity on him. He talked to the staff at the counter, retrieved a dust pan, and returned to sweep up the pieces.
When Seiji noticed the dust pan, he stepped back and let Nicholas do the cleaning. It was almost reminiscent of Nicholas’s days cleaning the office building, back before he’d gotten in for a white-collar job.
When he’d finished, Seiji finally said, “Thank you, Nick.”
“Nicholas,” he corrected.
“Thank you, Nicholas.”
“Any time.” He tested: “Seiji.”
Seiji frowned, like he didn’t recognize that the entire office had already taken to calling him by his first name to not confuse him with his father, the CEO. “Mr. Katayama.”
“Out of office? You’re just Seiji,” Nicholas teased.
Seiji clearly didn’t like that.
But after that moment, things changed.
Seiji nodded at him in the office. He said hello when he passed by Nicholas’s desk—which was, worth noting again, immensely out of the way. Seiji even sat next to him in the breakroom during lunch one day, when Nicholas had been too busy doomscrolling and munching on a frozen burrito.
Seiji’s nose wrinkled at the sight of microwaved black beans and greasy cheese, but he politely refrained from commenting.
At their daily Three PM Slump Water Cooler chat, Bobby cornered Nicholas.
“What the hell?” he whisper-yelled. “Has Seiji been acknowledging you?”
Nicholas did not know what to say to that, because yes, he had, but all he’d done was clean up a broken cup and save him from a spider.
When he explained as much, Bobby rolled his eyes and said, “You’re basically his only friend!”
“What?” The thought scandalized Nicholas. “Am not!”
“Are too!”
“Why would you even say that?”
“Because it’s true!”
As if on cue, Seiji walked by the cooler, manila folders stacked in his arms. He nodded politely. “Good afternoon, Nicholas.”
“Afternoon, Lord Katayama.”
After his (fine looking) rear had disappeared around the corner, Bobby went slack-jawed. “First-name basis?”
“Guess so.”
“Oh my god.”
“What?”
“Just…” Bobby waved his hand and shook his head disbelievingly. “Oh my god.”
And thus, life continued as such.
Hellos, goodbyes, passings.
Nicholas spent a good deal of time window shopping, so to speak.
And yet, nothing changed. For weeks—at least a month, maybe more—that was all there was.
It was fine. It wasn’t like Nicholas was thinking about sleeping with the boss. Much.
But then…
“Nicholas Cox,” Seiji called into the office space. “In my office, please.”
Shocked to have been singled out, Nicholas got up and forgot every single thing that he probably should have brought with, like his laptop, or a notebook, or his sense of self-worth. Which he decently proved by standing like a fish in Seiji’s doorway, mouth opening and closing, completely stumped as to why he could possibly be needed.
Seiji waved him in and to a cushioned chair across from his desk. Then the door shut behind him, a solid sheet of pristine glass that sealed them in and away from the mundane keyboard clicking and occasional sniffles of the associate class.
Had this room always been soundproof? Nicholas suddenly realized that, yes, it must be—after all, Seiji seemed to have frequent meetings, and it’s not like Nicholas could hear them from his desk.
The glass walls were deceptive. They only provided illusions of transparency, but no one really knew what happened behind closed doors.
“Nicholas,” Seiji greeted. “Take a seat, please.”
Like a dog, Nicholas obeyed. “Why am I here?”
With a swivel, Seiji landed in his chair and pulled his mounted, seventeen-inch monitor up between them. “I saw the email you copied me on, and I had follow-up questions.”
Email… email? Nicholas wrote a billion different emails a day. His job was basically writing emails. If he updated his resume today, he wasn’t sure if he could reasonably list any skills besides makes a mean chili dog, bilingual, and writes decent emails really fast. But what had he copied Seiji on? Nicholas was copying people left and right. He didn’t think about it. He was mad with desire to bother as many executives at once and frequently tagged entire branches without stopping to think about who they were going to.
“Where were you planning on pulling these finances from?” Seiji asked.
“Uh.”
“Did you get approval from accounting?”
Nicholas stared at Seiji’s mouth.
“I saw HR was copied on this email, and I’m not sure they need to be involved.”
“What?” Nicholas asked. “What the fuck are you even talking about?” And then he realized he was talking to a supervisor and corrected, “Sorry, I’m just distracted by…”
Seiji looked at him, and then smirked.
With the fixation Nicholas had on Seiji’s mouth, he saw all the miniscule moments between. The crease at the corner of his mouth, the flash of teeth as his lip rose, the indent below his nose.
Nicholas gulped.
“I’m putting a meeting invite on your calendar for tomorrow morning,” Seiji announced. “Eight forty-five.”
“What?” Though this, at least, his brain registered. “You know I don’t get here until nine.”
“No one does,” Seiji said. “That’s the point.”
After that meeting, Nicholas returned to his very private desk, took out his dick, and had a jerk.
And thus, Nicholas arrived at eight forty-three in the fucking morning.
He didn’t even bother dropping his laptop at his desk. He stopped at Seiji’s office—who already had all his screens powered on for the day—and said, “You wanted to see me?”
Seiji turned around with hands on his waist, fingers around his belt buckle, tips pointing down. They perfectly framed… well…
“Yes, I was hoping you could help me with something.”
“What’s that?”
Seiji flexed long fingers, moved them from his waist to around the edge of his desk. They tapped almost tauntingly, and for the longest moment, Nicholas thought he was going to ask to fuck. He thought Seiji was going to ask to have sex. He thought they were gonna bang.
“Wanna fuck?” Nicholas blurted.
Seiji looked unsurprised, but downright gleeful.
Simultaneously, they both reached for their belt buckles. Nicholas had his trousers around his knees before his brain woke up and reminded him of the giant glass wall his ass was now bare to. He hobbled around to the other side of the desk, stepped out of his pants, kicked them to the side, and then dragged Seiji down to the floor by the lapels.
“How about kissing?” Nicholas asked. “Should we be kissing?”
From where Seiji was advantageously splayed on top, he kissed him, firmly, with his jaw pushing Nicholas flat on the grungy, grey office carpet.
He tasted aggressive and sweet, with thin lips that instantly pulled at Nicholas’s own. Seiji drew him in.
Lips rapidly bruising, Nicholas reached for Seiji’s pants and pushed them down. He had on tight, blue briefs beneath, and his tucked-in shirt fell out from its captivity. Nicholas ran hands up his slick, smooth stomach.
Seiji stopped him with one hand.
“Is this not okay?” Nicholas asked.
Seiji kissed him again.
Nicholas pulled back. “No, actually, if this isn’t okay, tell me now, because I don’t want to get fired or slammed with an HR violation or whatever.”
“Shut up.” Seiji cursed and pulled at Nicholas’s hair.
“Engh.”
“Fuck.”
“Engh!”
“Suck me off,” Seiji commanded. He sat back on his knees and pulled out his cock so it hung over the seam of his briefs, heavy, rapidly sticky and leaking.
Nicholas didn’t need to be told twice. He swallowed Seiji’s dick.
Between the dripping precome and the rapidly accumulating saliva in Nicholas’s mouth, it slid easily. He bobbed his head back and forth, then up and down as Seiji climbed over him, then he lay with a hand on Seiji’s defined hipbones and let his mouth be fucked ruthlessly.
What time was it? It had to be approaching nine, so surely his coworkers would be arriving soon. Would they know? Was their mingling sweat and bodily fluids stinking up the office? Did he leave clothes on the ground? Did he close the door?
Seiji shoved into the hollow of Nicholas’s throat. He choked, and stopped thinking about anything else.
His eyes were watering as Seiji shoved into him so forcefully, his head hit the side of the desk—but it only happened twice before Seiji shoved the fabric of his socks between Nicholas’s head and the board.
Nicholas reached around Seiji’s back, pushed his briefs fully out of the way, and dug his fingers into Seiji’s ass crack. He fingered around, looking for the hole, while Seiji thrusted into him harder, faster. Right when Nicholas found a tight ring of muscle—without warning, Seiji exploded inside Nicholas’s mouth.
It leaked down his throat, his chin, the collar of his shirt. Seiji grunted and his dick pulsed, deflating down as a pool of semen displaced it inside Nicholas’s mouth.
Seiji collapsed on top of him, and Nicholas only felt the slick of his sweat for a moment before he rolled off onto the carpet beside.
“Jesus,” Nicholas breathed. He felt out of breath and rock hard.
On the other side of the desk, he heard clattering of keys, a rolling of office chairs, a laptop bag being dropped with a large sigh. It had to be past nine, and while all his coworkers were piling in and getting ready for the day, Nicholas was in the boss’s office, with his dick out and come drying on his tie.
He repeated, “Jesus,” then, “Fuck,” and then, before he knew it, Seiji was undoing Nicholas’s tie and pulling his neck in.
This was seriously unlike anything Nicholas had ever experienced. In his adult life, he’d become a frequent user of dating apps and a regular at several bars. He’d experienced his fair share of one-night stands and quick bathroom fucks, but this was something else. This felt almost animalistic. Primal. The desire he felt was pulsing through his veins in a pounding rhythm that echoed the beating of his heart and his dick.
There weren’t even words for what was being passed between their bodies. Suddenly, Seiji’s hands were on him, tugging one on his erection and one on his tie—a savory combination between the twinge at the back of his neck and a pleasure in his gut.
Nicholas moaned a bit too loud, and had to clamp a hand over his own mouth. Then he moaned again, which slipped through the cracks of his fingers, so he shoved his fist in and clamped down on it.
It wasn’t long before he was drooling saliva and Seiji’s semen, eyes rolling back in his head and gripping frantically at the worn carpet threads to stay steady. Seiji’s hand was like fucking heaven. He continued sucking at Nicholas’s jaw and collar, making a sloppy mess of the previously composed and professional fabric.
Before he knew it, Nicholas’s jaw was slack and his dick pulsed once, twice, three times in a wide arc. It sprayed across the office floor and on the inside of Seiji’s desk, streaming down the dated wood like a goddamn waterfall.
Seiji dropped to the side and they both heaved a lungful of air.
Nicholas felt sticky, and hot, and satisfied. But as the sound of their heavy breathing faded into the regular white noise of office life, Nicholas was struck with the reality of what they’d done.
Not that this stopped him from turning to Seiji and asking, “Same time tomorrow?”
A sheen of sweat was drying on Seiji’s forehead. “I’ll send you a meeting invite.”
Water dripped into the paper cup.
It was later that day, and Nicholas had rejoined with Bobby at the water cooler. He was doing his best to seem normal, but there was a slightly discolored stain on his collar (not unusual) and he was fucking rank.
Bobby was staring over his cup. He seemed suspicious, but like he couldn’t pinpoint what direction to cast suspicions in.
After three refills of the tiny cup, Bobby asked, “Would you like to borrow some deodorant?”
Nicholas snorted—water caught at the back of his nose, and he coughed heartily. Bobby slapped his back.
“Do I reek that bad?” Nicholas punctuated the question with a few more coughs.
Bobby’s nose wrinkled. “It’s not pleasant.”
Nicholas downed his paper cup and refilled it again. “No, I, uh—I walked to work. That’s all.”
“It’s winter.”
“And?”
“It’s cold.”
Yeah, obviously this was a fucking lie and they both knew it. Nicholas supposed he should be happy Bobby wasn’t outright accusing him of smelling like sex.
He shrugged. Bobby shrugged back, then his eyes caught on something behind Nicholas, and Nicholas turned towards Seiji’s office all too enthusiastically.
Seiji was at his standing desk, smudgeless glass allowing a pristine view towards his perfect ass. And, yes, Nicholas could now confirm that it was as firm and perky as it looked.
When he turned back, Bobby had both eyebrows raised.
“What?” Nicholas accused.
“I didn’t say anything.”
“But you’re giving me that look.”
“What look?”
“You know what look!”
“I don’t know, Nicholas,” Bobby sing-songed. “I haven’t said anything. If you’re guilty, maybe you’re just projecting?”
“Guilty of what?”
Bobby pursed his lips. “I think I have some work to get back to.”
“It’s three-thirty. I know you’re not doing shit.”
“I actually have reports to get in,” Bobby said. “And since I’m not sleeping with the boss…”
“Hey.” Nicholas felt his face go hot. “I’m going back to my desk now.”
Bobby snickered on his way past.
Walking through the desk labyrinth after-the-fact felt somewhat humiliating. After all, if Bobby could guess, could anyone else? Was it obvious? As Nicholas calmly made his way to the most private cubicle in the office, he perused the faces around him.
No. No way. Every single one of them had eyes glued to their monitor or their phone. They didn’t know, and even if they did, they didn’t care either way.
And then his eyes strayed towards Seiji, who was facing the other way. With shoulders squared and ramrod straight posture, no one would suspect this day as different from any other.
No one else in this room knew that Nicholas had fucked the boss.
Suddenly, the monotonous day-to-day life had become a lot more exciting.
Back in his tiny, exclusive cubicle, Nicholas could admit that the thought thrilled him.
He could not wait for tomorrow.