Work Text:
~*~
On the day that they move into their university apartment, Kuramochi resolves that, one day, possibly in the near future, he may have no choice but to brutally asphyxiate Miyuki Kazuya.
The beginning, the cleaning, isn’t too bad. It’s early, they’re excited, and sweeping up cobwebs and wiping down floors is menial. Distracting enough for Kuramochi to resist violent retaliation to Miyuki’s snide comments.
“Oho, so you actually know how to clean, Kuramochi? Your Seidou dorm was such a landfill that I honestly had my doubts!”
“Please feel free to sweep slower, Cheetah-sama. It’s thrilling to watch, really.”
“It’s kind of impressive how you managed to get more dust on your shirt than on the rag.”
Before noon, the apartment is clean but they are absolutely filthy. Kuramochi’s once-white shirt is soaked grey with sweat and grime. And even Miyuki, despite his deliberate efforts to stay relatively clean, has clumps of brown-blacks stuck in the seams of his shirt and the trail of two dirt-covered Kuramochi palms running from his shoulder blades down to his lower back.
While they walk to a convenience for lunch, Kuramochi lags behind so he can admire his work. It’s absolutely disgusting and Kuramochi hopes it’ll stain just so he can look at it more. A portrait of his damn delight.
“You’re such a Picasso,” Miyuki spits, taking off his glasses so he can wipe muck off the lenses on the least-dirty edge of his shirt. “And you can’t laugh at me when you managed to dye your top a different color with your filth.”
“Shut up! At least my shirt is one color!” Kuramochi counters, taking larger strides so he can kick the back of Miyuki’s calves with each step. He yanks on the front of his shirt to admire it, impressed by his own nastiness. Miyuki grunts as they enter a Lawson’s, slipping in quickly so the door hits Kuramochi on the forehead before he can step inside.
“Oh yeah, definitely. One uniform shade of dis-gus-ting~”
Kuramochi considers putting him in a chokehold, but settles for kneeing him in the back of the thigh once he notices the cashier giving their foul appearances a double-take. She shakes her head at the rough-housing regardless, but inevitably ends up blushing once Miyuki looks at her with his signature greasy grin. Kuramochi makes a gagging noise. Another one of his many victims. Kuramochi knees him in the thigh again purely out of spite.
“Ikemen bastard.”
“Thank you!”
“Perish.”
They eat cup ramen (that has too much salt in it) and drink soda (that has too much sugar in it) and Kuramochi thinks that the hardest part is over; but once they start arranging their furniture at noon he realizes that he was so, so fucking wrong.
"Move it to the right an inch."
The fifth time that Miyuki asks him to move the couch is when Kuramochi thoroughly considers manslaughter. Then, “Move it to the left a little.”
“You just told me to move it to the right, bastard!” Kuramochi doesn’t even know why he bothered to change out of his soiled shirt when deciding on the placement of a couch has wrung more sweat out of him than three hours of rigorous cleaning. He frustratedly kicks the couch with one foot, to which Miyuki shakes his head, unsatisfied.
“Too much, move it back a little.”
Miyuki Kazuya, he realizes, or rather confirms, is an goddamn menace.
He takes the knot of the make-shift hachimaki the idiot has tied around his forehead (a exam-season gift from Toujou and Kanemaru) and yanks. Miyuki yelps before immediately proceeding to snicker, and the sound is so wicked that Kuramochu can’t help but pull harder. The kanji for ‘diligence’ is inked on the front of the hachimaki in permanent marker. Kuramochi scowls at the characters, bastard is too diligent, and tightens his grip until the fabric is pulled taut and Miyuki protests for real.
“Words, Kuramochi! Use your words! I know you’re a delinquent brute but violence isn’t always the answer!”
“The only reason I’d be willing to move this couch one more fucking time would be for me to bury your cold dead body under it.”
“Graphic!”
Their apartment is a 1LDK. Not ideal for two people, but they have neither the money nor the desire for anything bigger. Plus, three years in the communal Seidou dorms made a shared apartment seem like paradise.
Desks, shelves, tables, and chairs are all similarly subject to Miyuki’s meticulous, painstaking, insanity-inducing arrangements as the afternoon drudges on; much to detriment of Kuramochi’s patience and/or mental state. Every inch is a mile in Miyuki’s eyes and Kuramochi solemnly mourns any pitcher who has to deal with his borderline perverted perfectionism.
After an hour, Kuramochi takes a moment to lie on the ground and pant, less out of exhaustion and more in an attempt to piece together his wavering sanity. He lulls his head back to gaze lazily at the fixated and unfairly handsome set of Miyuki’s jaw and, contrary to his better judgement, feels the corners of his lips twitch up at the genuine concentration. It’s the look Miyuki has when he’s signing for a pitch or sizing up a batter or contemplating whether or not to steal a base, it’s a look Kuramochi has always liked, but just can’t take seriously when directed towards a godforsaken coffee table.
“You’re so damn strange,” He says dully, reflecting for a moment before he decides to roll onto his stomach and push himself upright. Miyuki sends him a withering look momentarily, more for novelty than effect, then redirects his focus back onto their furniture, strategizing. Miyuki’s motivation is as infectious off the diamond as it is in it, and as a result, Kuramochi relents, resigning himself to deal with Miyuki’s bullshit for a little bit longer. He stretches and throws an arm around Miyuki’s shoulders, which is initially shoved off before being begrudgingly tolerated once Kuramochi presses the bulk of his weight into his side. There’s a cackle and an eye roll and Kurmochi is suddenly reenergized.
“Alright, asshole, how do you want to move it this time?” Kuramochi resigns, settling his chin onto Miyuki’s shoulder so he can look up at him with feigned distaste. Miyuki’s face is stained orange with afternoon sunlight, soft shadows spilling onto the skin underneath the length of his eyelashes and the plump of his lips.
Miyuki has always been attractive. So attractive it’s crossed the threshold of being impressive and entered into the realm of being fucking aggravating. Kuramochi remembers his infamous ‘pretty boy catcher’ title and the file of girls who’d watch their practice matches not to watch Kuramochi’s awesome, badass, super cool double plays and superman saves but rather to cheer for Miyuki and his stupid sports glasses whenever he’d go up to bat. It’d always been infuriating, and Kuramochi never hesitated to kick, choke, or curse him out for it as he deemed necessary. Because Miyuki’s always been pretty. Irrevocably pretty, in class or on the field, but with Miyuki focused and vulnerable and bathed in dusk light, for the first time Kuramochi thinks, unwillingly, and for some unfathomable, abrasive fucking reason, beautiful.
“Hurry up, I think I’m starting to lose my mind.”
“Oh no. Whatever will we do without Kuramochi’s resplendent intellect.” Miyuki deadpans.
There it is.
Kuramochi lunges for him but Miyuki dodges, snickering like a devil before he’s forced to jump out of range of Kuramochi’s new-improved roundhouse kick. “Maybe if you put as much effort into your batting as you do in learning techniques of assault you could’ve batted clean-up in high school~!”
Absolutely nothing pretty about that mouth of his.
But Kuramochi laughs anyways, genuinely, because if he’s being honest, he’s never really minded Miyuki’s shitty personality; and as he eyes the self-satisfied, cocky glint in Miyuki’s eyes from across the room, he thinks it might be his favorite part of him.
~*~
“I am in hell,” Kuramochi moans, shirt hiked up over his clavicle as he attempts to will the sweat from seeping out of his pores. To his utter disappointment (and suffering) it is not working.
Miyuki stares down at where Kuramochi lies half-naked on the floor and sighs, indifferent and unamused. A peeving, unapologetically Miyuki-like expression. Kuramochi would kick the bastard, wants to, but the air is so thick with humidity and haze that even breathing feels laborious.
“You’re in the way, stu-pid.”
Instead of a suplex, Kuramochi opts to flip him off instead: energy-conserving while still impactful. Miyuki remains unimpressed. Kuramochi switches his middle finger for his index finger and points accusingly, concentrating as much fervent repugnance as he can muster into the digit, “I’m in hell and you’re the devil.”
“How unfortunate,” Miyuki sing songs, purposely kicking Kuramochi’s arm as he makes his way to the kitchen. “There’d be way less people flocking to evil-doing if I were less attractive!”
Kuramochi makes a gagging noise and peels his sticky skin from off the floor, so he can sit directly in front of their portable electric fan. He presses his forehead against the metal rods and closes his eyes, allowing the blades to wash his upper body with a tepid breeze. “How the hell is it 35 degrees in April? It’s spring for fuck’s sake.”
Head heavy with the sweltering heat, Kuramochi listens to the domestic noise of Miyuki in the kitchen. The opening and closing of the fridge, the clatter of pulling open drawers, and the rush of water hitting the bottom of the sink. It’s calming, almost soothing, so much so that he considers passing out right then and there. Escaping from the literal hell on earth he’s in and immersing in a refreshing dreamland of Hokkaido. Or maybe Antarctica.
“You know what would be perfect right now?” Miyuki asks, pressing a cold water bottle against the nape of Kuramochi’s neck. Kuramochi shudders, swears, and punches blindly in Miyuki’s general direction, impulse with no real intent. When Miyuki sits down beside him, he refuses to relinquish any of dismal pleasure of the electric fan until Miyuki forcibly shoves his head off the appliance with both hands and redirects the damn thing himself. The air brushes against only half of Kuramochi's body now, and he can feel a bead of sweat slide from his temple, around the curve of his jaw, and down his neck, agonizingly slow. Maybe I can stick my head in the freezer for a little bit.
“Ice cream.”
Hell yes. Kuramochi perks up almost instantly.
“Are you god?” He exclaims, grabbing Miyuki by the shoulders to shake him, shell-shocked. “You’re gonna buy me ice cream?”
Melona, Garigari-kun popsicles, Choco Monaka Jumbo… He can feel saliva pooling on the back of his tongue at the thought of spooning some Sacre goodness into his mouth. His eyes gloss over with the perfection of it.
“Nope! You are gonna buy me ice cream!”
A palpable crack rings in Kuramochi’s ears. The absolute nerve of this bastard. He tightens his hold on Miyuki’s shoulders. Hard enough to hurt. Or break. He doesn’t really mind which one. “If there’s one thing I’m gonna do it’s break your-“
“Grocery duty,” Miyuki chirps, leaning back until he can slip out of Kuramochi’s death grip. “I went grocery shopping when we first moved in last week. This week’s your turn.”
Kuramochi allows his hands to fall into his lap as he fumbles for words, blinking up a storm while he furrows his eyebrows. Now that he thinks about it, last week Miyuki had made them breakfast and dinner everyday. Where he sourced the ingredients for which, Kuramochi didn’t really know (and admittedly didn’t care enough to ask about).
“You didn’t even tell me you went grocery shopping, asshole!”
“My goodness, I’m so sorry. I forgot that you don’t have common sense.”
“The fuck’s that supposed to mean?”
“Did you think that food just magically appeared in our fridge, idiot?”
“I was preoccupied. With… syllabi! It’s orientation week! I had to print and read through a bajillion goddamn pages of syllabi! I was busy!”
“Oho? Really? I distinctly remember you forcing me to print your syllabi. And I know you haven’t read through any of them because you haven’t even thought to ask for me to give them to you.”
It’s Kuramochi’s turn to lean back. Reclaiming his pathetic spot on the floor, he lies down, covering his eyes with his forearm as he tries his best to deny his dim fate. “Can’t I do it tomorrow? I’ll melt, Miyuki, swear to god, if I go outside, I really will. You’ll have to mop me up from the damn sidewalk. I know you’re a heartless bastard, but will you really let me die like this?”
“If you’re okay with having stale bread and some steaming hot instant ramen for dinner, then feel free to go tomorrow~!”
Kuramochi actually considers the menu for a second. He can deal with the stale bread but the thought of drinking hot soup genuinely makes him feel ill. The groan he lets out is more out of resignation than protest.
“Hurry up, Cheetah-sama,” Miyuki says, clapping his hands together obnoxiously. He stands up and moves towards what sounds like the kitchen while Kuramochi continues to lay lifeless on the wood-paneled floor. Air from the electric fan brushes his ankles but even the lukewarm pleasure proves no effect in dulling his misery. Sucking in a few more gulps of torrid air, he works up the courage to sit up, shirt falling back over his torso and his spine laden with misery as he hunches forward. “I’ll even write you a shopping list so that you don’t have to exert the critical thinking skills that you don’t have.”
Kuramochi reflects for a couple more seconds, scratching at his stomach absent-mindedly as he stares out into nothingness. He’s seen Miyuki be harsh on the field, bluntly telling pitchers to get off the mound and throwing fastballs straight into their chests, but this, he thinks (with a tinge of over-dramatic exaggeration), is Miyuki at his most ruthless. Kuramochi is going to melt and die on the side of the road and he’s just going to sit back and watch. The bastard.
“Alright, just hear me out okay? If we toast the bread we won’t even notice that it’s stale.”
“It has mold on it.”
“Then cut it off, dammit!”
“There’s more mold than bread,” Miyuki retorts, his scribbling deafening as he writes out Kuramochi’s death sentence. Kuramochi gazes out the window, squinting at the sun rays he will soon have to brave. He’s never even gone grocery shopping by himself. Where do I find the damn shopping baskets … Do I have to rent one …
“Do you know how to pick out vegetables?”
“Obviously!
He doesn’t.
Miyuki glowers like he knows.
Kuramochi gets back from the grocery store an hour later, alive against all odds, but damp with fatigue and reeking of sun. With the pride of baseless confidence, he’s almost certain that he bought everything on the list. He chose the biggest daikon they had and picked the tofu that had the highest protein content (he knows because he checked all of them to make sure) and he picked the best goddamn ponkans he’s ever seen in his life.
In a vain attempt to cool down, he devours his third cup of Sacre while sitting in front of the electric fan, possibly making a pool of sweat on the floor but too tired to check. Two more cups of the lemon ice sit safely in the freezer, ready for decimation after he takes a much-needed shower. His heart throbs at the thought of it.
“How’d I do, bastard?” He yells in Miyuki’s direction, leaning back onto his palms so he can glance over at where he stands in the kitchen. He has all of the produce lined up on the counter in front him and his fist pressed to his lips, expression enigmatic. Kuramochi swallows another spoonful of now-melted Sacre and grins, “Nyahaha! What? I did so well that you’re seriously at a loss for words?”
Miyuki looks at him, the action half-obscured by the reflection of the sunlight against his glasses. He’s quiet. Strangely quiet for a snarky bastard, and Kuramochi thinks he’s going to cry or something with how slowly he fills and empties his lungs with each breath. “Oi, Miyuki. Are you alri-“
And then he’s laughing. No he’s cackling, hysterically. It’s a cackle that racks his body with the sheer force of it and brings tears to his eyes, he grabs at his stomach and eases his weight onto the hand that’s gripping the counter, and Kuramochi is so fucking confused. It goes on for so long that Kuramochi wholeheartedly thinks he’s possessed for a second. But once the moment passes he’s filled with an inexplicable rage. He finds himself lunging toward Miyuki on impulse, putting him in a perfectly executed chokehold. Because he’s known Miyuki long enough to know that he’s laughing because of him, or most certainly, laughing at him. Kuramochi tightens his grip, “You’re pissing me off, what the hell’s so funny?”
Miyuki has his both his hands on Kuramochi’s arms, fumbling to unfold the knot of limbs, but he’s so preoccupied with laughing that it feels more like a massage, or an exfoliation considering how calloused his hands are, than much else. The struggle continues for a couple more moments until an elbow rutted into Kuramochi’s ribs sets Miyuki free. He swiftly crouches on the ground to steady himself, or maybe loses the strength in his legs to keep standing, Kuramochi isn’t sure. It’s a combination of him catching his breath and choking down his laughter, and after awhile Kuramochi kicks him in the thigh to try to get him to calm down before he suffocates (not like he’d mind the latter). “Hope you laugh until you choke.”
Kuramochi jumps up onto the counter as he waits for Miyuki to stabilize, swinging his legs out wildly so they kick Miyuki in the shoulder and slam into the cupboards with each rough arc. As the worst of Miyuki’s cackles ease into uneven breathing, Kuramochi fingers the netted packaging of a bag of ripe ponkans and slips one out. Briefly rolling it between his fingers, considering, he proceeds to peel it in a manner nothing short of barbaric. Juice coats his fingers and spills down his forearms and chunks of the peel pool on his lap… and the counter… and the floor… and just about everywhere in a foot radius.
“You know,” Miyuki begins, pushing at Kuramochi’s pendulum of a foot before he stands up. His eyes are wet with laughter and a lazy grin is strung across his lips, Kuramochi studies the delight of his expression as he swallows a chunk of citrus. “I knew you were an idiot, but I think you’ve officially been promoted to a dumbass. Congratulations!”
“The hell?” Kuramochi narrows his eyes and throws a handful of peels at Miyuki’s chest in a hollow rage. He half expects him to grab them in mid-air them like the freak catcher he is, but he doesn’t. Instead Miyuki lets the compost pelt against against his torso and fall to the tile, neither his gaze nor smirk faltering.
“You’re cleaning that up~”
“I bought everything on the damn list!” Kuramochi wails, gathering another handful of peel from the counter and this time chucking it at Miyuki’s stupid head, glasses and all. “Even the rice! Five kilos of rice! Don’t think I’m gonna let that slide, you shit. You’re a complete asshole for making me lug home a sack of rice in this goddamn heat!”
“You eat most of it so it only makes sense for you to carry it here.”
More peels fly and Miyuki rolls his eyes. He picks up an abnormally large daikon up from off the counter and points it at Kuramochi accusingly, “Look at this.”
Kuramochi looks at it, blinks, then tosses a slice of ponkan into his mouth. “It’s a daikon.”
Miyuki has to take a minute to close his eyes and procure some non-existent patience. “I can’t believe you got into Meiji on an athletic scholarship and not an academic one, you absolute genius. No shit, moron, I know it’s a daikon. But why did you choose this one?”
Kuramochi takes the daikon from Miyuki and weighs it in his hands for a second, tossing the vegetable up and down like a baseball. He readjusts his grip so he can hold it like a bat and subsequently slugs it at Miyuki’s head in a slow exaggerated motion, resting it against his temple on an angle reminiscent of a picture perfect home run. “It was the biggest one.”
“It’s ginormous.” Miyuki snarls, snatching the vegetable from Kuramochi and slamming it onto the counter, former hysteria dissipated and now replaced with a well-founded annoyance. He points at where the daikon sits, discarded and lonely, with a palpable disgust. “And half-rotten. Did you not think to look at it at all?”
“Can’t we just cut off the rotten parts.”
Miyuki ignores the idiocy and moves onto the frozen bag on the counter, “I told you to buy a kilo of chicken.”
“It is a kilo. Says so on the bag, stupid.”
“Kuramochi,” Miyuki rubs at his temples and slaps the bag a couple of times for emphasis, condensation sticking to his callouses. “Chicken. Not chicken nuggets, you moron.”
He doesn’t miss a beat and skims through the remaining produce, “You bought white vinegar instead of rice wine, you picked tofu that is about to spoil, half of these eggs are cracked, you bought extra spicy curry instead of mild-“
“Curry spiciness is a matter of preference, you fuck!”
Miyuki continues, unperturbed.
“You bought steaks when I told you to buy ground beef, and… Wait, where are the miso broth sachets?”
Kuramochi scratches at his cheek with sticky fingers and twists his mouth, grumbling.
“Couldn’t carry it.”
“Hah?”
“I couldn’t carry it, bastard! I couldn’t find the shopping baskets and my hands were full with all the other shit!”
“You couldn’t find the shopping baskets…” Miyuki mumbles, mostly to himself before he pushes up his glasses with the heels of his palms and presses them into his eye sockets. He laughs bitterly and takes a deep breath. Kuramochi takes another ponkan from the bag. “I think rooming with Sawamoron for so long gave you brain damage.”
Kuramochi simply grunts, too blatantly at fault for him to even attempt to retort. He’s honestly kind of surprised by how much he got wrong while shopping. Or rather how he managed to get everything wrong. Regardless, Miyuki’s visible disdain sends a flit of pride and satisfaction through him that almost makes the harrowing trip in the heat worth it.
“And these ponkans… They’re nice but did you really have to buy a year’s worth of them?” Miyuki asks incredulously, poking one of the three bulky bags.
“Vitamin C! They’re healthy, bastard!” Kuramochi chastises, sinking two thumbs into the base of the fruit to rip the peel apart. More juice spills down his forearms and Miyuki grimaces. “And besides, I love ponkans. Loved them since I was a brat. We’ll be lucky if they last even last 3 days.”
Miyuki snorts and takes the ponkan from Kuramochi’s sticky hands, covering his own fingers in the muck in the process. He elegantly hulls the rest of the peel off with a skilled grip and Kuramochi watches the movement as he does so. It’s a gentle action, almost tender as Miyuki skims the skin so as to not pierce the flesh. Once he’s done, he places the perfectly peeled ponkan beside where Kuramochi’s hand rests on the counter and sighs, “You peel them like you’re trying to juice them.”
Instead of eating, Kuramochi reaches over to pick up the peel. It’s one whole piece of skin, no scraps or broken pieces, and shaped like a flower. He rests it in the center of his palm and admires the look of it. There’s a rush of nostalgia that dulls his senses, leaving him with an uncertainty as to whether or not he should frown. When his eyes come back into focus, Miyuki is picking up scraps of peel from off the floor, contrary to his previous qualms. Kuramochi looks back down at the peel in his hand and blinks as a rush of nausea settles in his gut.
A storm of peels ricochet off his chest and into his lap, crudely disrupting his train of thought. He looks back at Miyuki, who’s now standing with a hand on his hip, “I told you that I wasn’t gonna clean up your mess.”
Kuramochi laughs with an uncharacteristic lack of fervor that he hopes Miyuki can’t hear. He looks at the crumpled flower in his palm once more, the odd shape of it bringing back memories of childhood and summer and sun-soaked afternoons. Clean up my mess, huh? He holds his breath then looks up.
Sneering, he tosses the peel in his palm at Miyuki’s forehead and, to Kuramochi’s surprise, he actually catches it this time. Kuramochi curses something about how he’s a pain in the ass catcher, then shoves half of his ponkan into Miyuki’s mouth. Now cackling for real as he watches Miyuki’s cheeks fill and strain while struggling to simultaneously chew and curse, he contemplates Miyuki, the ease of his presence and the comfort of being with him like this. Daikons and ponkans, half-hearted insults and whole-hearted laughter. He contemplates it all and feels content.
Miyuki silently helps Kuramochi pick up the rest of the peels, throwing out the flowered one first.
“You ended up helping me clean up anyways, huh, asshole?”
“Only because you don’t know how to clean up your own messes, idiot.”
They both kneel on the floor, picking up the scraps piece by piece until there’s nothing left but the smell of citrus in the air. Kuramochi knows that, in Miyuki’s irreverent, odd, convoluted language, this is Miyuki’s attempt at kindness. The thought makes him chuckle.
“Oi Miyuki…”
“Hm?”
“You should make chicken nugget curry for dinner tonight.”
“Wow! How disgusting!”
Regardless of Miyuki’s reluctance, they eat chicken nugget curry later that evening, and inasmuch as Miyuki complains, they both know that it’s pretty damn good. For dessert they devour a bowl of peeled ponkans and a Hanshin-Yomiuri game while sitting side by side on the floor. At the top of the third inning, Miyuki thieves one of Kuramochi’s tubs of Sacre to which Kuramochi retaliates with assault, putting him in a rear naked choke.
The petaled peels lay flat on their kitchen counter, a deflated bouquet that laces a thin scent of citrus into the air.
Kuramochi thinks about how the shape of his father’s fingers used to look wrapped around the fruit and how Miyuki’s were almost identical.
“You know,” Kuramochi mumbles as he slips the last slice of fruit into his mouth. He doesn’t turn to Miyuki or change his tone, just licks the sweetness off his lips and cracks his knuckles. “You peel them exactly like my dad used to.”
“Before everything.” Kuramochi concludes.
He doesn’t know why he says it — doesn’t know why he thinks Miyuki should know this, why he wants him to know this. It’s something so small and so irrelevant and so damningly personal. His mouth goes dry with unease as he watches a baserunner get thrown out by Hanshin’s catcher. The words hang in the air between them for so long that Kuramochi becomes dubious of whether or not he said anything at all.
“The one who taught me how to peel them…” Miyuki begins, a rigid hollowness in his voice. There are no tinges of sarcasm or condescension and Kuramochi wonders what his face looks like but doesn’t dare look. “It was my mom.”
Hanshin makes their third out off a fly ball and switches out from defense.
Kuramochi imagines a young Miyuki sitting on his mother’s lap, ponkan gigantic in his otherwise tiny hands. He laughs big and bright. “Mm… she did a damn good job.”
They leave it at that. There’s no discomfort or unease, only the sound of baseball and breathing; all there ever is for guys like them. It’s more than enough.
Kuramochi thinks it finally feels like spring.
~*~