Work Text:
“S-So, how was work today, b-babe?”
Rohan stopped drinking his coffee midway, a perplexed expression on his face. Not only perplexed but disturbed. Unsettled. Shaken.
He looked at Josuke, whose face showed an intense blush that spread to his ears.
He wasn’t looking at the older.
But he should!
You just don’t disturb someone’s peaceful moment of reflection post work to call them ridiculous pet names in broken english! You just don’t!
He had enough.
“What is your problem, Josuke?”
“P-Problem?! I don’t have any, haha, what are you talking about?!”
Talk about a bad liar.
“Yes, you do! What the hell is all of this?! Yesterday was ‘Darling’! The day before ‘Sugar’! ‘Sunshine’! ‘Cookie’! ‘Buttercup’! ‘Sweetie’! ‘Sweetheart’! ‘Peach’! ‘Honeybun’! You had the gall to call me ‘Bambi’ the other day! And now ‘Babe’! Two whole weeks calling me strange names in english! What is this about?!”
Josuke side eyed before replying, obviously flustered for the man remembering all the cheesy silly names he gave him. He thought Rohan wasn’t even paying attention but was proved wrong.
“I just want to call you a pet name, that’s it.”
“Well, I don’t like any of them. Just call me by my name.”
“But what if I don’t want to call you by your name?”
“What do you mean ‘you don’t want to call me by my name’?! My name is perfectly fine to be called! My parents thought really hard to give me this name for you to suddenly not wanting to call it, Higashikata Josuke!”
“Stop being offended, don’t give me the full name treatment! I just said I wanted to call you something sweet other than your name, no need to be so worked out, geez.”
“Just call me ‘sensei’ like everyone else then, it’s easy.”
“I’m not ‘everyone else’, Rohan. I’m your boyfriend. Special category, remember?” Rohan could swear he saw his own brain after rolling his eyes the way he did after hearing that. He didn’t have time for Josuke’s romantic antics. “I don’t want to call you and in return be treated like everybody else. We ended up fighting the other day because of this.”
The older’s expression changed from annoyed to puzzled, furrowing his brows, when he heard that.
“We fought?”
“See?! You don’t even remember!”
“Then make me remember.”
“You were working on your manga. You were making a really concentrated strange face and sticking your tongue out, it was really cute-” Josuke trailed off a bit.
“I don’t make strange faces when I work!” the man protested.
“- and then I told you ‘I love you, sensei’. You know what you did?”
“What?”
“You thanked me! You thanked me and signed my uniform! You didn’t even look at me!”
“I don’t remember… We fought because of it? Wait, was it that day you broke my studio’s door?!”
“Oh, now you remember!” Josuke seemed offended by Rohan’s selective memory.
“Of course I remember, you were destroying my house! Again!”
“That’s not the point!”
“That’s much the point!”
“Ok, maybe I was in the wrong-”
“Maybe?!”
“Don’t try to turn the tables, you’re making it look like I am the bad one here!”
“Oh, you’re not? Well, sorry then, I guess it’s my fault for making you constantly wreck my house for no reason, huh?!”
Josuke flinched. Nobody knew how to play the victim card better than Rohan, not even his mom. And it was worse in this case because he had the right to use it.
“Y-You treated me like I was a mere fan!” he still tried a different angle.
“I have a bunch of fans who say they love me and want to marry me, I’m kind of desensitized to it.”
“I’m not your fan, Rohan, I don’t even read your manga!”
“Well, you should! It’s appropriate for your age!”
Josuke groaned.
“This is not the point, I’m talking about-! Aaaaargh! You know what?! I’m not going to fight with an inconsiderate guy like you! I’m tired! Be with your manga or whatever!”
And with that he slammed the studio’s door.
“At least you didn’t break it this time!” the mangaka yelled just to hear his boyfriend groaning loudly, stomping the stairs.
Rohan just couldn’t believe it.
Fighting because of pet names!
He never liked it. It sounded childish, soppy and sometimes even demeaning. Since when he was a kid he chastised whoever thought it was ok to give him one.
Like Reimi. He hated when she called him ‘Rohan-chan’, doing it even after her death and when he was already an adult whom paid his own bills!
He tried to go back to work, maybe start a new arc for next month issue. But he couldn’t concentrate in his manuscript after all.
Nobody called him that anymore.
After erasing the whole page for the fourth time and getting it wrinkled he gave up on pretending that fight didn’t affect him.
He sure didn’t want Josuke to stop calling him cheesy names if the price was not hearing him anymore.
The man groaned. His brain always ended up thinking the worst case scenario.
All because of petnames! His mind repeated over and over again, making him feel guiltier at every loop.
No work was going to be done at that rate.
He decided to look for Josuke downstairs.
The boy was faking sleep on the couch. It was obvious from the stiffness of his crossed arms over his chest and the forced snore sounds he made. It made Rohan fight the natural impulse of plugging the other’s nose just to see him struggle until he dropped his sleepy facade.
He decided to not do it.
Instead he cracked his neck bones, took a deep breath and spoke in a clear voice for him to hear.
A sentence that made Josuke to sit quickly in place abandoning any pretense to look at the other, his heart rate suddenly high, but Rohan didn’t see it, too busy marching to the kitchen as fast as he could without looking back, the nape of his neck flushed red.
Embarrassed.
As embarrassed as Josuke got, covering his face with his hands to try and control himself.
He felt giddy, Rohan’s words replaying in his mind over and over again.
“You can call me whatever you like after your tantrum is over, Jojo.”