My Rival Is My Anonymous Hookup novel · Chapter 1 of 24
Chapter 1: The Lanyard
Gojo has just announced a one-seat promotion contest between the two rivals when the stranger Tomoya booked a love hotel room with walks in wearing Ren Kisaragi's face and company lanyard; Tomoya grabs the strap to throw him out and ends up nose to nose with him, unable to let go.
The man who walked into the love hotel room was still wearing his company lanyard.
It had a white strap, a blue Tsubame Beverages logo, and a photo ID that swung against his tie.
Tomoya knew the photo.
He had looked at it across a desk for six years, and he had never once liked it.
"Arisaka," Ren Kisaragi said.
He stood in the doorway of room 507 with a plastic room card in his fist.
He said Tomoya's name like a man reading it off a form.
Tomoya was sitting on the end of the bed in his shirt and socks, with his tie already off.
Fifteen minutes earlier he had been happier than he'd been all week.
The best part of his Friday was supposed to be whoever walked through that door.
"Get out," Tomoya said.
"I booked this room."
"No, I booked this room."
"You booked it on Tonari under Hotaru." Ren's eyes did not leave his face. "I'm Yoru."
The neon strip along the ceiling hummed pink over both of them.
It was the only room the front desk had left.
The dimmer was broken, the girl at the counter had said, bowing.
No dimmer meant no dark.
For five weeks and three nights, the dark had been the whole arrangement.
Lights off, no names, no jobs, Hotaru gets there first, and Yoru leaves ten minutes after.
Tomoya had never seen the man's face.
He had only heard a low voice against his ear, saying the one thing nobody had ever said to him.
He had knelt on a stranger's sheets in the dark and told that voice everything about himself, and the voice belonged to Ren Kisaragi.
"You said you were a designer," Tomoya said.
"You said you were thirty-five."
"I lied about my age because I'm tired of being young."
"I lied about my job because nobody on that app should know it's this one."
Tomoya stood up.
"Gojo announced it at four o'clock," he said. "One chair. Section Chief of Section 2. Whoever wins the Daikoku renewal gets it."
"I was in the room."
"You stood there like a fence post while he said it."
"I was thinking."
"About what? How to beat me?"
"About how you looked."
Ren said it flat, and Tomoya wanted to hit him for it.
"Last month you were first on the board by point four percent," Tomoya said. "I have your point four percent on my wall."
"It's on the wall in the corridor."
"I put a copy on mine."
Something moved in Ren's face, very slightly, and was gone.
He shut the door behind him with a soft click.
Tomoya noticed that.
Ren had not looked at the room once, not at the pink strip, not at the bed, not at the mirror on the ceiling.
He had looked only at Tomoya.
Tomoya decided it was because Ren was angry.
"Tell me you're leaving," Tomoya said. "I'll count to three."
"One of us should."
"Then it's you."
"You got here first."
"That's the rule. Hotaru gets there first."
"I know the rule." Ren's mouth did something close to a smile. "I wrote it."
Tomoya crossed the room faster than he meant to.
He grabbed the lanyard to shove Ren back out the door.
The strap was warm from Ren's neck.
Ren didn't go backward.
He came forward with the strap, one step, and suddenly they were nose to nose.
Tomoya could smell his soap, the same soap as in the dark.
For five weeks he had wondered whose soap that was.
Ren's breath landed on his mouth.
Up close Ren's eyes were narrow and black, and he wasn't looking at Tomoya like a rival.
He was looking at him.
"I should hate this," Tomoya said.
"You do hate it."
"Don't tell me what I do."
"Then you tell me," Ren said, very low, and Tomoya's knees went weak at the sound. "Say it. Tell me to go."
The strap was wound twice around Tomoya's fist.
His knuckles pressed against Ren's collarbone.
He opened his mouth to say go.
His hand didn't let go of the lanyard.
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