Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

“Mele, I think you really should have stayed with Ra-“

“I’m not going to be separated from Lord Rio.”

“Mele, it’s not decent, and-“

“I’m staying with Lord Rio.”

“God, okay, fine, sure.” Gou sighs, exasperatedly. Mele grins. “But just so we’re clear, Rio.”

Rio turns to him, having stayed out of the way for all of his argument with Mele.

“Absolutely no hanky-panky whatsoever in my house.”

Behind him, Retsu chokes a bit.

“Lord Rio, what does that mean?”

“No hanky-panky, you hear- Are you blushing?”

“I am not.” says Rio.

“Oh my god, you are! Don’t tell me that you’re still a-”

“I am not blushing!”

“Lord Rio, you look really adorable!” Mele touches her face, and reaches out to poke Lord Rio in the face before catching herself. Gou was grinning from ear to ear now, looking positively delighted.

Rio, on the other hand, was blushing, and looking slightly murderous.

“Come, Mele,” he says, and grabs her arm. And he quickly walks away into the room Gou graciously lent him.

“NO HANKY-PANKY!”

The door slams, and Gou thinks he hears Rio curse.

“Lord Rio,” Mele’s muffled voice comes from behind the door. “We could share the bed!”

Rio yells.

Retsu and Gou positively collapse with laughter.

The next morning, slightly after dawn, Gou goes to wake the two of them up. Behind the door is silence; the two probably haven’t woken up yet. Gou had honestly thought Rio to be the kind of person to wake up before dawn, practicing 300 kata before breakfast and all that. But destroying immortal dragons and atoning sins was tough, so he could forgive a man for wanting to sleep in a bit.

When he opens the door, he’s almost tempted to slam his forehead into the wall.

Rio is sitting on the bed, cross-legged and eyes shut, with his ridiculously massive cloak on. Mele, on the other hand, is pulling herself up from the floor and rubbing her eyes.

“Don’t disturb Lord Rio’s sleep,” she scolds, sleepily.

“That’s a bed.” Gou states, not very quietly. “It’s for sleeping on.”

“And Lord Rio is sleeping, so shut up, please.”

“He’s sitting up!” The face-to-wall temptation was growing stronger. “That’s not sleeping! And he let you sleep on the floor? He could just sit on that chair over there and-”

“Don’t you dare wake Lord Rio up,” Mele interrupts, as Gou walks into the room.

Before she can say anything else, though, Gou has crossed over and started shaking Rio awake. A hand darts out to grab his throat, but he’s anticipated it, so he catches it.

Rio’s now-open eyes narrow, but Gou beats him to it.

“You lie down!” he says. “On beds! Rio, please, you can’t tell me you forgot how normal people sleep.”

“I was meditating,” Rio says, almost mulishly, if Rio could be mulish.

“Then do it on a chair! Mele was sleeping on the ground! How could you treat her like that?”

“She wouldn’t let me.”

“I wouldn’t let him.” Mele confirms.

Gou sighs, and plops himself down on the bed, lying next to Rio.

“I give up. Let’s go for breakfast, Retsu’s cooking.”

“Out of curiosity, what did you guys eat at the Predatory Fist Hall?” says Gou through a mouthful of rice.

“The fear and screams of a thousand damned human souls.” Rio calmly takes another sip of the soup.

Retsu blinks.

Rio does not.

Mele nods.

Gou sighs, again.

“That was a joke.” Rio says, and takes another sip. “This is good, Retsu.”

“Um. Thanks.”

“I got a rinshi to buy takeout for me.”

Chapter Text

"Okay, Rio, Retsu and Jan are going to take you two shopping today.”

“Shopping?”

“For clothes.”

Rio raises an eyebrow, not entirely keen on having to accompany the two, but not knowing how to politely refuse. Being polite was hard.

“Clothes for the two of you,” clarifies Gou. “Don’t look at me like that.”

Rio glances at Mele, who was still sleeping on the bed (“It’s so soft!” she had squealed, after Rio and Gou had forced her to take it. Rio took the armchair, which was similarly soft and also wide enough for meditation-sleep.), and at himself.

“We do not need new clothes. Thank you for the offer.”

“You can’t wear the same outfit the whole time, it’s not sanitary, and-“

Rio walks over to the cupboard. “It’s not the same. We’re not savages, Gou, we do change.” He opens the cupboard, and reveals it neatly divided in two, with four sets of his black outfit on the left, and six sets of Mele’s on the right, with a spare cloak neatly folded in the corner.

“-and that outfit is not appropriate!” Gou’s palm has reattached itself to his forehead; a common occurrence as of late.

“What do you mean, ‘not appropriate’?” Honestly, Rio is slightly fed up with Gou fussing over everything they’ve been doing. He does want to adapt to human society again, he really does, but it was quite bothersome.

“For one, you can’t wear the same thing every day, spares or not.”

“The five of you do.” Rio counters. “You wear that purple jacket every day. Retsu wears the blue changshan. The others are all similarly color-coded.”

“But that’s for work!” Gou protested. “You need casual clothing. You don’t see us wearing the same thing at home, do you?”

“No,” He pushes a stray hair back behind his ear. “I do have casual clothing, though.”

“You do?”

Rio removes his cloak, looking slightly smug. “Casual.”

Gou’s hand returns to his forehead. “On to my next point,” he says through clenched teeth. “That outfit is not appropriate.”

Before Rio can say anything, he continues, “Rio, seriously, don’t you think it’s kind of…”

“Kind of?”

“Kinky.”

Had Rio been a less disciplined man, he would have probably been sputtering in indignity. But he was disciplined, so he settled on saying, “What.”

“Don’t tell me you don’t see it, Rio.” Don’t laugh, Fukami. Don’t laugh. “Mele’s is pretty much half a qipao with random leather and holes all over.”

“And as for yours,” He pokes the exposed area at the side of Rio’s chest. It honestly was a ridiculous outfit, if you thought about it. He tries to finish the sentence, but laughter threatens to bubble out of his throat, so he settles for poking it again.

Rio, on the other hand, is speechless.

“He’s blushing again.”

Rio and Gou whip their heads around to see Retsu stalking out of his room, cup of coffee in hand.

“Morning, brother, Rio.” He says, and walks off to the kitchen. The two of them turn back to look at each other.

"Fine," Rio concedes, while definitely not swiping at his traitorous not-blushing cheeks. "I'll go shopping."

"No exposing leather outfits."

Rio exhales deeply. "No leather."

"Good," says Gou, and pokes him again, because he can.