Work Text:
The makeshift kitchen is a sorry sight, the cutting board and butane burner barely fitting on the table, even with the rice cooker relegated to a chair pushed to the far wall. It wasn’t as if they had any other option; Hanamura ruled over the hotel’s kitchen with an iron fist, and any of the facilities to be found on one of the other islands were more likely than not in no state to be used.
That alone should’ve stopped this little plan from getting off the ground, but once Kazuichi got an idea in his head, Jabberwock would freeze over before he gave it up. So, packed into the small space Kazuichi had been able to clear in his cottage, they had set to cooking.
Supposedly, this was all supposed to make for a nice, romantic evening.
Romantic, my ass. By his calculations, he’d spent most of this romantic evening alone, his boyfriend–the source of all of this–having fucked off to wrangle a fish from somewhere. With how long he’s been gone, Fuyuhiko is beginning to think he’d fallen into the ocean.
With a sigh, Fuyuhiko sets down the knife and flexes his fingers. His knuckles ache where they’d pressed against the cutting board, the skin flushed red, and all he has to show for it is a heap of roughly chopped vegetables and fingers that’ll reek of garlic for days.
He isn’t built for this domestic shit. It wasn’t in his blood.
If it were anyone else who asked, he would’ve said no. Hell, he’d have said no to him without hesitation, if only he hadn’t looked him in the eyes.
That goddamn look he got whenever he got a plan like this should be easy for him to ignore. His will is ironclad.
But sometimes, Kazuichi is acid. Strong acid.
Some small, persistent part of him says he’s going soft. That he’s rolling over like a servile mutt.
The rest of him doesn’t give a damn.
He…supposes there are worse ways to spend an evening. Maybe whatever comes out of it would even be edible.
He hopes so. His emergency stash of karinto is getting low.
The door opens, and the smell of fish enters the cottage before Kazuichi does. The whole place is bound to smell like a goddamn wharf by the end of things. Good thing they weren’t in his cottage. “Thought you would’ve been back by now.”
Kazuichi heaves an overly dramatic sigh as he kicks off his shoes. “Sorry ‘bout that, I had to go to Hajime to prep this thing ‘n had to explain the whole deal,” he says, “I…really didn’t need the fire safety lecture–argh, it’s like he doesn’t even trust me!”
Before he can work himself up any more, Fuyuhiko moves to the side and gestures at the cutting board. “I did what you asked.”
His face brightens, until it rivals the low-hanging evening sun. “And you said you weren’t good in the kitchen,” Kazuichi remarks as he takes a seat across from him.
Fuyuhiko scoffs. “I’m not. I just know my way around a knife.”
“That’s…do you have to say it like that?”
“I don’t see any issue with the way I’m sayin’ it.”
“I…alright,” he sputters out. “Just, uh–sit back, I’ll take care of the rest of this, okay?”
As the butane stove hisses to life, Fuyuhiko’s gaze drifts upwards, and lands on a dark blotch marring the white paint of the ceiling. It looks…charred–and as he looks closer, he can make out the familiar tinge of smoke stains surrounding it.
Considering how thoroughly his projects had taken over the space, Fuyuhiko can hardly believe the damages stop at cosmetic. He wouldn’t be surprised to wake up one day to see a hole clear through one of the walls.
The air grows rich with the sharp aroma of onion and garlic as they sizzle in the hot oil, strong enough to mask the smell of metal and grease. Fuyuhiko’s stomach growls.
Speaking of surprises.
His back cracks as he stretches and straightens up in his chair. “Where the hell’d you learn to cook, anyway?”
Kazuichi, preoccupied with the contents of the pan, doesn’t look up right away. “Oh, my mom–” He lifts his head, his eyes narrow. “H-hey, why the hell did you say it like that?”
“Well, ‘cause when you said you were gonna cook, I was expectin’ you to just fuckin’ microwave somethin’, not…” Fuyuhiko waves a hand over the table for emphasis, “this.”
“Jerk.”
He rests his elbows on the table. “You were sayin’, though? About your ma?”
“Oh, uh…yeah, I mean,” he pauses, his lips pursed. “My old man and I never really saw eye to eye, so I hung around my mom a lot…but she was always so busy, so that usually just meant me watching her do stuff. Cooking, sewing, y’know…” Kazuichi sighs as he taps the spoon against the side of the pan. “After a while, she started letting me help.”
“Lettin’ you help? Or ropin’ you into helping?”
“No, no, I like working with my hands. And…it’s nice to do something different every now and again.”
“Hm.”
They settle into a comfortable silence. Fuyuhiko just watches him as he works. He has the same look on his face that he gets when he sits down at his workbench, that excited little gleam in his eyes.
He’s cute. He’s stupidly, unbelievably cute.
It wouldn’t be so bad to make this a habit. He wouldn’t even give a shit if it turned out barely edible if he could see Kazuichi like this more often. To build that kind of life for themselves. Maybe they could fix up one of those spaces to have a proper space to work, one with adequate room for the two of them. And maybe some fire doors.
He might even be willing to learn a thing or two. To help out. He wasn’t about to sit around like some lazy asshole.
Kazuichi looks at him, gleam still in his eyes. “You got any family recipes you feel like dusting off?”
Caught up in the moment, Fuyuhiko can’t help but give the question real thought. As if the smell of cooking fish and vegetables has hypnotized him, lulled him into a false sense of normalcy. As if any of this was normal for him.
Normal.
“Natsumi,” Fuyuhiko calls, leaning on the door frame, “Get your ass out here.” He raises his voice to be heard over the racket coming from downstairs.
Silence. Then, muffled from behind the door, she yells back, “Fuck’s sake, you can’t give me five minutes?”
“Matsunaga’s had the car ready for twenty goddamn minutes already!”
“I ain’t ready!”
“Hurry up or starve, Peko and I will just leave without you,” he lies. “Besides, nothin’ you do is gonna fix that face of yours.”
On cue, her door swings open. She’s still dressed in her uniform, the cuff of her sleeves stained with dirt from the fight she’d gotten in earlier. She glares daggers down at him. “Fuck you!”
“If y’wanted to change, you’ve had plenty of time to do it by now,” he says, crossing his arms.
She bristles. To smooth things over, he adds, “If we go now, we can stop at that bakery you like.”
“Tch, you just want to go so you can bum half of what I order– ”
“Shut it.”
The shouting grows louder–but no more distinct–as they descend the stairs, reaching a fever pitch as they cross the threshold to the dining room. By now, whatever insignificant dispute that had started it all had most likely been forgotten, if it had ever truly mattered to them at all. Sometimes, Fuyuhiko could only wonder.
A voice, high and shrill, sets itself apart from the din. Their mother. “Don’t take that fuckin’ tone with me!”
Fuyuhiko scowls, his ears ringing. How she could hear any sort of tone over her own harpylike screeching is beyond him.
Their mother recieves a response in the form of shattering glass. If she wasn’t the one who’d thrown it. He wouldn’t put it past her.
Fuyuhiko turns to Natsumi, and the grim expression on her face matches his own. Tired. Angry. Just…sick of it all. She reaches out towards him.
He offers his hand in return.
He takes one step forward. A red-hot jolt of pain shoots through his foot, and he sucks in a sharp breath, freezing right in front of the kitchen entrance. The dragon’s lair.
There’s a brief lull in the screaming. Fuyuhiko doesn’t dare look into the darkened doorway lest he catch the eye of the beasts within.
He can feel the stress in Natsumi’s grip.
Fuck. Fuyuhiko bites the inside of his cheek to stifle any sounds of discomfort as he stumbles forward, that same foot burning with each step as if the floor itself were hot coals. He doesn’t fucking care. Nothing matters but getting Natsumi the hell out of this house before they both end up in the line of fire.
The row begins again, as if the two of them hadn’t even been a blip on their radar. Not that it comes as any relief.
Only when he goes to slip on his shoes does he see the glass shard lodged in the sole of his foot.
“Fuyuhiko?”
“No,” Fuyuhiko says, after a moment. “Nothin’ like that.”
Kazuichi’s face falls. “Oh.” He sounds ready to cry.
“Don’t sound so fuckin’ torn up about it.” Fuyuhiko casts his eye towards the far wall. “It’s…not a big deal.”
All he gets is a nervous little sound in reply, and then…nothing.
It’s quiet. Too quiet, the sizzling of the pan the only sound to fill the empty space between them.
The space begins to feel all too familiar. He sighs, almost involuntarily, the tension squeezing the air from his lungs.
Until Kazuichi, the font of infinite surprises he is, says, “Well…maybe this could be your family recipe?” He doesn’t even look up as he says it, more preoccupied with the dish than his words.
“Tch, don’t act like like hot shit, sayin’ that before I’ve even–” Fuyuhiko stops dead, his face heating up. His heart races, and it takes him more than a few moments to choke out the words, “Tried…it.”
He lifts his head, and Kazuichi is frozen, his eyes trained on him, lips pulled back in a nervous smile that falters more with every passing second.
Fuyuhiko opens his mouth, only for nothing to come out. He can see the shift in Kazuichi’s eyes. The kind of look he gets when he’s about to up and flee.
The fucker better not go anywhere. Fuyuhiko wants nothing more than to grab him by the collar and ask him what the fuck he meant.
And if it was a fuckin’ promise.
He doesn’t get the chance before the chime of the rice cooker cuts the both of them off.
“Well, this is pretty much ready, so…I’ll go serve that up, yeah?” Before Fuyuhiko can even blink, Kazuichi shoots to his feet and turns tail, stumbling over clutter to the rice cooker. He’s muttering to himself, far too low for Fuyuhiko to hear.
Fuyuhiko watches him, overcome by a feeling still foreign to him, his stomach twisting itself into a goddamn pretzel. He could really use a goddamn smoke.
When Kazuichi returns, two heaping bowls of rice balanced in his hands, he’s red-faced and silent. His hands shake as he scoops some of the fish and vegetables atop each one, sloppy enough that sauce spills down the sides of the bowl onto the table. As he slides one over to him, he squeaks out, “Here, uh…e-enjoy.”
Fuyuhiko prods at the contents of the bowl with his chopsticks. It smells normal enough. Looks…normal. Nothing about it screams hazardous. Fuyuhiko mutters a hasty word of gratitude before he lifts a piece of fish to his mouth, and the second it hits his tongue–
It’s…fine. He’s had better, but it’s certainly better than half the hole-in-the-wall joints he used to go to. Not every above-board restaurant was welcoming to his kind, and not every one that was welcoming knew what the hell they were doing.
It was hardly fair to compare the two. Not when he’d seen Kazuichi pour damn near the same level of care into it as he gave to his precious vehicles. Just…for his sake.
He wants to believe that he deserves it.
Kazuichi breaks the silence. “So, I take it it’s good, yeah?”
It’s not until he hears Kazuichi’s voice that Fuyuhiko realizes that he’s wolfed down a third of the bowl. His cheeks stuffed full, he lifts a hand over his mouth and says a muffled, “S’edible.”
“Sure. Whatever you say, man.” Fuyuhiko sees how he puffs out his chest and grins.
As Fuyuhiko continues to eat, slower this time, Kazuichi finally digs in. “Hm. Something’s missing.”
“Doesn’t taste like it to me. I think it’s fine.”
“Oh, I thought it was just edible,” Kazuichi chuckles.
Fuyuhiko sets down his chopsticks and rests his chin in his palm, looking over at Kazuichi with a grin. “Guess I’ve got a new family recipe, then.”
…
The sound that comes from Kazuichi could be mistaken for the cry of a dying animal.