Chapter Text
rui got no work done.
on the upside, abject panic was a pretty effective wakeup call. all traces of exhaustion disappeared without any sign of return, leaving him wide awake and reminded of the dread of what the next time he’d see tsukasa would bring. and with no work done.
their relationship had grown exponentially, especially after moving in with one another. tsukasa had become someone rui knew he could count on, and tsukasa had proven that he felt the same way. it was a relationship that grew steady with time, pushing past personal barriers to rely on one another, building each other up and offering support wherever they could.
it was a lot to miss, and rui wasn’t willing to lose any of it; certainly not over something as fickle as a crush. therefore, it would be disastrous to let his feelings, of all factors, get in the way of their friendship.
“good morning, rui! i’ve prepared a snack for the day you can have later.”
“ah,” a warm lunchbox placed into his hands like every other morning, and a simple one-worded answer was all he could muster. he had no idea how to explain why he was behaving more strangely than tsukasa, because it appeared that there was nothing to be strange about.
“well, sit down!” tsukasa laughs at his frozen reaction. “i prepared pancakes as well.”
as breakfast with tsukasa went on, it was becoming clearer and clearer that the chef wasn’t acting differently in the slightest— in fact, it was like nothing strange had happened at all. like rui hadn’t kissed him and then walked away like it was a completely normal thing to do.
if anything, it should have been a relief. since tsukasa wasn’t going to make it into a big deal, then neither should he. if it seemed like tsukasa was going with pretending their dinner had consisted of nothing out of the ordinary, it should serve to bring him some relief. didn’t it work out better that way? he hadn't ruined anything after all.
or perhaps rui had been more out of it than he’d thought, his head started to swirl as the pangs in his chest got more obvious. perhaps he’d dreamt the whole thing, including the kiss, and that was why it was like it hadn’t happened. since it didn’t. he had a tendency to have vivid dreams.
that hurt a bit too for reasons rui couldn’t hope to describe, but he chose to go with it. another dream of tsukasa would be best, but this time in the presence of him this time, given how sleep deprived he had gotten. nothing else.
before he knew it, rui had been on his way to the next excavation site without much thought about the journey, anxiously staring at anything else while he tried to get his brain in the proper mindset for archaeology and out of the downward spiral he was caught in.
his walk passed by in a blur of overthinking and a lingering sense of exhaustion, and then suddenly rui was staring down at the blank page he’d unknowingly flipped his notebook open to. to find the pages suddenly flipping on their own.
a blearly look down, to be met with emu who had been the one flipping pages, nene trailing behind not too far away.
“that’s not a fossil,” she points at a sketch of tsukasa no one wasn’t supposed to see.
without skipping a beat, emu went on about her next delivery instead of waiting for a response, all while rui hastily snapped his satchel shut with his notebook tucked away.
however. he could not have been more grateful for the way that she seamlessly filled the silence after nene’s observation while rui fumbled with the logistics of how to maintain a conversation with a boy he may or may not have kissed earlier.
“—and then this bag, it has really, really, really important herbs for tsukasa-kun that he requested!”
nene pauses. “he wanted those by noon.”
“..tsukasa-kun?”
she shoots rui a withering glare. “is that seriously all you hear?”
nene pauses to consider his particularly weird display today. messier-than-usual hair, eyebags seeming heavier than bricks, shoulders tense and eyes sad. definitely more so than how he usually was.
“rui, what’s wrong?”
“..huh?” widened eyes met nene’s before lighting up with a faux smile of reassurance. “nene, i can assure you i’m doing fine.”
“you look really sad,” emu points out, also growing sad herself.
“does he?” nene pushed herself between emu and rui, sensing rui’s humiliation like a bloodhound and taking the opportunity to save him the trouble. “emu, we have to get going now..”
“i believe so as well,” rui’s mouth was agreeing while some much wiser part of him internally sighed that it would be nice to get a second opinion. with nene giving him one last look of concern, all whilst dragging emu away, somehow he had made it through that interrogation unscathed. he really had to get his thoughts in order and settle on avoiding tsukasa until after he was rested enough, in order to not to let his guard down.
but he didn’t want to avoid tsukasa, shushing the wiser part of rui and replacing it with the much dumber, much more smitten one that rejoiced at seeing the star after work.
“..”
problem was, rui was still standing in the middle of pavement and all rui could think about was how hot his cheeks felt and that maybe the lack of sleep truly had been a mistake, because apparently, rui looked like he needed to take better care of himself. and that villagers walking by were starting to eye him with a strange mixture of worry and judgment.
clearing his throat, rui played it off as rummaging for something in his satchel before going back to his usual route for work.
it was time to shut all of this down, before he made a fool of himself again — and this time he would sleep it off. he was too sleep deprived to process this situation accordingly, and his thoughts kept getting away from him, and he had no idea what to do on the matter.
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“welcome to the restaurant, rui! i have your lunch ready.”
he nods sleepily, afternoon had hit him sooner than he’d thought. nene and emu sat at a table not too far from him, lemonade on their tables while tsukasa cooked their omelettes. “i just received the ingredients for today’s dinner, and—”
rui gulps. “actually, i have a report to—”
tsukasa leapt up and slapped his hands flat down on the countertop, practically climbing onto the table and leaning over it way too closely, all to look rui directly in the eyes. “nonsense! you’ll come home before eight and rest.”
rui’s satchel fell to the floor with his sudden movement, entirely forgotten as tsukasa stared imploringly at him, as if he had anything to convince him of. of course, rui had still planned to speed-walk his entire way home to see him earlier, but this was the opposite of what he’d been trying to achieve. the goal had been distance, not to get as close as he possibly could without tsukasa repeating how they’d have dinner together while in the presence of emu and nene.
“fine, indeed i will,” rui dips and backs away from the chef, shaking off how intimate the close proximity felt and how nicely his hair contrasted with the vivid brown and red in his eyes.
nene could be heard softly groaning from behind before tsukasa realised he still had an order to cook, darting back across the restaurant to his kitchen, and for the life of him, rui could not tell if that had been an average interaction between them, or something more. although, his pondering was cut short.
“woah, dinner with tsukasa-kun?” emu’s face looked too knowing to be overlooked as innocent, definitely reading the uncertainty and hope on rui’s. she had seen everything and that was more than enough to have warmth spreading up to rui’s ears, his mouth falling shortly in order to defend himself, albeit without the words to dig himself out of the hole he’d dug for himself. “i hope you have lots of yummy food!” she sings at the flush of his face.
much to his relief, their conversation was blessedly interrupted by the arrival of tsukasa bringing in a bowl of noodles, followed by his call for emu’s order at the kitchen window.
rui picked up his spoon, gripping it tightly to ground himself in the moment. he would pay attention to his lunch, and then he could figure out where he and tsukasa stood later.
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dinner with tsukasa held the same amount of confusion and overthinking as the rest of the day had. rui had hoped that the extra time spent together would just naturally answer the multitude of silent questions he had brewing inside of him, but as it was drawing to a close, he felt even more lost.
they had spent the majority of the time chatting away together, side by side instead of across from one another like they usually would, teasing and laughing and somehow managing to actually get through a conversation without feeling the urge to doze off from exhaustion.
it was more than nice, so much of what he’d been yearning for with tsukasa, but he couldn’t help the nervousness that seemed to be bundling together at the pit of his stomach.
in a daze, rui reached for their plates, thanking tsukasa again for his cooking, only to look up to see the full intensity of tsukasa’s dazzling smile to rui and once again turning all of his thoughts to seafoam fizzling away.
“it was my pleasure! same time tomorrow?”
rui nodded dumbly and tsukasa’s grin grew to be truly enormous, his eyes particularly sparkling under the magnitude of it, and before he could consider how glad he was that that was clearly the right decision, tsukasa was shooting forward and pressing a kiss to his cheek.
tsukasa looked bashfully up at him, his smile reduced to a softer one, light blush dusting his pale cheeks, and all rui could do was stare back with his mouth gaping open.
the chef returned his gaze for a long moment, before his shy smile shifted to a more fond one. almost laughing, he reached up slowly without breaking that eye contact, until his fingers were resting beneath rui’s chin, then pushed upwards and physically shut his mouth for him.
“very well,” tsukasa replies haughtily, while rui stared down at the ground before his knees gave out for a reason that was not from his lack of sleep.
“i’ll wash the dishes.” rui’s mental capacity had checked out entirely as warmth blossomed across his face. tsukasa watched as he gathered plates with hands in a manner so stiff they didn’t quite seem attached to his body.
tsukasa’s laughter followed after him as he dazedly headed to the sink, but he could hardly feel the cold of rushing water at all. what remained was only the tingling heat within his cheek and thoughts of tsukasa , who had apparently accepted everything that had come with his half-awake kiss and just proceeded on like it was their new normal.
while water rushed, another realisation hit him — the situation between them couldn’t have been ruined, because it had meant the same thing to tsukasa the whole time.
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“missed you,” rui came home to tsukasa singing by the countertop, snuck right behind him for a hug, all while something sizzled loudly in the pan to his right and he almost didn’t care. more tempted to keep tsukasa right where he was and just figure out dinner later, but tsukasa already was pressing lightly on his chest and laughing against his hold, wiggling out of the hug going right back to cooking.
“well, the food can’t burn!” his laughed, beaming at the affection as he made his way over to the stove to finish their dinner, and rui wanted nothing more than to pull tsukasa right back where he had him.
he could be patient though, not wanting to burn their house down, so rui crossed his arms so he’d keep his hands to himself, watching his boyfriend plate up their dinner.
“you’re home early,” tsukasa coaxed rui over to the same chairs he'd set out at the dining table where they’d had their first kiss, and he was helpless but to follow.
rui leant over to kiss his cheek, thanking him for the meal and silently thanking him for everything else, too.
it had become one of rui’s favourite parts of his day. something that he could look forward to, steady and comforting, revitalizing in all of the ways that they both needed, and the perfect opportunity to continuously prove how deeply they cared for one another.
it was a time to unwind, talk about their day, or to just sit together in silence and appreciate the other’s company. the bustling rest of the world would pause when rui sat down in tsukasa’s kitchen, each meal somehow left him feeling a little more in love, and loved in return.
the air was thick with the aroma of tsukasa’s array of carefully selected spices, and the smile he greeted rui with melted any bad day away.
it was everything rui had allowed himself to dream of and more.