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When Sho Apparated back home that night, he found Aiba waiting for him at the door.
“Welcome back!” he exclaimed happily.
“Hey,” Sho said as he took off his shoes. “Were you waiting for me by any chance?”
Aiba nodded all too enthusiastically. “I’ve missed you today,” he said, sweetly. “And I wanted to give you a kiss and tell you how much I love you.”
Sho narrowed his eyes and stepped in, distractedly returning Aiba’s peck when it landed on his lips.
“I love you too,” he said, suspicious. There was something fishy about the way his husband was acting, and even though he still didn’t know what it was, he was sure he’d find out soon enough. “Why are you standing like that?”
Aiba just smiled at him. “Like what?” he asked, innocently.
Sho pointed at him. “Like that, with your hands behind your back.”
“No reason.” Aiba shrugged.
Sho made an unconvinced noise and started walking toward the kitchen. He didn’t even take one step, though, before Aiba stopped him by getting in front of him.
“So, how was work?” he chirped. “Did any of your students make anything explode while trying to learn the Levitation Charm?”
“Not really,” Sho said, trying to dodge him, but Aiba, still keeping his hands behind his back, was standing in his way. “What’s going on?” he asked, exasperated.
Aiba’s eyes got wide and his eyebrows lifted impossibly high. Sho knew that expression very well. That was Aiba’s innocent face. Something that he only used whenever he did something totally not innocent. And sure enough, his husband’s next words were…
“Promise you won’t get angry.”
Sho sighed inwardly. “What did you do this—”
As he was talking, Aiba had inadvertently moved his arms a bit, and Sho had noticed him flinching. Fearing something was wrong with him, Sho grabbed his shoulders and turned him around so he could look at his arms.
“Masaki, what happened?” Sho asked, worried.
Aiba’s left arm was all red, and half of it was covered in what looked like very painful blisters.
“I’m okay,” Aiba said, turning around and showing him the arm sheepishly. “I had an accident at—uhm—at work.”
Sho cursed under his breath and gently took Aiba’s arm to look it over. “And none of the Healers could help you out?”
“I didn’t go to see any Healers. Not yet,” Aiba said. “I was thinking of sending Nino an owl later when he gets back home from the hospital…” he trailed off.
Sho stiffened. If Aiba didn’t want to ask for help from one of the Healers in his Department, there was only one reason. Whatever he’d been doing, it wasn’t legal, and clearly very dangerous.
“What did you do?” he asked again, this time in a tone that admitted no reply.
“First you promise you won’t get mad,” Aiba said, begging him with his puppy eyes.
At his limit, Sho went around him to get inside the apartment and Aiba had no choice but to follow him helplessly.
It didn’t take long for Sho to find out why Aiba didn’t want him to get inside before he had talked to him. As soon as he stepped into the living room, he found the place wrecked. The curtains were burnt, the coffee table and the couches bore teeth and claw marks, and the carpet had been turned into ash. In the corner of the room, in a cage, was what Sho imagined was the cause of it all – Aiba’s burns included.
“A dragon!” he exclaimed. “You brought a dragon into our house!”
Hearing his voice, the pearly-colored creature huffed, making fire come out of its nostrils in a menacing way, its claws clenching even harder around the piece of meat it was holding.
“Not just any dragon,” Aiba said, as if that explained it all. “It’s an Antipodean Opaleye!”
“An Antipodean Opaleye,” Sho repeated, shocked. “Wait, what’s it doing here? Isn’t it native to New Zealand?”
“It is,” his husband nodded, getting between Sho and the dragon in the cage. “Although it’s known to migrate to Australia. But this is just a baby. I suspect some smuggler lost an egg, and that’s why there’s one of them in Japan.”
“What’s its Classification level?”
Aiba looked at the ground guiltily. “I don’t really remember...”
Lies. Sho knew that Aiba knew everything about every single creature that ever existed, especially the dangerous ones.
“Masaki.”
Aiba gulped. “Alright, alright.” He cleared his throat. “It’s a level five…”
“Level five!!” Sho yelled. That was the highest level, only reserved for the most dangerous and lethal of creatures. “Are you out of your mind?!”
“It’s okay, it’s not that bad—”
“I can’t believe you!” Sho continued, out of his mind. “You work for the freaking Department for the Regulation and Control of Magical Creatures!!”
Aiba at least had the decency to look a bit ashamed at that. “But Sho-chan,” he said, “if anyone from the Committee for the Disposal of Dangerous Creatures had found her, they would have killed her.”
The use of the pronoun didn’t escape Sho. “Her!? Masaki, don’t tell me you gave that… that thing a name too!”
Aiba dropped his gaze.
“Oh my god, you did.” Sho couldn’t believe it. “What is it?” he asked, scandalized.
“Arashi,” Aiba said, way too cheerfully for Sho’s tastes. “It’s a good name, isn’t it? It’s because of her multicolored eyes,” he explained. “They looked to me like the sky after a storm.”
“Isn’t it because it causes destruction like a storm would?” Sho asked sarcastically, looking around the room.
Aiba pouted. “She’s actually pretty quiet now that I gave her something to eat. Look at her, she’s not doing anything.”
Sho thought Aiba would sound much more convincing if he didn’t point at the creature with his injured hand. With growing concern for the blisters—which seemed bigger now than when he got home—he grabbed Aiba’s hand, flinching when he heard Aiba moan in pain.
“I can’t believe you gave the thing that hurt you like this a name,” Sho said, taking out his wand and murmuring an enchantment over his husband’s arm.
“It just happened! It’s not like I want to keep her or anything.”
Aiba sighed as a sudden feeling of relief came over him. The blisters weren’t gone, but it hurt considerably less now at least.
Sho scoffed as he let go of his hand. “Of course we’re not keeping it. Over my dead body.”
“Exactly,” Aiba said. “So don’t worry, I’ll send an owl to Oh-chan. His wife will be happy to welcome her into her reserve, where she’ll be safe and with her friends. Everything will be fine.”
Sho looked at Aiba, defeated. He looked at the small dragon in the cage who was now sharpening its claws, and then back to his husband, who gave him a reassuring smile that didn’t work on Sho even a bit. He sighed.
“Once, Masaki,” he said. “Just once, I’d like to come home to you holding a Puffskein or something.”
“I mean, they’re cute,” Aiba murmured. “But they’re so boring.”
“What’s wrong with a boring lifestyle every once in a while?” When Aiba rolled his eyes at that, Sho sighed again. “I knew I was doomed the day you asked me to get you a Kappa for your seventeenth birthday.”
Aiba smiled at him innocently.
“You’re sending an owl to Ohno-san right now.”
Aiba nodded obediently.
“And one to Nino, to ask him to look at your burn.”
“Yes, Sho-chan,” Aiba said, inching closer to him to give him a kiss on his cheek.
Aiba noticed that his husband was looking at his wound worriedly. “It’s alright,” he said, reassuring him. “Your Cooling Charm was very effective.”
“Just don’t get hurt again, okay?” Sho wanted to sound harsh, but it just came out concerned.
“I won’t,” Aiba said, shaking his head. “And look,” he went to the cage before Sho could stop him, and started petting the dragon. “She’s okay now, we’ve become friends. You can pet her too if you’d like.”
“Nope, I absolutely refuse to touch that.”
Aiba only pouted a little before he let Sho drag him away from the cage.
They looked at the creature in silence for a second as it chewed on the bones of its dinner.
“Come on,” Sho said eventually, gesturing to his husband to follow him. “I’ll write to Nino while you write to Ohno-san.”
“Thank you, Sho-chan,” Aiba said, visibly happy that he wasn’t angry anymore. “You’re the best.”
“And you’re a pain in my ass.”
All it took was for Aiba to giggle, and Sho’s heart melted.
Oh, well.
He never really liked a boring lifestyle anyway.