Work Text:
“How was work today?”
Mukuro's barely in the door when Makoto is there, helping her shrug off her jacket. He hangs it up in the hall closet (she would've just tossed it on the floor) and leads her into the kitchen. Leaning against the counter, Makoto watches her plop into the only rickety chair in the room, waiting for a reply.
“You know it's not really my job,” Mukuro says. She sighs and massages her shoulder. “It was fine. Work is work. No grenades today, no bomb threats. All in all a banner day for the compound.”
Makoto smiles, but it's tense; he's still not used to how casually his girlfriend can talk about deadly weapons, and it's with worry in his mind every day that he sees her off in the morning. But he knows how capable she is, so he never voices his doubts. And, he thinks, it's thanks to her hard work that we've got this place anyway. He looks around at their apartment; small, hardly furnished, but comfortable and close to the campus, the mercenary group had given it to Mukuro. When he had first learned she wasn't living in the dorms at Hope's Peak, Makoto had stopped by multiple times each week, making sure she was eating right and sleeping. One day she turned to him and said, “Why don't you just live here?” and that was that.
She doesn't offer any more details about her day, and he knows from experience that she won't answer if he asks. Confidentiality might as well be her middle name. He smiles again and walks over to her, reaching out his hand to massage her back --
-- which she smacks away with precise movements. And immediately looks horrified.
“Sorry! Oh, my god, I'm sorry, it was habit, it's been a long day --” Mukuro sputters. Her eyes have gone wide and a faint blush creeps up her neck. She's still stammering apologies when Makoto loses it, unable to hold his laughter for another second, holding on to the back of the chair for support. An embarrassed smile works its way onto her face. She knows he's not laughing to mock her, and she's relieved beyond belief that he's not mad; Naegi Makoto's patience, she has learned, is seemingly endless.
But all Makoto is thinking when he sees her smile break through is how lucky he is to be privy to her emotions like this; most people seem to think of her as an emotionless doll, but he knows better now.
“How about I make dinner instead, then?” Makoto says, his eyes grinning. “I promise it's not an arson attempt. Poisoning, maybe, though.” And oh god, how she laughs.
“Your cooking isn't that bad,” she says.
He bustles around the small kitchen, pulling out bowls and pots and ingredients from the fridge. Without him, she'd have been living off of ration supplies for months. When he points at a pile of carrots and asks, “Can you cut these up, please?”, he doesn't even look surprised when she pulls out her pocket knife and starts chopping them beside him. Humming while he cooks, she joins in. They don't say anything more, save for the occasional request to pass this or that.
Mukuro can barely remember ever living so peacefully. When she had been at home with her family, she had done whatever she could to please her sister; it often ended in them both getting scolded. When she had lived in the dorms at school, it had been peaceful in that no one ever talked to her or bothered her, which was lonely. Her time with Fenrir is, of course, not the most tranquil, either. But she and Makoto have a routine, now. Some days they go to school together. Some days he sends her off to work in the early hours of the morning, rubbing sleep out of his eyes before going back to bed for a few more hours. When she comes back from the compound exhausted and takes a nap, he wakes her up in the evening with a cup of tea and dinner on the table. She's being taken care of, she realises, she's being properly loved for practically the first time in her life, by someone who's never even seen a gun in person, no less.
“Ah!” The sound snaps her out of her thoughts. Turning around, she sees Makoto cradling his hand, an angry red mark blooming on his wrist.
“Are you okay?” Mukuro asks.
“It's just a burn, I'll be okay,” Makoto replies. “I was careless with the pan.”
Instructing him to run cold water over the area, Mukuro goes to the bathroom and pulls out one of many first aid kits. A soldier and a boy with notoriously bad luck living together requires countless bandaids; it's not the first time they've had to patch each other up. She grabs a salve, gauze, and a wrap, and heads back to the kitchen.
He stands quietly while she attends to his wrist, and gives her the softest smile in thanks. Makoto's eyes linger on her for just a little longer even after she's turned back to the carrots.
They sit down at the table a while later with their dinner in front of them, chatting quietly, but mostly focusing on eating. Makoto is starting to get accustomed to a quiet table; it's not that he minds, it's just that he was used to his sister talking animatedly, almost nonstop, during dinner. They wash the dishes together after – Mukuro washing, Makoto drying – and he doesn't break a single plate this time.
Mukuro curls up on the couch to watch the evening news. With a book in hand, Makoto sits beside her; he doesn't much care for the reports of death and destruction the news always brings. The evening passes, cozy and calm, the only sounds those of the t.v. and turning book pages. When the news ends, Mukuro flips through the channels.
“Is there anything you --” she says, turning to ask Makoto, but finding him fast asleep with his book on his chest. He's leaning slightly onto her shoulder, so light she didn't notice. Her gaze softens. She pulls the throw down off the back of the couch, and, as gently as possible, drapes it over the two of them.
She supposes she doesn't mind sleeping on the couch once in a while.