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“Mori, what the hell are you doing?”
Mori blinked. That was a completely reasonable question for Soushi to ask, given that he had just entered the kitchen to see the “most responsible” and “cleanest” member of their band engulfed in what must have appeared to an outsider as the aftermath of a category-five hurricane, at six-thirty in the morning. Mori could hardly see out of his glasses, which—along with the rest of his clothes—were coated with more flour than there was in the bowl in front of him, which teetered on the edge of the kitchen counter. Various measuring cups and spoons were strewn about on every surface imaginable. Two or three eggs had found their way onto the floor (completely not by Mori’s fault at all), where they had shattered and leaked over the flour-covered tiles. Among it all, a cookbook lay open, pages bent and torn, with milk staining the text—not that Mori could read it anyway, thanks to his vision being blocked by flour.
He cleared his throat, trying to find a way to explain his situation without utterly embarrassing himself. That proved impossible. After an extended pause, he clapped his hands, sending flour into the air and making Soushi sputter a cough. “Ah, Sou!” he exclaimed, carefully stepping toward his friend. “Perfect timing! Glad to see you’re doing well this afternoo—”
“Mori.” Soushi took Mori’s glasses from his face, winced, and wiped them on his shirt before returning them. “What happened? What… Just… What the fuck?”
“Well, eh…” Mori could see Soushi’s disapproving expression now that his glasses were cleared, and it wasn’t something he wanted to endure longer than necessary. “You see, well, I wanted to take a break from studying, so I decided… to try to bake something to celebrate our recent live…”
“And?”
“And there was one slight issue.”
“Which was?”
Mori adjusted his glasses and looked down at his feet. “…I don’t know how to bake.”
Soushi sighed. “So you decided, ‘Hm, I suppose I’ll just do some guessing and throw some shit into a bowl, that’ll work,’ that’s what you did?”
“No, no!” Mori protested. He tapped the cookbook. “I was following the recipe exactly! The mess is sheer misfortune. In fact, I think that... whatever made it into the bowl will be perfectly edible when I put it into the oven.”
“You say when, as if I’m gonna actually trust you to do that. Honestly, Mori, you’re more stubborn than you seem. Have you looked at the kitchen? Have you?”
Mori frowned, finally taking in the magnitude of the disaster he had caused. “...No, I haven’t. I couldn’t see until you cleaned my glasses.”
“It’s chaos, Arihara. This is what you see when you die and the Devil leads you through the circles of Hell. This could be featured on Gordon Ramsay’s Kitchen Nightmares. This is beyond even Nozomu’s abilities.” Soushi rested a hand on Mori’s shoulder and looked at him pitifully.
“It’s not that bad! Let Nozomu loose in the kitchen for an hour and it’d be a whole lot worse.”
“You’ve been in here for an hour? How long have you been awake?”
“...Theoretically.”
“Well, whatever. You gotta do something about this. And by you, I mean me. I’m taking over your baking project.” With another disappointed glance at his friend, Soushi cracked his knuckles. “Give me the recipe. Do exactly what I tell you.”
“Sou, but—”
“I’m the only guy here who can cook. Not even you. You know that. Now gimme the recipe.” By default, Soushi must have been telling the truth. Mori had seen Ren cook before—he got nervous and dropped the pan on the ground. Sora could make a delectable burnt popcorn and overcooked instant ramen, and Nozomu... He wasn’t allowed in the kitchen without an adult’s (Soushi’s) supervision.
Resigned, Mori fumbled for the cookbook and wiped the page clean with a dish rag. “It’s the one on the left page. Triple chocolate cookies. Sora picked it out a while ago, I promised we’d have it sometime.”
After a moment of squinting at the page, Soushi shrugged. “Alright, this is actually a pretty hard recipe. I kinda get your pain. But at the same time, you’re still an idiot for thinking you could do it with no experience, before the crack of dawn.”
Of course he had been an idiot, Mori thought. He was always an idiot. Arihara Morihito, idiot supreme, king of the morons, that’s what he was. “Sorry,” he mumbled.
Soushi punched his arm. “Hey, don’t get down on yourself. You tried, I think. That counts for something. Now, uh, how far’d ya get?”
The deal was simple: as Soushi put together the ingredients and assembled what would eventually become cookies, Mori was in charge of cleaning the mess he had made. (“You should be fine with this, ‘cause you like cleaning, for some reason,” Soushi had said. This was admittedly true.) It didn’t even take fifteen minutes for the dough to make its way onto the cookie sheets and into the oven. Unfortunately for Mori, there was more cleanup to be done than cookies to be baked, so while Soushi leaned against the counter drinking tea, he was still wiping down the surface.
Everything was going well, at least compared to before Soushi took charge. The aroma of chocolate wafted through the kitchen, and Mori’s appetite was beginning to grow. He had to admit that he was getting distracted by the smell—distracted enough, in fact, that he slipped.
Of course there had been a spot of raw egg on the ground where he stepped, Mori thought as he fell forward, directly into Soushi. His hands, extended to break his fall, collided with his friend’s chest, and he felt hands instinctively wrap around his waist to steady him.
He looked up. His eyes met Soushi’s concerned ones—he was clearly startled, as Mori wasn’t usually prone to clumsiness, yet the blonde had just slipped right into him. They were close enough that Mori felt Soushi’s breath on his lips, and his brain was overcome with a pesky intrusive thought: I should kiss him. It took a moment for that thought to register, and when it did, Mori’s eyes widened. Wait, no. He’s my friend. I really shouldn’t do that. He felt his face burn up and looked away, unable to hold eye contact.
Soushi cleared his throat. “A-are you, are you okay?” he muttered hoarsely, looking off in the other direction. He gingerly removed his hands from Mori and ran them through his hair instead.
“Fine. I’m fine.” Mori took a step back, careful not to slip again. “Thanks... for catching me. Your support is appreciated.” He laughed. He then realized that what was meant to be a pun didn’t make any sense. King of the morons, Arihara Morihito, makes his return, he thought.
Before Soushi could muster another slightly uncomfortable reply, the oven began to beep. Both bandmates sighed in relief. Soushi mumbled something about turning the oven off and grabbed an oven mitt to take the cookies out. Mori coughed and wiped up the egg he had slipped on.
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Two days later, Mori still hadn’t slept. He could blame it on schoolwork, but that would only be a half-truth. He could use his infallibly transparent excuse of staying up late to watch TV again, but that would just be a pathetic lie. On the contrary, his nights were mostly spent lying in bed, trying his best to drift off, but his mind would never shut up about the other day. He just wanted to bake cookies. Why did he have to end up in a gay crisis?
Now that he thought about it, though—boy, he’d thought about it—he always had an attraction to Soushi that he never quite placed. Soushi was always kind to him, giving him praise and support rather than teasing him like he always did the other members. He looked out for Mori, and he could tell every time when something was wrong but Mori pretended he was fine. Mori had always just assumed it was Soushi being a good friend, but he realized now that it was those things that drew him to Soushi, made him notice Soushi’s kindness, generosity, genuinity, and care. Mori subconsciously developed feelings for him, he decided, because of these wonderful qualities. Also, Soushi was hot. But that was definitely irrelevant.
Two days ago, he hadn’t even considered that he might desire any sort of relationship, but after these sleepless nights he concluded that he was very much gay and had strong feelings for his best friend that were more than just friendship.
He was screwed.
Due to his lack of sleep, Mori found himself incredibly close to dozing off in the common room later, when he was supposed to be finishing his homework. As exhausted as he was, he couldn’t let that happen. It was nearly midnight, and he sat with his laptop, staring blankly at the words on the screen, fumbling to drink from his coffee mug without dropping it on the floor. Needless to say, he wasn’t at his best, and Soushi clearly noticed.
Soushi was lying on the couch and reading as Mori worked himself to the grave at the table, and every thirty minutes or so for the past couple hours Soushi had gotten up to check on Mori. First, he’d ask how Mori was doing, to which Mori would respond, “I’m fine,” though both of them knew he wasn’t. Soushi would ask why Mori was so tired, and Mori would say it was his work. Soushi would tell Mori to stop working and go to bed. Mori would refuse. Soushi would sigh, scold him once more, and refill Mori’s coffee before going back to the couch.
By half past midnight, Soushi had had enough. “Mori, come on,” he groaned, slamming Mori’s laptop shut. “Tell me honestly. Why aren’t you sleeping? You’ve been so out of it lately. What’s up?”
“Don’t worry about it, Sou. It’s just my work. Just like I’ve said.” Mori tried to open his laptop again, but Soushi was holding it shut. He took his glasses off and wiped his eyes before attempting to replace them and nearly poking himself in the eye.
“Oi, watch it,” Soushi sighed. He took Mori’s glasses out of his limp hands and gently slid them over his ears. Mori looked into Soushi’s exasperated eyes as his glasses landed against his nose—surely Soushi wouldn’t miss the blush spreading across his face, he noticed embarrassedly. “Mori, seriously. You’re a mess. Go to bed.”
Mori shook his head, trying to muster up an angry expression, but he wound up just looking pathetic. “Why are you still up? You’re not even working,” he retorted.
“If worse comes to worst, I might have to pick you up and drag you to bed to make sure you sleep,” Soushi stated. Mori’s eyes widened, and he cleared his throat.
“Fine, I’ll go to bed,” he mumbled, picking up his laptop and walking out of the common room.
“Hey, Mori!”
“What more could you possibly want?”
“Leave your laptop with me. I know you’re gonna go into your room and keep working.”
Well, he wasn’t wrong. Mori reluctantly handed his Macbook to Soushi, who gently brushed Mori’s bangs out of his face. “Now, go to sleep,” Soushi whispered. He padded off down the hallway to his room, shutting the door behind him and leaving Mori standing in the hallway, utterly defeated.
So, on the third night, Mori lay awake in bed again, this time with another new incident to add to his list of Soushi encounters with possibly romantic undertones. Soushi was really looking out for him too much. He stayed up that late to make sure Mori would eventually go to bed, and he even took Mori’s laptop in an attempt to force him to sleep.
Joke’s on Soushi, Mori thought. He was the very reason Mori couldn’t sleep.
Mori touched his bangs, trying to remember the feel of Soushi pushing them away. He fiddled with his glasses, replaying how Soushi slid them onto his face. He looked up at the ceiling and groaned. It had been less than three days before he even realized his feelings, but he already felt himself sinking into the abyss that was love.
Love?
It might be too soon to say that. But he certainly did feel something for Soushi, and he wanted to figure out what it was; whether it truly was love.
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Mori didn’t remember falling asleep on the couch, but that was where he awoke. He was covered in a warm blanket, and his glasses had been carefully placed on the coffee table next to a note. He squinted to read it.
“Mori, I told you to sleep. Maybe if you’d listened you would’ve fallen asleep in your bed last night, not at the kitchen table. I put you over here so that you might be a little more comfy, and your back won’t suffer. Sweet dreams,” he read aloud. His face heated up, and he tried to remember the previous night. It was the night after Soushi had taken his laptop. He was working late again, starting his fourth sleepless night, until he had apparently fallen asleep at the table. And then he woke up on the couch.
As he pieced together the timeline of events, his heartbeat picked up. Soushi had stayed up with him, and when he noticed Mori was asleep, he’d picked him up and carried him to the couch so gently that Mori hadn’t woken up, and he removed Mori’s glasses and gave him a blanket, and he took the time to leave him a note. Mori looked over and found that his laptop and phone were charging on the counter, too. He buried himself in his blanket. Damn Soushi and his kindness.
That morning, by the time Soushi came into the kitchen—earlier than usual, Mori noted—Mori was sitting at the table with a cup of coffee and his laptop open. “Put that away,” Soushi said with a frown, hands on his hips, as he stood behind Mori.
“I can’t. Since I fell asleep, I didn’t finish my homework. It has to be done before class,” Mori objected.
Soushi sighed. “Mori, I’ve known you for more than five years, and you’ve always been able to manage your time without staying up late several nights in a row. Is there something you’re worried about?” He took a seat across from Mori, sipping his own coffee.
Of course there was something Mori was worried about, but he couldn’t just tell that to Soushi. He’d rather jump off the balcony. Instead, he just shook his head. “My statistics class is really hard, and the professor is ruthless with assignments,” he insisted. “I can’t catch a break.”
“Okay, understandable, but you’ve been fine for the past two months of the semester. What’s going on now?” Soushi was always able to see through Mori’s excuses, Mori admitted frustratedly.
Mori sighed. “It’s… nothing. Really. Don’t worry about it.” He pulled his earbuds out of the pocket of his hoodie and plugged them into his computer as he worked to avoid Soushi interrogating him any further. Soushi was clearly annoyed, but he didn’t say anything. He finished his coffee and left Mori there by himself.
Clearly, Soushi was upset, and Mori felt guilty about that. He didn’t want that—in fact, he wanted the exact opposite; for Soushi to be happy forever. After working for a while, he unplugged his earbuds and stood from his chair. Some force was driving him to go apologize.
After two or three knocks on Soushi’s door, he didn’t get a response, so he carefully opened the door and walked inside. Soushi had fallen asleep on his bed, not even tucked in, still in the same clothes as he had been when he’d come into the kitchen, which Mori realized were the clothes he’d worn the day before. Of course, he must have been tired from staying up late with Mori these past few nights. Mori frowned. Soushi didn’t deserve to suffer for Mori’s lack of sleep.
Mori shut the door behind him, walked to the other side of the room, and stood beside Soushi’s bed. Without thinking, he reached over and pulled Soushi’s blanket over his sleeping form. He would leave a note as a thank-you for all of his hard work, but he didn’t want to touch Soushi’s meticulously organized stationery. So, he decided, he would give his thanks in another way. Blushing madly, he knelt down and stroked Soushi’s hair before placing his lips gently against his forehead.
He couldn’t tell for sure, and he hoped it was coincidental, but as he walked away, he thought he saw a gentle smile cross Soushi’s sleeping face.
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The next night, Soushi was cleaning up after the dessert he’d made for the band. There was no special occasion; Soushi just liked to bake, and after Mori made a joke about his horrible cookie disaster, a desire to bake clearly sparked in Soushi’s chest. As Mori sat at the kitchen table, typing away as always, Soushi scrubbed a cake pan in the kitchen sink behind him.
“I want you to go to bed as soon as I’m done cleaning,” Soushi insisted.
At this point, Mori’s lack of sleep had genuinely become due to work. It wasn’t an entire untruth that his statistics class was wearing him out, and he’d kind of come to terms with his feelings enough to close his eyes and doze off at night if he had time.
Though possibly Soushi was still an ulterior motive, subconsciously. Mori enjoyed the time he’d been spending late at night and early in the mornings with Soushi. They had small conversations sometimes, but there really wasn’t much talking besides Soushi checking in to make sure Mori was okay. As much as Mori didn’t want to admit it, he loved to be taken care of like this. So it was possible that something inside him kept him awake into the late hours just so that he could be in Soushi’s presence, while everyone else was asleep.
Tonight, though, he really did have to work. There was a test tomorrow that he had only studied six hours for over the past two days. He wouldn’t be ready. He was cramming the night before, which was shameful enough, but he admittedly had been struggling to focus on anything besides Soushi for the earlier half of the week.
“I can’t, Sou, I really need to study,” Mori whined, sipping at what was probably his eighth cup of coffee that day. (He had a problem.)
Soushi sighed, but he kept cleaning the dishes. After all the dishes were drying and the cake was stored in the fridge, Mori felt a hand on his shoulder. “Alright, Mori. Time for bed.”
“No. I’m working. You can go to sleep, though. It’s only eleven.”
Soushi shook his head. “Nope. Bedtime.” He reached over Mori’s shoulder, and despite his protests, he shut Mori’s laptop. Mori felt his chair being yanked out from the table. Before he could say anything, he was resting in Soushi’s arms, his hands instinctively steadying him by wrapping around Soushi’s neck. Firm hands supported him under his back and his knees. When he looked up at Soushi’s face with a gawking mouth, Soushi grinned down at him deviously.
As Mori complained quietly, mostly just out of embarrassment—he could walk on his own and not be carried bridal style, thank you very much, his heart couldn’t take this—Soushi opened the door to his own room, walked inside, and shut it behind him. He set Mori down on his bed. “You’re gonna sleep here, okay? I don’t want any complaints. It’s comfy. I have a memory foam mattress. Goodnight now,” he said, patting Mori’s head and walking over to the couch.
“Wait,” Mori protested. He had resigned himself to staying here, as he was, admittedly, too tired to object. “If I’m on your bed, where are you sleeping?”
“I’ll take the couch,” Soushi yawned.
“No, I won’t accept that. You’ve been doing so much for me,” Mori said with his hands on his hips. “You cleaned up my mess and salvaged my cookies. You’ve stayed up late and woken up early with me for a week. You carried me to the couch and left me with a blanket and a note. You even made this cake tonight, which I know you did just because you felt like it, but I also know you know I love lemon cake more than any other kind. You’ve given up so much time for me, so you don’t have to give up your bed, too.”
Although the room was dark, Mori didn’t miss the blush gently dusting Soushi’s cheeks. “You’re makin’ a good argument,” Soushi sighed. “But I like doin’ things for you, okay? So, take the bed.”
“No, you take it.”
“I’ll be fine on the couch.”
“I’d be fine on the couch, too.”
“No, not happening.”
“Fine, then, let’s share,” Mori decided abruptly, immediately regretting his decision. When Soushi froze with his mouth agape, Mori cleared his throat. “I-if you want to.”
“Fine,” Soushi said, scratching the back of his neck. “Move over.”
Mori stood up. “No, I’ll take the side away from the wall. You get in first.”
“High-maintenance,” Soushi joked as he flopped onto his bed.
“Hey, I heard that!”
Soushi chuckled. “Get in bed with me, Mori.”
Just that sentence alone was enough to make Mori want to explode, but he held himself together. He managed to climb into Soushi’s bed beside him and bury himself under the covers. Soushi faced the wall, so Mori turned to face away from him, to make it easier on his heart.
But he still needed to work. Once he was sure Soushi was asleep, he carefully peeled back the blanket and attempted to crawl out of the bed. His efforts, unfortunately, were stopped.
Soushi rolled over to face Mori. “Where are you going?” he asked in a husky, raspy voice, and Mori felt himself grow weak.
“...Nowhere. Just turning over,” Mori insisted hoarsely.
“Sure, okay. But I’m gonna make sure you’re really going nowhere.” Soushi chuckled. Mori’s eyes widened as he felt arms wrap around his torso and Soushi’s chest pressed against his back. If Mori’s body heat wasn’t enough to scare Soushi back, he was probably about to die. “There,” Soushi murmured triumphantly, sleepily nuzzling his face into Mori’s shoulder. “You can’t escape now.”
Mori sighed. He definitely couldn’t get up. Sleeping might be challenging with Soushi holding him like this. Ultimately, however, he fell victim to his exhaustion and dozed off in Soushi’s arms.
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When Mori awoke, he was still being held tight against Soushi’s chest, his friend’s steady breaths pressing into his back. According to Soushi’s alarm clock, it was five-fifteen. It was still dark out. Which meant Mori still had time to study.
He attempted, futilely, to untangle himself from Soushi’s grasp, but he woke Soushi in the process and the grip around his torso only became tighter.
“Don’t go,” Soushi whispered. “Rest some more.”
“But I have work to do,” Mori groaned.
“You have sleep to catch up on,” Soushi retorted.
Mori sighed. “Sou, why won’t you let me work?”
“I don’t wanna see you so tired all the time, Mori,” Soushi said, and he pulled Mori over so that they were facing each other. “You need to rest. I really care about you. So, sleep.”
“If you cared about me, you’d let me study,” Mori whimpered.
“If I just cared about you a bit, maybe, but I care about you so much that I know what ya need is a good rest. Maybe if I just worried about you the same as everyone else. But you’re different, Mori, you know that?” Soushi paused, his gaze drifting away from Mori’s shocked face. “I care about you so much that I might call it love. I love you.”
Mori’s body felt heavy in Soushi’s arms, and his eyes were wide open. “Sou…” Mori mumbled, and Soushi looked back at him. “I’m really grateful for all this time we’ve had together, even if neither of us has slept enough. Your kindness travels a great distance to my heart. I didn’t really realize it until the other day, with the cookie incident, but… I love you too.” He felt himself burning up, and he stared into Soushi’s eyes silently, waiting for a response.
“...You do?”
Somehow Mori hadn’t expected Soushi to be surprised, “Yes, I do,” he said, emphasizing his point by cuddling even closer to Soushi. He was warm, and Mori was cold, so Mori took the liberty to absorb all of Soushi’s body heat. He smiled into Soushi’s shoulder, and he heard a quiet chuckle.
“Well, we haven’t been sleepin’, but I sure feel like I’m dreamin’,” Soushi said, a pun that made Mori sigh in disbelief. Regardless of how bad the pun was, though, Soushi was right. They’d both confessed, while cuddling in bed before sunrise. It felt too much like a shoujo manga.
“Thank you for these past few days, Sou,” Mori said quietly. He picked his head up and placed a gentle kiss on Soushi’s cheek. “I’ve loved spending time with you. Can we do this more?”
“Are you asking me out?” Soushi chuckled.
“...I guess I am.”
“Alright,” Soushi said, “we can do this more. But no more late nights and early mornings, okay? We both need sleep.”
“Surely,” Mori agreed. He reluctantly closed his eyes and tried to drift back off to sleep.
Soushi’s hand gently stroked Mori’s back as the blonde boy nodded off, a quiet whisper of “Goodnight, Mori” filling Mori’s ear as he finally fell asleep. A smile was spread across his face, which only made Soushi’s heart pound faster.
As Mori—his boyfriend?—snored gently, Soushi grinned. This was an occasion that really called for some celebratory baked goods, Soushi decided. Perhaps he’d make those triple chocolate cookies again. Perhaps Mori would slip and land on his chest. But this time, Soushi would kiss him.