Nothing Casual

By Ana J. Phoenix

Kenta doesn't believe in happy endings anymore. When his last boyfriend married a woman, he gave up on the world. Now he keeps himself hidden away in the comfort of his apartment, his only social contacts a few chat friends that he never sees in person. He's become what the Japanese call a hikikomori, a shut-in, and he tells himself he's happy that way. Most of the time he believes it, too.

It's not until he's forced to let an unexpectedly attractive technician into his apartment that he remembers how much he's missing. Gradually, Akira lures him out of his shell, gets under his skin, and makes him face the big wide world again. It's scary and thrilling and fascinating, and before long Kenta finds himself irreversibly drawn to the other man.

Akira isn't interested in the casual sex Kenta offers, though. He wants the whole package, and Kenta doesn't know if he's ready to leave his hikikomori ways behind. But if he doesn’t face his demons, his one chance at a happily ever after might just pass him by forever.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Josephine Sparks
• Release date: Mar 3, 2016
• ISBN: 9781524287962

Book preview

Nothing Casual

By Ana J. Phoenix

([e-mail])

http://anajphoenix.com

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in retrieval system, copied in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise transmitted without written permission from the author. You must not circulate this book in any format.

All trademarks mentioned are the property of their respective owners.

Cover Art by Ana J. Phoenix

Dedication

To my mom. Thank you for all your support—and for letting me read during dinner!

Acknowledgment

I have to give thanks to my amazing betas, Alex and Ben. They are amazing. (See, that word repetition wouldn’t be there if they’d checked this acknowledgment for me!)

Nothing Casual

Color Outside the Lines I

Kenta doesn't believe in happy endings anymore. When his last boyfriend married a woman, he gave up on the world. Now he keeps himself hidden away in the comfort of his apartment, his only social contacts a few chat friends that he never sees in person. He's become what the Japanese call a hikikomori, a shut-in, and he tells himself he's happy that way. Most of the time he believes it, too.

It's not until he's forced to let an unexpectedly attractive technician into his apartment that he remembers how much he's missing. Gradually, Akira lures him out of his shell, gets under his skin, and makes him face the big wide world again. It's scary and thrilling and fascinating, and before long Kenta finds himself irreversibly drawn to the other man.

Akira isn't interested in the casual sex Kenta offers, though. He wants the whole package, and Kenta doesn't know if he's ready to leave his hikikomori ways behind. But if he doesn’t face his demons, his one chance at a happily ever after might just pass him by forever.

Chapter One

It's still not working.

Kenta sent the text off through the messenger application installed on his phone. The only thing in his apartment that had access to the Internet right now. Oh God. He'd been without Internet for three days. He looked at the blinking green and red lights on the modem. It just wasn't coming back. He'd tried everything short of mouth-to-mouth. And short of calling his Internet provider.

He glanced back at his phone.

Eventually, he'd have to call.

How long had it been since he’d had an actual conversation, though? Like, in real life. Last month someone had bumped into him in the convenience store and they’d both said Excuse me. Did that count? Probably not. Inhaling, Kenta ran a hand through his hair and saw a smudge of ink on his wrist. He’d put it there yesterday, he remembered. The kanji character for Coward. Now the writing wasn’t legible anymore, and he still hadn’t called. Maybe he should renew the writing, put it somewhere else on his body where it would last longer since it was so obviously true.

His phone vibrated in his hands. A message from Zetsu. Man, that sucks.

Kenta didn't know who Zetsu was, aside from his screen name, that he lived somewhere in Hokkaido, and that he was a hikikomori, a shut-in, like Kenta. That was enough. Even if it wasn't face to face, or especially because it wasn't face to face, it helped to have someone who sympathized. Helped to know he wasn’t the only person with a strange fear of the outside world.

Kenta looked around his apartment. He was sitting in the middle of it, on top of a thin futon that had been spread on the floor and which he never put away anymore. Most of the rest of the space was occupied with empty food containers, drawing utensils, half-finished sketches and empty soda bottles. No one ever came here, so he didn't feel the need to clean.

His phone buzzed again. Call someone.

Kenta swallowed. Zetsu was right. He would never make it on just his phone's data subscription. All his social interactions these days took place on the net. He didn’t want to go without it. They might call people like him modern day hermits, but he wasn’t that much of a hermit.

He closed the messenger app and touched the ‘phone’ icon. There was a list with numbers in a folder he'd stashed in the closet. He retrieved it now, skipped past the heaps of information on proper garbage disposal and emergency numbers and on to the service providers. He typed the number into his phone. Let his thumb hover over the call button. Pushed.

As he listened to the phone connect, he both wanted and didn't want someone to answer. If they didn't answer, he'd be left off the hook and he wouldn't have to stutter into the phone, but if they didn't…. he'd have to try again later and the anticipation wouldn’t let him rest.

A crackling indicated that someone picked up the phone on the other end. Kenta’s heart stopped. Then beat again, faster.

Innobel Tech, how may we help you? A woman. High voice. Super polite customer service mode. This lady had probably taken classes to achieve that tone.

Kenta's blanked. His throat felt dry. He had to say something. Yes. Why had he called? My Internet isn't working. Somehow, he got the words out.

Please tell me your name and address so I can check with our system.

Kenta gave her the information and waited while her fingers clacked over a keyboard. Slowly, the initial burst of fear ebbed away.

I am so very sorry for your trouble. Our system indicates that you should have a working connection.

It hasn't connected for three days. Three days! Kenta put emphasis on the words without meaning to.

I am terribly sorry.

Of course you are. Everyone was always terribly sorry for everything. His last boyfriend had been terribly sorry when their relationship was over. But Kenta didn't want to think of that.

The customer service lady spoke on. If it's a problem with your hardware, you should send it in. Then we could have a look at it.

Send it in? But that would take forever. He'd already gone three days without Internet. There should be laws against inflicting that kind of torture on a human being.

She was silent for a moment, except for more clacking of keyboard keys over the line.

If the problem is very urgent, I could have a technician come by to take a look.

A technician? Someone who would come into his apartment?

Sir? the operator prodded.

Um, yes… uh. Kenta tried to calm his breathing. Get yourself together. He only had to let this one person in and then he could finally withdraw into the comforts of the World Wide Web.

Oh, how he missed working WiFi.

Great. You’re in luck. I have one technician in your neighborhood. Another customer had to cancel, so you can expect him in about an hour. If that would be convenient for you. Something in her tone suggested that she hoped it wasn’t. That could just be Kenta’s paranoia speaking, though. But really, an hour? Kenta took in the state of his apartment again. He had to clean. Urgently. Thank you. He hung up.

Now where to start? He glanced at the specks of floor visible in between sketching paper and empty soda cans. His grandmother with her cleaning obsession might have been able to sort this mess in an hour, but Kenta was lucky if he could just cram everything into trash bags and stash them somewhere out of sight. His cleaning supplies were in the bathroom, so that was his first stop. And then he caught a look of himself in the mirror.

Holy shit.

He hadn't shaved in a while, and the mob of hair on his head was badly in need of a pair of scissors, or a flamethrower.

Aside from that… He sniffed his armpits. Yeah. He definitely had to take a shower.

How was he going to do all this in an hour? Crap, he shouldn't have agreed to having someone come into his apartment. He must have been out of his mind. But there was nothing for it now, so he shed his clothes and jumped into the shower. Once he got the water going he scrubbed shampoo into the tangled mess of his hair, and topped it off with half a bottle of conditioner.

His hair wasn’t the only problem though. He had to scrub the ink off his wrist, and any other place where it was visible.

Recluse had been written on his collarbone.

Drop-out on the back of his left hand, written shakily, because that’s how he’d felt that day.

Roughly, he washed the labels off, but the words stuck to his skin, invisibly, just below the surface. He liked them better when he could see them, but he tried to push the feeling aside as he toweled his hair.

An hour or two; it’s not going to take longer than that before things will go back to normal.

He went on to shave, and cut himself three times. Still cursing, he searched his closet for clean clothes and finally found something in the back. Then he stilled for a moment.

These pants and shirt… No wonder they weren't dirty. The last time he'd worn them, he'd still been with Shota, who had always complimented the way they looked on him.

Kenta wanted to throw the clothes back into the closet, but he could hardly greet the technician naked, so he put them on.

Finally dressed, shaved and combed, he inspected himself in the mirror. He felt weird, like he was pretending to be someone he wasn’t anymore. Someone normal. Someone who believed that things would turn out for the better in the end. He made a face at himself. He wasn’t that person anymore, but nothing about him said that. He looked regular. Especially now that the writing was off his skin.

Don’t think about that.

Better get on with cleaning. He threw open a window and began picking up garbage from the floor. He couldn't make the apartment sparkle in the time he had left, but he could make it at least a little less obvious

Reviews for Nothing Casual

[L'eau · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

It was sweet and touched on some important mental health issues, but definitely needs a good edit.