Chapter Text
Purpose: Try multiple times to get a strong titer. Fail Miserably. Things get heated in the lab.
Introduction: Nanami, Higuruma, and our lovely reader are lab partners racing to finish bacteriophage research for an upcoming Biomedical research symposium. Stakes are high. They argue over data and methods, and their days bleed into many nights. Before they know it, exhaustion and unresolved tension begin bleeding into their daily interactions. A few minor indiscretions here and there, but what happens in the lab stays in the lab.
Materials: nanami x reader x higuruma. Contains suggestive content, (Semi)unresolved sexual tension, and a whole bunch of bio jargon.
Lab Notes: I'm no scientist so I hope this is accurate lol. ANYWAY! I was so excited about this one! I hope u all love it just as much! x
NANAMI WAS NO STRANGER to working in the lab late at night. Working on the frontlines of biomedicine did that to a man. The days bled into evenings at first, and then into his nights, and before he knew it he was clocking out just before the sun rose the next morning. Never before had he held a laboratory position so demanding. Objectively speaking, however, all of his other projects paled in comparison to this one. It wouldn't have been much of a stretch to call it the most important discovery of his lifetime so far.
Working to research for the government put a whole lot more money in his pocket. He wasn't upset about that part. In fact, he found himself forgetting his qualms with the position altogether each time his direct deposit hit. It was quite a few zeroes longer than he was used to receiving.
Bacteriophage therapy was all the rage these days. Doctors – acting only on the guidelines they are given by the medical board – have been overprescribing antibiotics for decades. They appear to be stuck in a feedback loop: They don't have the time to try alternative forms of treatment, and certainly not the insurance coverage. At the same time, patients – who put themselves out hundreds to hundreds of thousands of dollars just to receive these diagnoses and treatments – rightfully desire rapid, easy treatments. In fact, antibiotics have been used in many cases where the infection was viral. These broad-spectrum antibiotics are likely to be overprescribed, then act as little "nuclear bombs" within the immune system. That is to say, of course, that they function indiscriminately. The same way a nuclear bomb wipes out everything and everyone in its path regardless of who the threat was intended for, the beloved broad-spectrum antibiotic eliminates many kinds of bacteria, including the good ones.
Taking broad-spectrum antibiotics when they are not required trains some highly-adaptive bacteria to mutate and survive the nuclear blast. Over time, many of these bacteria have become antibiotic-resistent, rendering the drugs ineffective. Antibiotic overprescription has become a pressing threat to global health.
Bacteriophages have offered perhaps the most considerable alternative Nanami had interacted with thus far. The illustrious bacteriophage is a very special kind of virus that infects and replicates exclusively within bacterial cells. They are highly selective organisms, usually infecting only one specific species or strain of bacteria, and are completely harmless to human and animal cells. The little "bactera-eater" hijacks the cockpit of the bacteria, replicating within the cell until it ruptures, effectively destroying it before new phage is released to other bacterial cells.
They have proven so far to be highly effective against "superbugs" in previous trials, and are generally considered to work without symptoms. Because of this, the government was paying the Gojo College of Medicine a ridiculous amount of money to research more potential bacteriophage strains that could have the potential to cure superbugs without the need for any antibiotic drugs. Nanami, as one of the College's most dedicated molecular biologists and professors, was selected for this project along with two of his peers. Each of them handpicked a few promising students to act as Lab Assistants.
There were only a few weeks left until the research symposium where they were supposed to present their landmark findings. The only issue? They lacked any findings to report so far. Their endeavors had been relatively fruitless so far.
He regularly worked alone. He preferred working alone. Having two many chefs in the kitchen – metaphorically speaking – impeded upon his progress at a frustrating level, so he avoided it when possible.
This was not one of those cases.
It was later than he cared to appreciate one evening in the molecular bio lab. Nanami was running his latest plaque assay – the fourth attempt this month. Goggles perched low over the brim of his nose, he dipped the end of his micropipette into the conical base of the sample dilation tube. The needlelike tip sucked up exactly 200 microliters of sample. He watched the cloudy liquid swirl about in the collection tube before dispensing it into another clear tube. Changed the tip like clockwork. Then, being so very careful to avoid spilling even the smallest droplet of the phage sample they'd worked tirelessly to purify, he drew up another ten microliters and dispensed it into the same tube.
He gave the tube a few gentle flicks of his wrist – just enough to combine the two samples. Then he capped the tube and set the little strawberry shaped kitchen timer – your purchase, of course – to ten minutes.
A few feet away, you were showing Higuruma something on your computer. Judging by the way your shoulders shook with delirious laughter, he could only assume that it was another one of your little cat videos, or something otherwise irrelevant to their research. He leaned over the swiveling chair you were seated in a cross-legged position upon, hands gripping the armrest while he squinted at the screen. The corner of his lips quirked up.
Nanami sighed, rolling his chair back and sliding the latex gloves off like it was muscle memory (it was). Pinch the wrist piece of the first one, roll it up over the palm, then the fingers. Ball it up in the other gloved hand. Slide two fingers up the bottom of the remaining glove, roll up over hand to avoid cross-contamination. Dispose. The sterile technique – something that had been drilled into his head during his undergrad years.
He turned the gas knob, watching the flame die down until the sterile field dissipated.
"What could the two of you possibly be laughing at?" He sighed, sliding his goggles up and off of his face. He regretted asking the moment you peeked over at him – little cat-paw ID card holder shifting over the pocket on the front of your lab coat.
You turned the screen of the computer towards him – showing him a clip of a cat falling as it attempted to jump between two couches. "Look at him! This is the third time he's gotten stuck!"
He crossed his arms over his chest, turning back to his work bench with a noncommittal, "Mm."
In any other case – if it had been any other cohort, perhaps – the distraction would have agitated him. Oddly enough, however, Nanami quite enjoyed your whimsical demeanor. It was a breath of fresh air in a place where the oxygen was literally sterile. He liked the color you brought into the space – hints of pink on your nails, your makeup, your outfit, your goggles – to break up the gray and white. He found it cute, almost endearing.
"Was that a laugh?" Higuruma asked, pushing off of the back of your chair to stretch his arms above his head. As he leaned from one side to the other, the white fabric of his lab coat slid over his arms. His hair was a little disheveled – a few strands had fallen out from his typical slick-back and into his face haphazardly.
"Definitely not," He answered back bluntly, fixing the strays in his own hairdo before returning to his typical arm-cross position.
"Your mouth twitched," He noted.
"I can assure you that it did nothing of the sort," He sighed.
You looked between the two of them, pretty doe eyes flicking up to the form of Higuruma – which towered over you – to where Nanami was seated at the work bench. A smile rested on your pretty pink lips, and that realization alone was enough to have his own mouth betray him, curling into something that wasn't quite a smirk.
God damn you. He thought with no real conviction at all.
"Don't you have something more important to do?" Nanami asked Higuruma, quirking his brow. "Like those gradient fractions you were definitely supposed to have done two hours ago?"
"They are done," Higuruma groaned, sliding his palms down his face until his eyes fluttered shut – but he was already making his way back to his bench.
Nanami wasn't convinced. After all, he was still standing here, which had to have meant something went awry. "And...?"
Higuruma paused, dropping his head onto his hand, elbow perched on the edge of his bench. "They're... not ready to talk about yet."
Furrowing his brows, Nanami glared at the man. Higuruma stared right back, and something tense passed between the two of them. You seemed to notice this, clearing your throat before closing out the tab playing the cat video on loop and opening up the imaging software you should have been on to begin with.
God, he despised working in groups.
"It's almost midnight," he commented.
Without looking up from your screen, you chipped in, "It's been almost midnight for a while, Bananami. Let's take it easy, yeah?"
Bananami. Another thing about you he probably should have hated – like the way you always leaned in a little too close when you were observing someone else's findings. It didn't bother him much to have you in his personal space bubble, but he couldn't deny the selfish way his patience ran thin each time you leaned over Higuruma's work station, fawning over whatever CsCL fraction or other artifact he was showing you without a care in the world.
He wasn't blind. You were gorgeous. He knew Higuruma wasn't blind, either.
And neither of them had any right to be jealous over you, yet here he was. He told himself that the ethanol fumes were finally starting to get to his head. Forced proximity could make anybody look at their labmate and think about the way you gnawed on her lower lip while you looked at genetic sequences – or the way you would do the same thing each time he came up behind you to look at your findings, turning your head back to peer up at him through those long, pretty lashes while you worried the skin between your teeth.
Across the lab, Higuruma observed the tubes that his centrifuged samples had dripped into.. All of them looked identical. A little cloudy, somewhat clear. He slipped into a pair of latex gloves before holding one of them up to the light, squinting to find something, anything.
He glanced down at the sheet on his desk, clenched his jaw, and then sighed. Not good.
Nanami's eyes darted over to his own workbench, where the timer was gradually ticking down. For a moment, he watched the numbers trickle down to nine minutes, then eight, then seven.
He didn't snap out of his daze until you gasped at the computer. Immediately, fearing that something had happened, his attention snapped to you.
"Everything alright?" He asked.
You had your jaw agape, staring at some images on the screen. Right when Nanami stood up to walk over to you, you slid your glasses up the bridge of your nose. You were looking at one of the two screens. On one side, you had the imaging software displayed. On the other, an image of a plaque assay. A cold cup of coffee sat neglected next to the keyboard. Your painted fingernails drummed against the ceramic surface.
The little petri dish – blown up for the sake of visibility – looked abnormal. Where there should have been clear little circles in each place their little eater sample had killed bacteria, there were fuzzy, unclear edges instead. There were no clean cuts, as should have been expected. Some points were so small that they could have easily been missed. Some had halos around them.
It looked like the phage wasn't making up its mind.
"Is that the assay I did last week?" He asked. A stupid question. He knew the answer. It was dated.
"I don't know what happened. Everything was lining up so smoothly before," She nodded solemnly, opening the titer log. The number that flashed across your screen did not please you, if the way your entire face dropped was any indicator. "Our titer dropped again."
"How much?" He asked.
The number you told him was not a good number. It meant that the sample was nowhere near as condensed as it should have been.
"That doesn't make any fucking sense," Higuruma groaned, sliding his chair back so he could lay his head back, arching his neck up. "We adjusted the ratio specifically so we would avoid that."
"The ratio was fine," Nanami replied, standing up and rolling his shoulders back until the tension cracked away. "The problem most likely occurred much sooner."
"You don't know that," Higuruma bit back. His expression didn't budge, downturned eyes thinning into slits.
"The numbers certainly suggest it," He retorted.
"The numbers say our yield is low," Higuruma added, carefully controlling his voice so that – just like always – the two of them were toeing the fine line between constructive criticism to personal bias. "That's not the same as knowing why it happened."
Before the tension in the room could creep any higher, you pointed to something else on your screen, nail tapping the monitor. "The plaques are irregular again. It's the exact same thing as before. It can't be contamination because it follows a pattern."
A pause. The tension was thick enough to suffocate.
"So it's the phage," Higuruma answered finally.
You looked over at him, doing that stupid lip bite of yours that always seemed to make him lose his cool. "It's the phage."
"The structure looks the same," You zoomed in on the dish on your screen. "There's weird attachment fibers and asymmetry in this one, too. We keep losing concentration right before the imaging stages."
That would have been Higuruma's error. It had to have been.
Nanami sighed, fighting the urge to walk out of the lab and throw his hands up in defeat. "We only have one viable sample left."
"I know," Higuruma said.
"If this round fails–"
"I know."
The strawberry timer went off softly on Nanami's bench. He reached over without looking. Then he put on a new set of gloves and rolled his chair back to his bench.
The next plaque assay wasn't going to run itself, after all.
Nanami flicked the striker a few times before turning the burner on, waiting until the fire took before uncapping the bacterial culture. He could hear Higuruma a few yards away from him, the sound of the centrifuge door being shut. He glanced down at his lab notes. He'd followed protocol to a tee and yet the concentration had dropped anyway.
Months, they'd been working at this. Months, and they still couldn't get a clear isolation.
Outside the lab window, the moon had slipped a little higher. Lower? He couldn't tell. He would run the next few steps, then wait again. Document it. Probably run the next one after that.
Then, he would wait. Just the same as he'd been waiting for six months.
"We should name her Miley Virus," You hummed, drumming your pen against the side of Higuruma's workbench.
Higuruma was over at the centrifuge, balancing tiny centrifuge tubes while he set the rotor. He had his back turned, of course, so you'd taken the opportunity to roll your chair over and strike up a conversation. Hours upon hours in the same lab made you anxious to converse with someone who wasn't a chatbot. Higuruma's easygoing nature – compared to Nanami, at least – didn't hurt, either.
Higuruma felt his shoulders sag with exhaustion at the suggestion. You and your whims. "And why would we do that?"
"After Miley Cyrus? Why else would we do that?" You replied.
Once the centrifuge was set to go, Higuruma turned it on and made his way back to the bench. He was tired – more tired than usual. His brows were pulled together. Even beneath the confines of his lab goggles, you could probably see the telltale crease in his forehead.
"Who the hell is Miley Cyrus?" He asked as he sat down in his chair.
Glancing around the room to make sure Nanami hadn't decided to walk back in and see the two of you very clearly notdoing what you were supposed to be doing, you whisper-shouted; "Who's Miley Cyrus? Wrecking Ball? Party in the U.S.A.? Ring a bell?"
Higuruma's blank expression indicated that not a single bell had been rung. "No."
"Hannah Montana?" You tried again. "The kids show? With the singer who lives a double life?"
Rather than answering, he picked up his pen, scrawling a few notes in chicken-scratch beneath his last lab notebook entry. Centrifuge for an hour.
"Do you live under a rock?" You asked, bringing your chair that much closer to his. The moment you inched closer, the smell of your perfume invaded his senses – strawberries and cream, something girly and frilly, just like you. It nearly made him dizzy. He tried to play it off.
"I basically live here," He sighed. "That's kind of like the same thing."
"I loved Hannah Montana growing up. It's an American show. You've really never heard of it?" You asked again.
"I have more important things to worry about than Hannah Montana," He capped his pen, setting it aside so that he could take his goggles off and get a good look at you. "You do, too."
Maintaining eye contact was difficult – especially when the sparkles on your cheek glittered just so beneath the lab lighting. Your cheeks were dusted with a shade of pink that complimented your skin tone, and the sheen of gloss on your lips was enough to have his eyes giving a traitorous little glance before he could stop them. You stuck your tongue out at him.
He licked his lips, smirking at your childish antics.
"Okay, but–" You leaned back against your headrest. "What do you do when you're not in here?"
"Work," He replied, turning back two pages so he could double check the procedure. Just in case.
"That's not an answer."
"It's an honest one. When I'm not here, I'm grading exams and homework."
You watched him slip the gloves back onto his hands, setting out a holder for a few centrifuge tubes. "So if I put on Hannah Montana right now–"
"You won't."
"I could, though."
"Go ahead," He set out a few micropipettes, metal clinking against the tabletop. "I'm sure Nanami would love that."
"You're no funnnnn," You groaned, kicking the floor so that your chair spun around on its axis. It squeaked as it came to a stop.
"I'm plenty of fun."
"Name one fun thing you've done in the last week?" You asked – only half-teasing.
Damn. He opened his mouth anyway, about to tell you about the paper airplane he made in the lab an hour ago out of a shitty notebook page.
Until you added, "That wasn't work or... some other professional obligation."
He closed his mouth. Went back to dialing the micropipettes instead.
You seemed satisfied with yourself, letting your chair spin around slower this time. Your knee bumped the edge of his thigh and, for the briefest of moments, Higuruma felt his heart stutter.
"You know–"
Here we go.
"We haven't gone for drinks in a while," You hummed, tapping your foot against the side of the workbench. The rhythmic tapping was distracting, to say the least, but he didn't want to tell you that. No, your presence next to him was the most interesting thing to happen to him that day. "You should come with me after work."
He was quiet for a moment, pretending to be thoroughly enraptured by the numbers on the side of the pipette. "I–"
"Come on, it's a Friday night..." You pouted – and, God, he knew he was done for. Your face shifted to something much cockier, and you wiggled your brows at him – "Unless you've got yourself some plans with some mysterious lady friend?"
Definitely not.
Face burning just a bit – and not from the unlit burner – he pointedly avoided your gaze. "Can't say that I do."
"So that's a yes. Great! We can–"
"I have notes to finish."
"Higuruma," You exhaled softly – like you knew the sound of his name falling from your lips made his heart race.
He looked up at you before he could control himself. Big mistake. You were closer than he'd anticipated, leaning forward on your elbows over his bench with your chin tilted up at him, peering up at him like you knew he couldn't refuse.
"One drink?" You begged him.
Fuck me.
He was not proud of the trembling breath that left his lips. "Okay, yeah one drink."
Folded. Under absolutely no pressure, as usual.
But the smile that broke out on your face was enough to make him not regret it in the slightest. You reached past him for something on the bench, and suddenly there was no space between the two of you. Your face was right there. He could see the moment it registered in your head.
Still, neither of you moved.
Your eyes dropped to his nose, just briefly, then came back up. Gently, you withdrew your arm, holding up a pad of post-it notes and waving it. "I need to write something down."
He was about to say something – he had no idea what he would say, but he wanted to say something, anything.
The door swung open. You slid your chair back at the same exact time that he turned back to the work bench. Suddenly, the half-written notes on the page in front of him seemed to be the most interesting thing in the world.
"Nanamiiiiii–" He heard you greet him with that warm, easy tone that he desperately wished was reserved for him and him alone. "Come out for drinks with us."
Us. He huffed. I was hoping it would be just the two of us. Not... buzzkill over there.
"Can't. I have work to do," Nanami stepped into the laboratory, messenger bag slung over his shoulder. His baby blue dress shirt was rolled up to his elbows, revealing forearms much beefier than his own. Not a wrinkle in sight, not a hair out of place. Perfect. Painstakingly perfect, like always.
"It's a Friday," You groaned.
Nanami set his bag down at the personal belonging station and pulled his notebook out without ceremony. "Tell that to the fifty-seven student emails I got today."
You made a sad little noise. HIguruma said nothing.
He was not glad. He was completely neutral. He was professionally indifferent to the composition of the evening's attendees, or the fact that he would have a moment with you outside of the lab somewhere far away from stick-in-the-ass.
Who was he kidding? He was extremely glad.
"Well," You sighed, already logging into your computer workstation. "If you change your mind, the three of us can drive up together, so just let me know."
One drink. Just the two of them on a Friday night.
Higuruma found himself watching the clock above the door with a little more scrutiny than usual.
Nanami hated overtime. Still, it was midterms, so he had to set that aside for a moment. Instead of sleeping – like he should have been doing at 11:30 PM, he found himself scrolling through his University inbox.
BIO 212 - Grade Concerns
BIO 212 - Tutoring?
BIO 212 - Missing Homework
University Messaging System - Canvas Maintenance Scheduled
Satoru Gojo - Yoooo Nanami I need petri dishes.
Satoru Gojo - OPEN THIS EMAIL RNNNN
Kamo Research Institution | Biomedical Research Symposium
He sighed – feeling the stress of the day melt away just a bit as he did so. Setting his wire-frame glasses down on the desk, he pinched the bridge of his nose. He was in over his head. Overwhelmed, completely, yet there was nothing he could do to fix it. He couldn't ignore his inbox any more than he could ignore his two labmates.
He wasn't exactly ignoring them. He genuinely did have a great deal of work to do. That hadn't been a lie.
It's just that he didn't particularly feel like drinking his sorrows away knowing he would have to come right back to them the next day. Why bother?
He almost wished he had agreed to go with the two of you. It would have been easier, that was for certain, and it definitely would have made you happier.
But Higuruma... God, he couldn't bear the thought of fraternizing with him. The man seemed to constantly butt heads with him. That, combined with the way he fucking looked at you – God, he didn't know what had gotten into him.
He'd been working himself to the bone to make this project work. A research grant would be life changing for many faculty in the Biology department. He could give his students more work-study opportunities, for one. Then, he might be able to indulge in research he actually enjoyed doing.
But just picturing you and Higuruma together made his fingertips burn with the urge to move. To text you. To say something that would catch your attention.
Would you respond? Or were you too busy laughing Higuruma's ear off to care?
He could envision it now – You, sitting with your legs crossed beneath the table the way you always did in the lab, wearing something more casual than a lab coat. Both elbows on the table, chin perched on two hands clasped together beneath it, leaning into his story. Higuruma, sans the lab attire, sleeves rolled up, tie undone, maybe even a button or two. Higuruma, blushing at something you'd said.
Both of you – laughing without a care in the world.
He had no right to be angry. Especially not when he'd been the one to decline. It's not like you hadn't wanted him to attend.
The sound of his phone buzzing on the desk shook him out of his reverie. He hadn't even realized it, but he'd been frozen on the same email for five minutes. An email from one of his brightest lab technicians (and student), Yuuji Itadori. Short and concise – "Heya prof! I'll be on campus late tomorrow. If you need me to swing by the lab and help, just shoot me an email."
He drummed his fingers against the oak table. Once, twice, before curiosity got the better of him. Then, he reached for his phone, turning it over only to see that it had been your message that set his ringer off.
He clicked on it anyway.
A well-lit photo illuminated his screen. You, pursing your lips at the camera. A table full of discarded beers at what appeared to be an izakaya. Your face was tinged with red, like you'd drank yourself a few more drinks than you probably should have. At the other end, Higuruma, throwing up a peace sign.
He felt his nose turn up before he could stop it. Cocky bastard.
Another text followed the image: Heyyyyyyyyyy Nan ami.
Wischg you culd b here! x
It was hardly intelligible. Still, it brought a smile to his weary face. You'd thought of him, even though Higuruma was there, and that filled him with more satisfaction than he cared to admit.
Then, he typed out a response:
Tell him to drink some water. He looks parched.
Jealous? Maybe.
Petty? Definitely.
Your response came back a minute later: LMFAOOOOO he said "go vfuvk yourslef."
Likewise, he answered back. Then, deciding to be just a little bit professional, he added, Both of you get home safe. Call me if you're too drunk to drive.
| Taxci. We called one.
| U should have comeeeeee :-(
Me. She's with him, yet she thinks of me, he thought.
Then, he replied: Next time.
Nanami and Higuruma were already knee-deep in an argument by the time you arrived at the lab. Higuruma stood in front of the whiteboard on the right side of the room, tucked just beside Nanami's bench. He had various lab tools strewn messily about his workstation – something so uncharacteristic of his normally pristine facade that you knew immediately that something had gone wrong.
Nanami was leaning forward against his station, face planted between his palms. "The data shows a titer crash. Three god damn weeks running."
Higuruma pointed his marker at Nanami like it was a weapon. "Because your propagation conditions are too conservative to generate a fucking viable–"
The sound of the door closing behind you made both of them glance over at you. Higuruma paused, catching his breath. Nanami, cool as ever, looked over at you with a quirked brow before decidedly turning back to the other man to continue their argument.
This was normal. At least, it had become a bit more normal over the course of the past week. Little comments turned into quips, which turned into outright defense, and now...
"If you overwhelm our host before the cycle completes," He sighed, waving a pointed finger around the figures Higuruma had outlined on the board. "It doesn't matter what our input titer is."
Hello to you two as well, you thought. Neither of them stopped, even as you set your bag down on the floor next to your coat.
"You're not giving the phage enough hosts for it to–"
You pulled up a stool next to Nanami. Opened your notebook like arguments like these were commonplace (they were), and uncapped your pen. The argument idled for just a moment, like the two of them were distracted.
You could feel them looking at you.
"We should name it," You hummed, tapping your pen against the page.
"Name what?" Nanami replied without blinking. He smelled better than he had any right smelling after an entire evening in the lab – something masculine and bougie-smelling. Amber, oud, musk, something else you couldn't quite name.
He always smelled good. Clean.
"Our stock. The last viable one," You answered. A beat passed. You added, "I suggested Miley Virus, but Hiromi didn't like that one much."
As if on cue, you struck a line through the name Miley Virus, which you'd written down on a random page just in case. Below it, you wrote something new, "How do we feel about Karen?"
Higuruma groaned, letting his head thunk against the white board. "That's a terrible name for a bacteriophage."
Asshole. You pursed your lips. "She's acting like a bitch."
You scribbled it down anyway: KAREN.
"Karen," Nanami repeated.
"Karen."
"Oh my God," Higuruma pinched the bridge of his nose with his free hand, using the other to brace his weight against the board. He was tall enough that you figured you might have been able to walk beneath his arm without any trouble. You tried not to think too hard about that. "She's dead serious."
Or the way Nanami's sharp jawline tensed, muscular arms folded over his chest as he leaned back in his chair. "You're missing the point. If your purification worked for a low-titer input like I told you, we wouldn't be having this conversation in the first place."
You wanted to ask what had happened to get the two of them to this point. When Higuruma took a step away from the board, you decided against it.
"My purification conditions are fine," He practically seethed at the blond man. "The input titer is the problem. Your input titer."
"The input titer is a downstream consequence of the MOI," Nanami answered back matter-of-factly. "Which you set."
"Based on your propagation window which was entirely too short–" Higuruma laughed dryly, "I don't even know why I'm arguing with you about this."
"The propagation window was calculated precisely from your recovery data, which has been inconsistent for the past six weeks."
"There's always variance."
"Not like this."
"You don't have the purification background to make that call," Higuruma growled back, jabbing an accusatory finger in Nanami's direction. In another life, you figured he could have been a lawyer.
You gnawed on your lower lip, eyes darting between the two of them.
"I have enough background to recognize that Karen isn't the problem," Nanami answered back.
"Oh, so now you're a purification expert."
"I don't need to be one, trust me. It doesn't require a degree in rocket science."
"Right, right," Higuruma waved his hands around. "You just need to sit there and tell me I don't know what I'm doing. Like you always do. That's your job apparently."
Nanami finally leaned forward. "The numbers don't lie, Higuruma."
"For fuck's sake–" He raised his voice. "Just say what you mean."
"Fine," Nanami took his goggles off, setting them on the table with such calculated patience that you began to understand why half the biology department feared him. "You've been sloppy. For weeks. And you know it."
You almost preferred their arguing over the silence that fell over the lab. You froze, pen halfway through the name Cellissa. Higuruma paused, mouth pressed into a thin line. Nanami stared back at him over the bridge of his nose, like he was above this.
"You want to say that again?" Higuruma asked. Quietly, but dangerous enough that you felt your own stomach churn with unease.
"You're sloppy, Higuruma," Nanami answered right back. "The symposium is in a week. In seven days, we'll have to present our findings. If you can't meet quota, we can't meet quota. I hope I don't need to remind you what that would mean."
Something behind Higuruma's expression closed like a shutter. He didn't speak. That was almost worse than if he had.
In a few long strides, he crossed the room, brushing past you and Nanami. He didn't look at either of you. After rummaging through his bag, he found what he seemed to have been looking for, and he kept on walking towards the exit.
"Hiromi–" You started.
The door slammed shut behind him.
For a moment, you stood there just staring at it.
"You can be quite abrasive at times, you know that?" You sighed, closing your notebook.
"He'll be fine," Nanami remarked with a noncommittal hum, already looking down at his logs.
"I'll be back," You replied, mostly to yourself.
You stood up without waiting for a response, pushing through the door and walking down the empty hallway. You caught the sound of footsteps retreating towards the stairs. You followed behind, turning until you were walking down the stairs.
You found him outside of the rear exit door.
He was leaning against the brick wall of the Biology building, shoulder pressed up against brick, head tipped back slightly. A cigarette sat between his fingers – not yet lit, just perched between two slender digits like a vice.
He flicked the wheel of his lighter, holding it up to the cigarette until the end sizzled. Without looking at you, he answered, "He's unbelievable. Six years, and I get lectured by someone who hasn't touched a centrifuge in a decade."
You took a spot against the wall behind him, leaning against it so that your shoulder just barely brushed his arm. "He touched one once last week, I think. By accident."
Higuruma didn't laugh. "I don't need this. Not a whole fucking week out from the symposium."
"I know."
"He has no fucking idea what goes into a purification technique. None. Just sits there with his–" Here, he gestured vaguely with the hand holding his cigarette, then pulled a hit out of it before breathing smoke out into the evening air. He craned his neck back as he did so, exposing the column of his neck, his adam's apple to the moonlight. "His notebook... and he just–"
"His logbook," You supplied needlessly.
"His logbook," He repeated with a whole lot more bite than he should've had, considering it took two assholes to tango. "Acting like I haven't run this exact protocol a million fucking times."
"Mm," You answered.
"Sloppy," He added bitterly, "I'm sloppy."
You tilted your head back against the brick, squeezing your eyes shut so you didn't have to look at him. When you opened your eyes, you only found it that much harder to look away. He looked even prettier beneath the flickering light that came from a lamppost a yard or two away. A few students walked by, chatting about something you couldn't quite hear.
"You did mislabel our Karen stocks that one time."
Silence.
"That was once," He replied softly.
"Twice, actually."
Higuruma turned to look at you, and you made the vast mistake of meeting his gaze – dark eyes, expression caught between incredulity and offense. He was close enough to you that the smoke made your eyes water. You kept your face neutral through what you felt was considerable personal effort.
What? Higuruma was a beautiful man. Nanami was, too, actually. It was all very confusing.
The relationship between the three of you – as strained as it might have been – was strictly professional. Still, that didn't stop you from wondering. A few sleep deprived nights had led you up roads you weren't exactly proud of.
Nanami was the stern, stoic type. The kind of man who knew just how to make you press your thighs together with a low, honeyed tone alone. Higuruma was the tired, overworked type. The kind of man who let his emotions slip a little more than Nanami – and through glimpses of the man beneath the tight exterior, you'd come to know him as a bigger sweetheart than most people probably knew.
And you... well, you thought the two of them were hotter than two patties on a grill. Shameful, being that you would never have had the balls to make a move.
Being rejected by your labmates sounded like a fate worse than death.
"The second time was Nobara's fault," He finally added.
"Yeah, blame the assistants, sure."
Higuruma looked away first, which was probably for the better. He had the prettiest eyes. It was hard to look away from them. The rigid line of his shoulder dropped a few degrees, anger bleeding slowly out of his posture until only exhaustion remained.
He took another drag and held it this time, exhaling slowly. "I can't stand him."
"Only a week until the symposium," You remarked. "Both of you could benefit from a yoga class, or some shit. Fucking hell."
Higuruma glanced sideways at you.
He didn't say anything after that. Neither did you.
You told yourself you would fix your sleep schedule – or try to, anyway. In a few days' time, you would be on a flight to the United States for the Biomedical Research convention in New York City. At one point, it felt like a dream. Now, it felt a bit more oppressive. The three of you had made some significant progress over the past few days. Higuruma and Nanami's relationship returned to a more tense version of what it already was.
In a few days' time, you would be 13 hours ahead, in a completely different timezone.
Yet there you stood in front of the Biology building late one evening anyway, bag slung across your tired form. It was midnight, and the crickets sang in the bushes that bracketed the building like they were welcoming you.
You forgot your phone. Somehow. It had taken you a full three hours to realize that it was missing. Still, being that you had it in the lab earlier, you figured that was where you'd left it.
You badged into the building, pushing the doors open and walking towards the elevator. Repeated the same commute you made each day on foot after the school day – third floor, make a right, room 310. Swipe badge.
Only this time, the lights were still on. You walked in anyway.
There, Nanami sat at your workstation – the computer.
"You're here late," You muttered, crossing the room until you were leaning right over him. You were dressed informally for the occasion – donning the same clothes he'd seen you in earlier, but without the lab coat. You had taken your makeup off, too, and your hair was down over your shoulders. You'd decided to opt out of your traditional ponytail in favor of a more comfortable disposition.
Nanami turned to look at you, tired eyes parting from the screen for a moment to look you up and down. "I could say the same about you."
He had your micrographs up on the screen – tiny little bacteriophage cells magnified up to 400x. They looked like little tripods: long, pole-like neck, polygonal capsule at the top, claw-like tail fibers at the bottom. You'd taken them earlier that morning.
He had that expression on his face – the one he got when he was on the brink of discovering something. The light above cast shadows over his cheekbones, the sharp angle of his jaw, the bump in the bridge of his nose.
"What are you looking at?" You asked, squinting at the screen.
Nanami cleared his throat, seemingly averting his gaze. "Your tail fibers."
"Find anything?"
"Not quite sure yet," He responded honestly, quietly.
He was a different person when Higuruma wasn't around. He was calmer, for one. But there was something different about him. It was as if the tension melted away for a bit. He wasn't as squared off as he usually was. Still stern, still tense, but a little softer around the edges.
You felt naive about it, but a part of you reveled in the fact that there was a side of him reserved only for you. A gentler man. A man whose voice wrapped around your head and suffocated you, sex appeal oozing out of him.
There was a strange sort of tension between the two of you – one that crept out when you were alone. Because of this, you tried to avoid working with him alone. Around Higuruma, things were easier – the more laid back of the two, he gave you much more leeway.
Nanami, however... He was more clean-cut. A man of perfection. He was perfectly content to let the silence build between the two of you. He stood a little too close when you showed him something on your screen. He always looked at you over the bridge of his nose – kinda had to, considering he had an entire foot of height over you. Maybe more.
You'd known him for years. The two of you had crossed paths before – at lunches and conferences – but something about the forced proximity of the laboratory forced you to see how he looked up close. The way his broad shoulders strained against the fabric of his perfectly tailored shirts. The way the muscles in his forearms would ripple over his radial pulse, fingers tracing a line down the page of your notes.
And his face, God, his face. He had the kind of face you'd find chiseled into a block of marble at the museum – strong features, strong body, God.
His hands were so much bigger than yours, too. More than a few times, you caught the sheer size difference between yours and his when he leaned over your workbench. Yeah, you'd thought about those big hands of his more times than you'd cared to admit. How the light would catch the veins, bones, muscles beneath his skin. The way his long, thick fingers worked so surely to ensure that not a single drop of specimen went to waste. How they might feel on your face, your skin, caressing the small of your back, gripping your hips.
"Here," He zoomed in on the tail fiber region.
You snapped out of it, leaning in to look. Your faces were inches apart. Up close, you could see the exhaustion in his eyes. Something else entirely – something that shifted when he looked up at you.
Behind him, the computer screen glowed. The lab was completely empty besides the two of you... and, well whatever was in the six approximate inches of air between you and him.
"I..." You swallowed, chasing the corner of your lips with your tongue because you were suddenly feeling rather thirsty. "I came back for my phone."
Without moving, without breaking eye contact, Nanami answered, "It's behind you."
You turned around. Surely enough, there it was, sitting on the edge of the bench where you'd left it a few hours prior. "Oh, thanks."
You scooped it up, slipping it into your pocket with ease. Arms loosely crossed, you leaned against a nearby bench. "You ever been to the states before?"
"Once," He remarked, turning the computer screen off. "Philadelphia – it was for a conference."
"Did you like it?" You asked.
"Didn't get to enjoy it much. It was January," He sighed.
"So... no?"
"No."
You smiled. Nanami looked at you for the briefest of seconds. You drummed your fingers against the edge of the workbench.
Nanami stood up and cracked his neck, rummaging around the desk in search of something. Then, he moved to the workbench you were at – opened the drawer beneath it, the one you'd dubbed as the lab's junk drawer because it'd grown into a makeshift lost-and-found somewhere along the way.
"Have you..." He mumbled. To be frank, you weren't entirely sure why you were waiting around. You'd found your phone, and you could easily have left. "Have you seen the lens paper? The good kind, not the–"
"Second drawer," You rattled off. You followed the shape of him as he bent over, tugging the second drawer open.
"Nothing."
"Cabinets?" You tried again.
He sighed, dusting off his slacks and reaching just behind your head, pulling the cabinet open. You held your breath.
He was wearing white today. A clean-pressed white button down with no tie, sleeves rolled up to his elbows the way they always were. He smelled of that rich cologne again – amber, oud...
He found the lens paper, but he didn't move away immediately.
You looked up at him. He was already looking down at you – his eyes on your cheeks, your nose, your mouth–
"Nanami..." You exhaled, voice a trembling shell of what it had been only a minute earlier. Like a warning – to you or him, you weren't sure.
"Mhm," He answered, still not moving.
"What are you doing?"
He looked at you for a moment. A long, honest moment. He seemed to have genuinely considered it. His mouth opened, closed, then he settled for licking his lips. "I... I don't know."
God, I can't be imagining this.
You weren't entirely sure who moved first. Only that weeks of tension came to a boil in one moment, and before you knew it, your noses were brushing together.
"Nanami," You tried again.
"Kento," he replied.
"Kento," You corrected yourself. "We work together."
"I know."
You placed your hands on his chest like that would have been enough to put distance between the two of you. "The symposium–"
"I know," he breathed. His hand hadn't moved an inch from the cabinet behind you, caging you in. He left you an out – just in case you wanted to back out, being the gentleman he was. Shamefully enough, you made no move to take it.
But, fuck, he was standing so close and he smelled so good, and when he leaned in, you leaned in, and then–
He closed the distance. Your lips touched together – not fast or rushed, but slow and uncertain, like neither of you knew what this was, but neither of you wanted to pump the brakes on it, either. Like every other clinical decision he made, he seemed to be taking his time to ensure that he didn't screw the whole thing up.
You tilted your head, parting your lips and melting into the kiss before you could convince yourself to do the right thing. Your hands seemed to travel on their own accord – up his chest, up to his shoulders, where one gripped his shoulder blade and the other slid up the side of his neck.
And his hands – fuck, his hands – moved in kind. Large and certain, warm as one moved from the bench to the small of your back and the other cupped your cheek like you were delicate.
Briefly – strangely enough – you seemed to have forgotten what a symposium was entirely.
His tongue slipped against yours, and you moaned. Pathetically, like a pent up loser. The hand on your back pulled you closer effortlessly. His thumb moved against your cheek, tilting your head to grant him easier access.
You gripped the back of his neck a little harder, and he exhaled through his nose. The fingers on his right hand dug into the curve of your waist. The other hand followed – closing the cabinet door to rest on your hip like it had any business being there in the first place.
Then, before you knew it – as repressed as the two of you were – you were pulling him closer by the collar of his shirt. Then, he was kicking your legs aside, slotting himself in between them so he could kiss you more, more, more – frenzied passion taking over the both of you until the only sound that could be heard in the lab was the sound of your lips smacking together, of your heavy breathing tangled together.
The situation was bad. It was getting worse, too, and Oh God, your hands were sliding down his back, wrinkling his perfect white dress shirt – clean pressed a few minutes ago, considerably less so now. You felt him inhale sharply when your nails dragged down the slope of his spine.
His grip on your hips tightened.
"Kento," You gasped against his lips.
You did it again. You clawed down his back and he made a sound low in his throat – one you felt more than you'd hear it.
Then, like reality had come crashing right back into him, he pulled back, ripping the two of you out of the moment like it had never even happened.
An anomaly. He hated anomalies.
His hands lingered on your hips for a moment before dropping. He stepped back.
You swayed uneasily on the bench, uncertain if your legs were even functional after what had just transpired between the two of you.
Oh my god.
What did I just do?
What did we just do?
He looked at you – breathlessly, chest rising and falling, hair disheveled. His collar was wrinkled, and you'd been the one to do it.
Without breaking eye contact, he stepped away, fixing his collar and adjusting his shirt.
"I..." You caught your breath, sliding off the bench and fixing your hair, your slacks. "I should go, I–"
Nanami opened his mouth to speak, but no words came.
"I have to..." You cleared your throat, nodding at him. "I should go. Goodnight, Nanami."
Nanami. Not Kento. Not Bananami.
Nanami.
You walked away. He didn't stop you.
And, just like that, the two of you were back to business as usual.
The whiteboard had been cleared out from the previous night's transgressions. In its place, a rough outline for the presentation. Ridiculously last-minute but in your defense...
Things had been tense.
Nanami showed up only thirty minutes after you did – exactly on time, like always. He set his bag down and took one final sip of his coffee before closing his canteen.
He pointedly did not make eye contact with you. That was great, actually, because you didn't feel like looking at him either.
In fact, you would much prefer it if the two of you pretended this never happened. Even though you hadn't been able to stop thinking about the way he'd tasted, the way his hair felt between your fingertips, the way–
"Morning," He finally greeted you.
You swallowed, nodding at him. "Morning."
See? Completely normal.
Around ten minutes later, Higuruma arrived. He looked at Nanami. Then the whiteboard. Then, realizing that today wasn't much of a lab day, he left his coat on the hook and composed himself.
"I drafted an outline for the presentation order, so let me know what you think," He remarked, nodding towards the white board. "I'm thinking propagation first, purification second, characterization third."
This was bad. This was messy – ridiculously so. Somehow, all three of you were dancing around the elephant in the room. Several elephants, in fact. Maybe even a zoo.
"Characterization should open," Nanami added his two cents.
And, here we go.
"The characterization data is incomplete," Higuruma sighed exasperatedly.
"That's precisely what makes it such a strong opener. We name the anomaly first, then walk through how we aim to solve it," He gestured towards the board.
Sighing again, Higuruma dropped his arms, leaning against the white board right next to you. "We're not writing a fairy tale, Nanami. We're doing a scientific presentation."
Before it could escalate any further, you uncapped a new marker. "What if we open with the micrographs?"
That got both of their attention.
"We lead–" You drew a line from morphology to context. "With the inconsistent tail fiber morphology. It's the most visually compelling thing we have," You capped the marker again, setting it aside and gesturing to the line you'd just drawn. "Hook them early, walk them through the data. Propagation, purification, characterization. Same order, different opening."
Higuruma considered for a moment, rubbing his chin with his fingers before answering, "The data on the tail fibers is only preliminary."
"And we will be presenting it as such. We're not claiming anything we don't have here," You tapped the board, as if to reinforce your point. "We want them interested in what we don't have yet."
Higuruma nodded after a beat, crossing his arms in front of him.
"Alright. Yeah. Let's do it."