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“Oh my god,” Hizashi chokes out, scrambling to untangle himself from Shouta, pulling back so he can stare at him incredulously. “You cannot be serious! No way!”
Oboro hasn’t moved, his hand still in Shouta’s hair, and since the side Hizashi just vacated is cold now, Shouta just pulls the blanket tighter around himself, moving closer to Oboro, curling up to him. “I am serious,” he says, calmly, not giving in to how dramatic Hizashi is trying to make this.
“No,” Hizashi gasps, covering his mouth with both hands. “I mean, I knew your childhood wasn’t the greatest, but I never knew...”
Hizashi looks like he’s going to cry, but Shouta thinks it’s mostly theatrics, so he just looks back at the movie that’s playing, trying to catch up on the plot he missed in the last few seconds. “I can’t be missing that much.”
“Yes you can!!” Hizashi insists, grabbing his hand and pulling it to his chest. That, at least, is warm, so Shouta lets him. Then, since he’s not getting the reaction he wants from Shouta, Hizashi turns to his other boyfriend. “Oboro! Sweetheart! We’ve failed as partners...and as friends! And human beings! Our baby,” he says, sighing as he lifts Shouta’s hand to his mouth, pressing a kiss to it, “has never had a homemade cookie!”
“That is pretty sad,” Oboro agrees, sharing a look at Hizashi over Shouta’s head from where it’s resting on his chest, and Shouta sighs. “Homemade cookies, fresh out of the oven? Mana from the gods.”
“It’s just food,” Shouta grumbles, but he immediately winces as Hizashi shrieks.
“JUST FOOD?? It’s NOT! Cookies are like...they’re love! Baking for someone is like its own love language!!” At least the apartment they all live in above their agency is good about muffling sound, because it was built with Hizashi in mind, so they generally don’t get noise complaints from the neighbors unless the windows are open when Hizashi decides to yell. It’s way too cold today for the windows to be open, so they’re good. If only the heating was as good as the soundproofing.
“Hizashi...” Oboro says, not warning him to be quiet because the two of them are well used to that, but...Shouta has gone a little stiff, wishing Hizashi wouldn’t bring up what he never had.
“It’s fine,” Shouta mutters, meaning both what Hizashi is saying and his apparently deprived existence.
Suddenly, Hizashi goes from moping in the corner of Shouta’s vision to lighting up so bright the other two in the room almost have to squint. “I know! I love you! I’ll make you cookies!! What kind do you want?” He bounces forward, gathering more of Shouta’s arm to his chest.
Oboro smiles. “Hey, I can help! I love him too.”
Shouta looks over at Hizashi, a smile tugging at the corners of his mouth despite himself. “I don’t know. Chocolate chip?” That’s what he’s seen on TV, anyway, on the steaming trays picture-perfect mothers pull out of the oven.
Hizashi shakes his head. “That’s boring! What about like...gingerbread? Or snickerdoodle? Hell, even peanut butter!” He grins suddenly. “Peanut butter gingerbread snickerdoodle!”
Oboro laughs, and Shouta watches him fondly. Hizashi is so much sometimes, and sometimes it’s overwhelming, but more often it’s just really cute. “I think that’s a bit much,” Oboro says. “Chocolate chip is fine. It’s like the classic! If Shouta has never had real cookies before, it’s best for him to have the gold standard first.” He stops, considering. “Besides, chocolate chip cookies are good. Especially fresh from the oven. I feel like they’re the most different from store-bought, too. With the middles all gooey and the chips all melty, dunked in milk...” He sounds a bit far-off, and like he might start drooling.
Hizashi looks a little hungry, too. “Yeah,” he says slowly. “Yeah, okay, you’ve convinced me!”
“Do we even have the ingredients?” Shouta wonders, starting to get on board with this plan. “It’s a little late to go to the store.”
“And cold,” Oboro says, then reaches out to grab Hizashi’s arm, settling his other hand on Shouta’s shoulder. “But no worries! I’d brave this arctic cold for my two loves!”
“Aw, babe,” Hizashi says with a gooey smile, and Shouta snorts a laugh at how he looks like Oboro is being legitimately heroic, like he just told Hizashi he’d fight a dragon for him.
“Go check if we have the stuff,” Shouta says, snapping him out of his reverie, and Hizashi nods and bounces up off the couch, bounding over the little kitchen and throwing open cabinets.
“I know we have flour,” Hizashi says, pulling a bag out of the cupboard. “And sugar. We’ve got butter, but I’m not sure about chocolate chips.” There’s a crash and a swear as he drops something, but it’s not the sound of shattering, so Shouta stays on the couch.
Oboro doesn’t, though, and Shouta sighs and pulls the blanket around himself as his heater leaves, vaulting over the back of the couch to join Hizashi in the kitchen. “Try under the sink, sugar,” he says.
“Why would they be there??” Hizashi asks, but there’s the sound of the creaky door opening.
“So we don’t just eat them!” Oboro says.
“Hah!” Hizashi shouts in triumph, the crinkle of plastic sounding through the apartment. “Half a bag of chocolate chips!”
Oboro sounds a little disappointed, though. “Oh...then we can’t make them super chocolatey.”
“We don’t need more than half a bag!” Hizashi says. “You need some cookie in there too, not just the chips!”
Shouta pulls the blanket tighter around himself as they good-naturedly bicker, but it’s just not the same, and he eventually heaves a deep sigh and heaves himself up off the couch, bringing the blanket with him. It’s a big one, large enough for the three of them together, so a lot of it drags on the floor as he moves over to the kitchen.
When Hizashi sees him, standing there at watching them impassively, his face breaks into a wide grin. “Oh, did you get lonely?”
“No,” Shouta argues, his face heating slightly, because that’s a pretty accurate assessment of why he left the warmth of the couch. “Just came to make sure you two weren’t going to murder each other over chocolate ratios.”
“We wouldn’t,” Oboro says, reaching out to pull Hizashi closer, an arm around his shoulders. “We may have some disagreements, but we always pull through! We can weather any storm...together!”
Shouta smiles a little at his silliness. “So, do we have all the ingredients?”
“Yeah!” Hizashi chirps, turning around to put the chocolate chips down in a pile of various foods. “We have everything we need!”
Oboro turns around too, rolling up the sleeves of his soft white sweater, the ones his partners like so much because it makes him so comfortable to snuggle with. “I’ll put the butter in the microwave if you measure out the sugar,” he says, and Hizashi nods, reaching up to grab the measuring cups. He sets them on the counter and turns a dial on the oven.
Shouta just kind of stands there, watching them, considering moving back to the couch. The movie is still playing in the background, but he was never that interested in it to begin with, and even though it’s only a few feet away from his partners…
Oboro unwraps two sticks of butter, putting them in a bowl, and then turns back towards him, catching sight of his hovering. “Oh, hey, Shouta! Do you want to help?”
“I don’t...know what to do,” Shouta says, watching Hizashi scoop a measuring cup into the bag of sugar.
Hizashi drops it and turns around, reacting to the slightly lost tone in his voice. “That’s okay! We’ll teach you! That’s even better, actually!”
“Yeah, okay!” Oboro says, nodding, a heroic grin on his face. “We’ll teach a man to fish!”
Shouta rolls his eyes, but he’s still smiling slightly. “Okay,” he says, shrugging the blanket off his shoulders somewhat reluctantly, balling it up and tossing it back onto the couch. “What do you want me to do?”
“Measure out the sugar?” Hizashi says, stepping back from the counter. “That’s easy.”
“Alright,” Shouta says. “How much do we need?” The two of them seem to know the recipe by heart, not using any written instructions.
“Three fourths of a cup of white sugar, and three fourths of a cup of brown sugar,” Oboro says.
“It’s also on the back of the bag of chocolate chips,” Hizashi says, explaining how they both know how to use the same recipe without discussing it.
“Right,” Shouta says, looking at the measuring cups. There’s not a 3/4ths one, but he decides after a little bit of looking to use three scoops of the 1/4th one. He knows basic math.
Then he looks at the bag. “This just says sugar,” he says, looking closer at the label. “What kind is it?”
“Oh boy,” Oboro says, and Shouta bristles. “You really don’t know what you’re doing, do you?”
“I have never cooked anything before,” he says, slightly defensively.
“Baked,” Hizashi corrects unhelpfully. “Cooking is for savory food, baking is for bread and desserts. So this is baking.”
“I’ve never done either.”
“That’s okay,” Oboro says. “There’s always time to learn!” He moves over to the bag Shouta is looking at, tipping it towards him. “It’s white, see? So this is white sugar. Brown sugar is colored brown. This one just doesn’t say because white sugar is like the basic kind of sugar.”
“Alright,” Shouta says, scooping three scoops of sugar into the bowl Oboro holds out.
“This is brown sugar!” Hizashi says, holding out a different bag, this one plastic. “It’s brown because it’s got molasses mixed in!”
“Huh, I didn’t know that,” Oboro says, leaning closer. “I thought it was just like brown rice, just a different kind.”
“Brown rice isn’t a different kind either, it’s just white rice that hasn’t been processed to remove the brown part!” Hizashi says, opening the bag and holding it out to Shouta.
“I didn’t know that either!” Oboro says. “You’re just dropping all kinds of wisdom on us today!”
Hizashi might have replied to him, but he catches Shouta’s wrist gently as he pulls the measuring cup out of the bag. “With brown sugar, it’s kinda like...mushy, see? Sticky, because of the molasses. So you have to like pack it into the cup.” He takes the scoop from Shouta and demonstrates, using the inside of the bag to pack the sugar tightly, then scoops more in until it’s full. “There, like that.” He smiles encouragingly at Shouta as he hands the cup back to him, and he dumps it into the bowl and gets another scoop.
Oboro takes over to show him how to soften the butter without completely melting it in the microwave, how to watch it carefully and stop it as soon as the middle is liquid, and then the butter goes into the bowl too. Hizashi reaches up onto his tiptoes to get down the hand mixer, and Oboro jokes about needing to make a cloud to boost him up, but thankfully Hizashi can just barely reach. Manifesting clouds inside always makes all the surrounding surfaces damp, although the smell of ozone that comes along with it can be pleasant.
The bowl is plastic, cheap to go along with their salaries as pro heroes who are just starting out and dealing with all the expenses of creating their own agency from the ground up, so Oboro gives it to Hizashi to hold while he turns on the mixer and whips together the butter and sugar, turning it from two separate ingredients into something creamy, light and smooth. It takes several minutes, and the secondhand mixer is making an unhappy noise, but finally Oboro switches it off, pulling it out of the bowl and swiping a finger through the mixture on the beater, holding it out to Shouta. “Here, try this.”
Shouta looks at him a little skeptically, because he’s heard of eating cookie dough but it’s not done yet, but he catches Oboro’s hand with his, pulling it to his mouth and licking off the butter-sugar mixture.
Immediately his eyes widen, and he pulls the bowl that Hizashi is holding towards himself, digging his own finger into the mixture, putting that in his mouth too.
“It’s good, right?” Oboro asks, tipping the mixer up and licking one of the beaters.
“Hey, don’t do that!” Hizashi says, reaching out to pull the mixer away from his mouth. “You’ll get your spit in the dough!”
Oboro scoffs, but he doesn’t lick it again. “You guys don’t usually seem to mind my spit,” he teases.
Meanwhile, Shouta is going back for another taste of the sugary butter. “I don’t know why we’re putting other ingredients in,” he says.
Oboro laughs, but Hizashi says, “Just wait! It’ll be even better than that!” He puts the bowl down on the counter, out of Shouta’s reach. “Vanilla and eggs, now. Grab the vanilla and add a teaspoon.”
Shouta finds the right ingredient, a small brown bottle, and Oboro helpfully hands him a ring of measuring spoons, the right one held out. It says ‘tsp’, but that seems like a reasonable abbreviation. So he pours out the right amount and tips it into the bowl. A heavenly scent starts to fill the kitchen, and he leans closer to the bowl.
“Just don’t taste the straight vanilla,” Hizashi warns with a laugh. “I tried that as a kid. It smells good, but it tastes gross on its own.”
Oboro grabs the bottle, frowning at it. “Why did we get straight vanilla?”
Hizashi gets the joke first, laughing. “It was all the store had!”
Oboro shakes his head slowly. “Curse this heteronormative society.”
Shouta just rolls his eyes, as though he’s not smiling, too. “Okay, what’s next?” he asks, gently nudging them back on topic.
“Eggs!” Hizashi chirps, grabbing the container from the counter, passing it from hand to hand with a showy gesture—but as he flourishes with one hand, the carton almost tips out of the other one, and Shouta has to lunge forward to grab it to stop the eggs from breaking all over the floor. “Whoa! Uh, thanks...” Hizashi says, rubbing the back of his neck.
He still isn’t using two hands, so Shouta sighs and takes the container from him. “How many?”
“Two,” Oboro says, reaching out to open the carton. “Try not to get any shells in the batter!”
“I have cracked eggs before. I’m not that helpless,” Shouta says, picking up an egg. It’s still a little clumsy when he whacks the shell against the bowl, and that doesn’t even crack it.
“Try the counter, it’s harder,” Hizashi suggests. He takes another egg, cracking it deftly against the edge of the counter, splitting the shell with one hand above the bowl.
“Show-off,” Oboro says, amused, taking the remaining eggs from Shouta and putting them back in the fridge.
“What?? I always crack them like that!” Hizashi protests, pouting.
“Just because you’re good at everything doesn’t mean you need to hold it over our heads,” Oboro teases.
A grin sneaks onto Hizashi’s face, shy and small. “You really think I’m good at everything?”
“Honey, you’re literally a genius. I’m pretty sure if they had tests for that they could like...diagnose you,” Oboro says.
Shouta is focusing on the egg. Hitting it against the counter works better, but the shell kind of crunches in his hand, and he has to rush it over to the bowl before it drips all over. When he’s gotten most of the egg into the bowl—he doesn’t think he’s dropped any shell—he looks over at Oboro. “IQ tests exist.”
“Yeah, but like...intelligence is super socially constructed! It’s not like a thing you can really test for,” Hizashi says. “Plus, I’m just good at tests, so even if I got a good score it wouldn’t mean that much!”
Oboro laughs. “See, you even knew that! All I’m saying is you’re undeniably the brains of this operation.”
Hizashi looks like he’s about to burst with how pleased he is and yet how hard he’s trying not to show it, and Shouta says, “What’s next?”
“And you’re the one who keeps us on track!” Oboro says. “Time to mix it again! You want to do it this time?”
“Alright,” Shouta says, picking up the mixer and switching it on, watching the beaters whirl to life.
“Mix that until it’s light and fluffy again,” Hizashi instructs, looking over Shouta’s shoulder as Oboro reaches over to hold the bowl steady.
The ingredients quickly come together, starting out wet and sloppy, but as he keeps moving the beaters around the bowl, they whip up into something lighter and creamy. After a while, Hizashi says, “Yep, that looks good!” and Shouta switches the beater off.
“Flour next,” Oboro says, putting down the bowl and picking up the bag.
“Two and one fourth cups!” Hizashi says, picking up the right measuring cups. Shouta scoops the flour up, and Hizashi shows him how to run the back of a knife over the cup to level it. “So you get exactly the right amount!”
Shouta looks at the containers Oboro hands him. "Salt and baking soda," he reads. "How much of these?"
"A teaspoon each!" Hizashi says, and he picks up the right spoon.
When everything has been dumped in, Oboro picks up a wooden spoon. “You’ll want to stir it slower now, so the flour doesn’t go everywhere.” He picks up the bowl again, and hands Shouta the spoon.
It gets hard to stir after a while, the muscle all three of them have from their hero careers coming into play, but soon they have a thick batter.
“Okay, now chocolate!” Hizashi says, dumping the whole bag in. “Before, you wanted to mix it a lot, but now that you’ve added the flour, you want to mix it just enough! So just mix it until it’s pretty much homogeneous!”
When it’s mixed, Oboro reaches into the bowl, picking up a clump of dough. “Here, now try this.” He holds it out for Shouta to eat.
He feels slightly awkward being hand-fed, but he lets him do it, leaning in and taking the dough. Oboro’s smile as he does has a slightly mischievous, flirty edge to it, but Shouta is too distracted by what he’s eating. He hums in approval, taking another piece for himself. “That’s good.”
Oboro smiles wider. “Cookie dough is delicious! Fresh-baked cookies are good too, but cookie dough is good in a different way!”
Hizashi says, “You’re not really supposed to eat it, but everyone does anyway,” he says, proving his point by digging his finger into the bowl.
“I thought that was just for places where you can’t eat eggs raw? The raw eggs here are supposed to be fine,” Oboro says.
“It’s not just the eggs! You’re not supposed to eat raw flour either,” Hizashi says. “But it is good...”
“Really? Flour? Huh.” Oboro takes another big bite of cookie dough. Then he goes back after another handful.
Hizashi bats at his hand. “Hey, stop that, or we’re not going to have any to bake!”
Oboro pouts. “You’re not yelling at Shouta!” Shouta is currently eating what’s clinging to the wooden spoon, and he’s not going to let either of them stop him.
“Well, yeah! He’s never had cookie dough before! He’s deprived,” Hizashi says, taking the bowl from Oboro and turning to Shouta. “Okay, now we need to scoop them out onto a pan!” He puts the bowl on the counter, and bends down to get out a pan. As he’s hunting for it in the cabinet, Oboro sneaks another bite of cookie dough, winking at Shouta, who rolls his eyes.
But try as he might, he can never seem to escape that trace of a smile that always sneaks onto his face around his boyfriends. Especially when they’re being ridiculous.
Hizashi finds the pan and stands back up. “It’d be nice if we had...one of those things. You know. A spoon that scrapes its own bottom?”
Both of the other two pause, staring at him. Oboro speaks. “What the hell are you talking about?” His words end in an incredulous laugh.
Hizashi waves his hands. “You know! It’s got the metal thing and it scrapes the thing!”
“No,” Shouta says, still staring at him like maybe he’s finally lost it. “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
Hizashi’s hands wave even more animatedly. “You know! For cookies!” He stops for a moment, face drawn in frustration, before holding up one hand and miming squeezing something together. “Shick-shick?”
Immediately, recognition dawns on Oboro’s face, and he laughs again. “Oh! An ice-cream scoop! Why didn’t you just say that?”
Hizashi looks relieved that he’s not actually going crazy, but he still argues. “But I didn’t want to use it for ice cream!”
“A spoon that scrapes it’s own bottom...” Oboro chuckles, shaking his head.
“Anyway!” Hizashi says. “We’ll just need to use a spoon and eyeball it. We want about equal-sized cookies so they all bake the same!”
Shouta’s not really ready to stop eating the cookie dough, but he still has a few minutes as Oboro and Hizashi help scoop out the cookies until they cover the pan, spaced apart a few inches.
The oven has long been hot, so there’s a gust of warm air as Hizashi opens it to slide the pan in. “The package says 375 degrees, but that’s Fahrenheit. That’s like 190 in Celsius.”
Once the cookies are in the oven, Hizashi stands back, clapping his hands together. “Okay! Now we just need to wait about ten minutes!” He peers into the window on the oven, watching the cookies. “Then fresh-baked cookies!” Hizashi moves over to the counter, a flurry of movement as he moves things to the sink and cupboards, putting stuff away.
Behind his back, Oboro gets a mischievous look on his face, and Shouta only has time to eye him warily before he’s being grabbed—and he doesn’t squeak, that’s just a noise of surprise—and kissed, Oboro’s hands burying in his hair to tilt his head, biting at his lips.
When he pulls back, still smiling, Shouta feels a little stunned, but he doesn’t have time to recover before Oboro’s hands are sliding down his back, bending a little to grab the backs of his thighs and pick him up. Shouta huffs out a laugh while he grabs Oboro’s shoulders to not fall.
“What are you—” Hizashi asks, making an offended noise as Oboro moves forward without looking, putting Shouta on the counter without regard for the ingredients he’s moving. Something hits the floor, but it’s a thud, not a shatter, so they both ignore it. Oboro stretches up to kiss Shouta again. Hizashi puts his hands on his hips. “I said we have ten minutes!”
Oboro draws back just enough to speak, keeping his face close to Shouta’s. “Yeah,” he says, and the low way he’s speaking along with the way his breath ghosts across Shouta’s kissed lips makes him shiver slightly. “Ten minutes is enough time for some fun.”
“You two are ridiculous,” Hizashi grumbles, crossing his arms, his bottom lip pushing out in a pout.
Oboro leans in to kiss him again, but Shouta turns his head. “Hizashi. You don’t need to be jealous.”
Now Oboro does turn around, grinning when he catches sight of Hizashi’s face. “Aw, sunshine, come here.”
Hizashi hesitates for a moment, face conflicted and lost, before he smiles like he’s trying not to. He takes Oboro’s outstretched hand, letting him pull him close, kissing him.
The kiss goes on for a while, Oboro making sure Hizashi is as thoroughly kissed as Shouta had been, and Hizashi laughs when they part. “You taste like cookie dough.”
To complete the triangle, Shouta unwinds one arm from around Oboro’s neck and tugs Hizashi up for a kiss. He’s not quite as tall as Oboro, stretched up on his tiptoes, so when Shouta lets go of his chin, he falls back onto his heels, nuzzling at Shouta’s neck, rubbing his nose over stubble.
Oboro crowds closer, sealing his lips to Shouta’s again, moving against his mouth. His hands wander, running down his sides, sneaking up under his shirt. Hizashi’s hands are on his chest. He squirms a little under the double assault, already slightly overwhelmed. Oboro’s hands keep roaming, and he moves closer, pressing close to him between his knees.
Shouta turns his face to get a moment to breathe. “I’m eating those cookies when they come out of the oven,” he warns. He’s not going to be distracted.
“Oh yeah,” Oboro agrees. “You definitely have to.” He runs his tongue up the shell of Shouta’s ear, making him shiver.
“You tease,” Shouta accuses.
Oboro’s grin is unrepentant. “It’s fun to tease you. Right, sweetness?”
Hizashi chuckles, mouthing at Shouta through his shirt. “Definitely.”
“How—” Shouta’s voice comes out breathy, high-pitched, so he coughs and tries again, going for unaffected. “How much time do we have?”
Oboro says “Long enough,” as Hizashi says “Like a minute.”
In answer, Oboro just shrugs. “We can eat cookies and then have fun.”
Still, he turns his head, kissing Hizashi again, even though as Shouta watches their lips move languidly against each other, the timer on the oven chimes. Shouta scoots forward, but Oboro doesn’t move. He huffs and pushes as his shoulder. “One of us has to get the cookies.”
Oboro continues for a minute, ignoring the insistent chiming, then lets Hizashi go. Hizashi turns, grabbing an oven mitt. “You two have to move, too. I’m putting the cookies right where your butt is right now!”
“I didn’t put it there,” Shouta says, but Oboro has moved back slightly now, so he jumps down. Then picks up the other stick of butter that had fallen to the floor.
He stops as Hizashi opens the oven, inhaling deeply. The smell has been filling the small apartment for a while now, but he had other things to focus on. Now it hits him full-force.
Oboro laughs. “Good, right? Cookies smell almost better than they taste!”
“And they taste really good!” Hizashi says, smiling at him as he slides the pan onto the counter. A tray of golden-brown cookies is laid out before him, and he reaches for one before Hizashi catches his arm. “Careful, you’ll burn yourself! I know it’s hard, but you have to wait at least a minute or two.”
Hizashi is too busy cautioning Shouta that he doesn’t catch Oboro darting for the pan, and Hizashi squawks in alarm as he picks up a cookie. Oboro grimaces, passing it quickly to his other hand—but it breaks in half, and he scrambles to juggle both halves. He stuffs one in his mouth, chewing while exhaling, “Ow ow ow!”
Shouta rolls his eyes while he and Hizashi look on fondly, Hizashi’s hands on his hips and a judging expression on his face. “I said they were hot!”
“Worth it,” Oboro says smugly, sticking out his tongue in a way that might have been cheeky or might have just been him trying to cool it down.
At least he blows on the other half of the cookie before putting it in his mouth, and when he’s done with that, he motions to the pan, his mouth still full.
“Should be cool enough for sane people to eat now,” Hizashi translates, touching a cookie. “Yeah, they shouldn’t burn you now.”
So Shouta reaches out and takes one, careful not to touch the pan. The first bite is a wave of sensations—the edges are slightly crispy, but the middle is soft, and the chocolate chips are creamy liquid, a rush of chocolate on his tongue, mixing with something he can recognize as a chocolate chip cookie but undeniably better.
He’s not focusing on reacting, just experiencing, but both his boyfriends are watching him eagerly, and whatever he looks like, it seems to be enough, because both their faces break into wide smiles. “Is it good enough?” Hizashi asks, grabbing his free hand.
Shouta had been about to take another bite, but he pauses, bemused expression on his face. “Good enough for what?”
“To prove I love you!” Hizashi says, still smiling just searching his face.
He thinks the question is only somewhat serious, but Shouta lowers the cookie from his mouth, eyes soft. “I knew you loved me. Both of you,” he says, looking over at Oboro, who smiles wider. “I love you too.”
“Aw, sweetheart,” Hizashi says. His smile turns sappy, and he squeezes Shouta’s hand.
“Okay, now you two need to break it up,” Oboro says, grabbing another cookie. “It’s time for cookies.”
Hizashi laughs easily, dropping his hand. “Yeah, you’re right!”
In another household, some cookies might have had time to cool completely, but with the metabolisms of three young pro heroes, none do. As Hizashi and Oboro said, they’re a different thing warm, so much better.
Shouta might have been missing something growing up, things might not have always been good, but they are now. Oboro and Hizashi almost get into a wrestling match over the last cookie, but when Shouta steps in, they compromise, agreeing to split it. Oboro puts it in his mouth, raising his eyebrow in a challenge to Hizashi, who stretches up to bite off the other half.
In another universe, things didn’t turn out this way. But here they did.