Chapter Text
Kento opened the pantry, frowning. (“You’re going to have frown lines instead of laugh lines when you get older,” Satoru teased. “And whose fault would that be?” Kento retorted.) It was rather indicting. If someone were to guess the inhabitants by the contents - fine wines stacked in a neat row, almost invisible beneath a haphazard mess of chips and juice boxes and candies - surely their response would be something akin to a stressed single parent and a child whose health they didn’t have the time to manage. The fact that this wasn’t too far off from the truth (“I’m your senior ,” he could hear Satoru protesting) only made it more embarrassing.
“Does reversed curse technique heal malnutrition?” he asked Shoko the next time he dropped by Jujutsu Tech.
“Reversed curse technique heals damage dealt by cursed energy. It doesn’t manufacture nutrients out of thin air.”
She looked at him doubtfully, with more judgment than his eminently sensible question deserved. He hastily deflected the blame.
“Satoru told me it could.” It wasn’t exactly a lie. Satoru’s actions certainly implied that that was what he believed.
“Why would you believe a word from that idiot’s mouth?”
Kento had a horrible urge to defend Satoru, but he stifled it and thanked Shoko instead. It was commonplace for Kento to insult Satoru, but he’d been finding himself increasingly irked when other people did it. This was a deeply disturbing development, and he was determined to fight it with every ounce of willpower that he possessed.
At the grocery store, he mentally ran through Satoru’s morning routine, trying to see what he could replace with healthier homemade alternatives. Grunting, he lifted a 50-pound sack of sugar over one shoulder while balancing a basket of strawberries, heavy cream, and corn syrup on his hip, and assiduously avoided eye contact with the cashier.
Their apartment was empty when he got home, so he set himself up at the counter, rinsing the strawberries in a strainer before hulling and dicing them into neat cubes. (It was difficult to make any progress in the kitchen when Satoru was around - he was always draping himself over Kento, stealing bites of food, wheedling until Kento let himself be guided over to the couch.) He set aside some of the diced strawberries as a topping and scooped the rest into a large serving bowl. He added half a cup of sugar as directed by the recipe, paused for a moment, thought about Satoru’s preferences, then added an extra cup for good measure. Stirring until the sugar dissolved into a thick syrup, he placed the serving bowl into the refrigerator to marinate, then began working on the next item.
In the morning, when Kento stepped out of the shower, Satoru was already perched on a stool at the countertop, gobbling miniature marshmallows by the spoonful while typing furiously on his phone. By his elbow was a steaming cup of coffee. Kento pressed a kiss into the back of his head in greeting, humming in appreciation as he took a sip of the coffee - Satoru made an irritatingly good brew for someone who never drank coffee himself. He reached out for the phone, turning it towards him so that he could see what was making his lover so riled up.
Leaning back against him, Satoru immediately began complaining.
“Utahime says that it looks just like me, but she’s completely wrong, right? Tell her she’s wrong, Kento. Your boyfriend’s honor is being impinged!”
The thumbnail expanded into a full-size picture of a white Furby with sparkling blue eyes. It was indescribably ugly, yet - there really was a resemblance. Kento bit back a laugh, but with Satoru pressed tightly against his chest, he felt it anyway. Twisting on the stool, he jabbed his finger at Kento in mock indignation.
“The joke’s on you. If I’m a Furby, then you’re dating a Furby.”
Kento brought the phone closer, turning it left and right as if examining the photo.
“What Furby? Isn’t this just a photo of you?”
“Nobody’s on my side,” Satoru moaned piteously. Turning away from Kento, he collapsed dramatically onto the countertop, turning his head so that his cheek squished against the smooth marble. “Since you and Utahime get along so well, maybe you should just get together… hey, that was my breakfast!”
Kento had grabbed the bowl of marshmallows and unceremoniously dumped the contents into the trash.
“Try these instead,” he said, filling the bowl with the marshmallows that he’d made the previous night and placing it in front of Satoru. Next he heaped his strawberry compote onto the bottom of a glass, then poured over it with fresh milk and topped it off with a few spoonfuls of freshly diced strawberries. He stirred until the concoction became pink, then slid it over to Satoru.
Satoru bounced up, quick to abandon his pretense of being hurt by Kento’s words. “This is delicious!” he declared after a large gulp. “The taste is much richer than usual. Where’d you find this?”
“I made it myself,” Kento admitted, slightly alarmed by the warmth that blossomed in his chest as he watched Satoru devour his cooking. He considered asking Shoko about it next time, then decided against it - he didn’t want to be on the receiving end of another one of her judgmental looks.
“The marshmallows too? They’re springy and don’t taste anything like chalk.”
“If they usually taste like chalk, why do you eat an entire bowl every morning?”
“Not just chalk, very tasty chalk,” Satoru corrected. “Besides, chalk is edible, I have firsthand experience…”
“What.”
“Maki’s recently made a game of throwing chalk at my mouth whenever I talk,” Satoru explained. “Dodging would be easy, of course, but I’ve found that letting her score a hit once in a while keeps her engaged. At least this way she’s focused on me when I lecture.”
“Is there a single person in this world who respects you?”
“Of course, I have plenty of self-respect.”
Kento hoped that his silence spoke for itself.
“You never answered my question,” Satoru continued cheerfully. “Did you make the marshmallows as well?”
“Yes,” Kento said, and then to make sure he didn’t get the wrong idea, “I felt like practicing cooking, that’s all.”
“So you started with my favorite foods?”
Kento could hear the smirk in Satoru’s voice, but he refused to rise to the bait. “Your tastes are so simple that it’s an easy starting point.”
“Kento?”
“What?”
“You can just say you love me. There’s no need to go about it in such a roundabout fashion.”
The arrogance left Kento at a loss for words. I don’t love you , he tried to say, but for some reason his mouth got stuck.
Satoru watched him struggle with great interest before leaning forward and pressing his hand against Kento’s.
“Just kidding, I like you this way. No need to change,” he said.
Kento knocked his hand off. “I wasn’t planning to,” he said waspishly.
Satoru just laughed in response.