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Clunck.
Saihara grumbles, pulling his covers over his head. The sound reverberates in his head, as if insisting he wake up.
He really doesn’t feel like it...
Another crash sounds, and Saihara immediately sits up. There’s not anyone breaking in, is there?
He pulls himself out of bed, leaving the bedroom on light feet. A quick glance at the digital clock tells him it’s just nearing two in the morning. Saihara opens his bedroom door, yawning, and sees the light from the apartment kitchen open. He hears familiar footsteps that he’s sure belongs to Ouma, too, and then a grumble.
Yeah, it’s Ouma for sure.
He rounds the corner and rubs his eyes, taking in the sight before him. His roommate freezes, an electric whisk in one hand and two boxes of cake mix tucked under his arm. A few specks of cake mix, or what he guesses is cake mix, dots his cheeks, and Saihara has to hold in a laugh because it honestly looks adorable.
He also notices his tied up hair and the apron the smaller boy’s wearing, and his heart skips a beat. Or two.
“Ouma-kun? What are you doing so early in the morning?” Saihara asks, suddenly fully awake. Ouma snickers.
“Nishishi! Did I wake my beloved up? My apologies!” He chirps, not sounding the least bit apologetic. Had he tried to wake up Saihara on purpose? Well, at least Ouma knows that he has an off day from work tomorrow. Saihara yawns one last time, before crossing over to the kitchen.
In the whole year they’ve been living together as roommates, Saihara had never woken up at god awful hours in the morning just to find his roommate baking. Well, there’s a first time for everything, he guesses.
Now he’s a bit interested too, because he’s never tried baking before.
“Is Saihara-chan not going back to sleep?” Ouma asks, a smile on his face. Saihara gives him a deadpanned stare.
“You woke me up on purpose, didn’t you?” He questions back, and Ouma laughs again.
“Guess I got found out! Well, you wouldn’t want me setting the house on fire, would you?” Ouma replies. Well, he does make a point, but Saihara has to wonder if that’s the real reason.
“In any case, I’ll help,” Saihara comments, stretching his arms. Ouma sets down the mixer, and first tosses him an apron that seems to appear from nowhere. He then thrusts a box of cake mix into his arms (coffee flavored?) and opens his own, a strawberry.
“I was gonna choose grape, but they didn’t have one,” Ouma sighs, pouring his cake mix into a large bowl. Saihara turns his box over to read the instructions, because he’s almost certain Ouma hadn’t.
- Heat oven to 350°F for shiny metal or glass pan, or 325°F for dark or nonstick pan. Grease bottom only of 13”x9” pan or bottom and sides of all other pans
- Mix cake mix, water, oil and eggs in a large bowl with a mixer on medium speed or beat vigorously by hand for two minutes. Pour into pan.
- Bake for 25 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in the middle comes out clean. Cool for 10 minutes before removing it from the pan. Cool completely before frosting.
“Ouma-kun, you’re supposed to pre-heat the oven first,” Saihara points out, and Ouma pauses, halfway through cracking his eggs.
“Pre-heat? The fuck does that mean?” He asks. Saihara sighs. Ouma really doesn’t know anything about baking, does he?
“You can continue with that, I’ll go pre-heat it,” he tells him. Ouma hums, and Saihara dials the oven to the correct temperature. Right after that, he hears a loud whir that clicks on, then off, and Ouma gasps.
Saihara quickly turns over to see what happened and... he snorts. Ouma glares at him, but it doesn’t look the least bit intimidating when half his body is covered with strawberry cake mix.
Ouma blows a strand of hair out of his face, and a puff of cake mix escapes along with the breath. He huffs, unimpressed. “Saihara-chan, I think I wanna stick with the hand whisk,” he complains. Saihara can’t hold back his laughter, and starts laughing.
Ouma’s face goes blank for a split second, before a smirk splits on his lips. “Unless you wanna try?” He suggests, taking the end of his apron and leisurely wiping his face off with it.
“I’ll try, you can resort to the hand whisk,” Saihara says, and Ouma passes him the bowl and the mixer.
“Hey! How about I make the coffee one, and you make the strawberry one? We can try each other’s!” Ouma exclaims, winking. Saihara has to say, he’s a bit skeptical about Ouma’s baking, to say the very least, but they might as well. He doubts Ouma will relent anyways.
And, how can he refuse when Ouma’s eyes sparkle that way? It’s practically a death sentence for him.
“Okay,” he agrees without much thought. Ouma beams, grabbing the coffee cake mix, and running to the opposite side of the kitchen.
“Don’t peek, or I’m sending my organization members to kill you,” Ouma warns, and Saihara smiles fondly.
“Sure,” he answers. He turns on the mixer, angling it away to avoid the disaster that would’ve happened otherwise. He successfully manages to whisk it with minimal disaster. It’s inevitable for his first time, he guesses. And, it actually looks good, which is a plus.
Ouma is relatively quiet for the next ten minutes, and Saihara hears the oven start to beep. He turns around to see that Ouma had surprisingly already set the cake pans, and placed parchment paper inside. Saihara wonders when he actually had time to do it.
As Saihara pours his cake batter into a circular pan, Ouma whirls around, holding his bowl in his hands.
“I’m done!” He announces, and reaches for a cake pan. Saihara catches a glimpse of the cake batter, and has to blink twice, because is that cake batter supposed to look like that? He wonders if Ouma had mixed it well enough, since the specks of brown contrasts almost too much with the yellow. It almost looks like liquified chocolate chip cookie dough..
Ouma leans over and flicks his forehead. “No peeking,” he scolds, and Saihara flinches. Ow... that actually hurt.
When Saihara cleans all the cake batter out of the bowl and into the cake pan, he reaches for the oven door, making sure to keep his distance. The hot air, quite literally, smacks him the face, and he recoils. Okay, well then.
He carefully slides the cake pan into the oven, then turns to Ouma. “Are you done yet?” Saihara asks, and Ouma hums.
“Impatient, aren’t we? Well, I’m finished, so no need to wait any longer, nishishi.” Ouma walks towards him with his cake pan, and passes it to him. It actually looks... quite decent. Though, he’s not sure what the cake mix is supposed to look like exactly, so he’ll chalk it up to wishful thinking.
Saihara catches Ouma staring at him, and returns the stare. It’s a bit unnerving, to say the least.
“Saihara-chan has cake batter on his cheek,” Ouma grins, and before Saihara can think to wipe it off, Ouma leans close— very close— and Saihara feels something unmistakably wet glide across his cheek. Just crazing the corner of his lips, too.
It takes him a few seconds to process what exactly happened, and when he does, he feels the heat rush up to his cheeks, and his mouth drops open in surprise.
Did Ouma— did Ouma just lick him?
Ouma licks his lips, almost seductively, and grins. “Nishishi, what a cute reaction I got out of you! I have to say though, it tastes good.” Ouma whirls around and makes a move for the living room, leaving Saihara frozen in the middle of the room.
Maybe, Saihara thinks, dazed, Maybe that didn’t happen. Yeah, I’ll write that down as a figment of my imagination.
He shakes his head, rubbing his temples. It’s just past two in the morning after all, it makes perfect sense that he’s imagining things.
Though, he’s quite certain it actually happened.
He finds Ouma sitting in the living room with a pillow in his lap, staring at his phone. Purple eyes trail across the screen and narrow.
“Ouma-kun? What is it?” Saihara asks. Ouma’s eyes dart up to meet his and then he slams his phone on the living room table, making Saihara wince. He honestly wouldn’t be surprised if his phone actually broke.
“It’s nothing, Saihara-chan! Just Iruma-chan trying to send me bad memes, no biggy,” he answers. Saihara raises an eyebrow. So early in the morning? I highly doubt that.
He takes a seat beside his roommate, unsure of what else to do. There are probably still about another twenty minutes or so until the cakes are ready, so he’ll just have to find something to do until then.
Saihara leans forward and reaches for a novel that lays unread on the table. It’s strange, since he swears he’s never seen it before. Ouma watches him, expression curious.
“Did you read this?” Saihara asks, holding up the small book. Ouma tilts his head, and then nods vigorously.
“Yep, of course! It’s an all time favorite, just so you know,” Ouma chirps. A lie, Saihara figures, from his tone. An idea formulates it’s way into Saihara’s head, and his mouth opens before he can stop himself from asking.
“Do you… do you want to read it together?” Ouma’s face goes blank at the question, and his roommate blinks twice. His eyes suddenly light up, and he leans on Saihara’s shoulder.
“How do we do that, Shumai? Are you gonna read to me?” He asks, almost teasingly. Saihara feels his face heat up, and he fumbles with the book, turning to the first page. He can feel Ouma’s breath on his neck, okay, no, that’s a weird thing to focus on. Ouma’s hair tickles against his neck, and his eyes watch Saihara with amusement.
“N-no, you can turn the page,” Saihara mumbles. He knows he’s a faster reader than Ouma, so he may as well let the other flip the pages.
“Why? You think I’m a slow reader?” Ouma frowns, staring at him with sad eyes. Saihara sighs, shaking his head.
“You know as well as I do that I read faster than you,” Saihara insists, and Ouma grins.
“Okay, okay, I’ll do the honors of turning the pages, Mister Detective,” Ouma sings, settling against him and pulling the other end of the book towards himself.
The close proximity isn’t anything new to Saihara, if he’s being honest. Ouma’s a pretty clingy person when it comes to him, and Saihara’s gotten used to it already. Though, this time it feels a lot more intimate than usual… Saihara casts his gaze to the book, trying to calm his overactive imagination.
They get through the first chapter just fine, falling into a rhythm. Saihara finishes the page, followed shortly by Ouma, who flips the page for the two of them. The smaller boy is surprisingly quiet through the whole ordeal.
Saihara pauses his reading after the first chapter, his gaze traveling to Ouma. His roommate seems to catch his eye, and stops to meet his eyes. The thought of their close proximity wanders into Saihara’s head again, and he realizes that Ouma’s lips are mere inches away from his. If he leans forward just a little bit…
Before he even processes what he’s doing, his face is moving forward, and he notices that Ouma’s is too. He sees a light sheen of pink overlaying Ouma’s cheeks and feels his heart skip a beat. Just as their noses are a fraction of a centimeter apart, a loud alarm sounds from the kitchen.
Ouma’s the first to flinch away, letting out an uncharacteristic squeak. “W-wow! Look at that, the cake must be ready!” He exclaims, dropping the book and racing to the kitchen. Saihara, frozen in shock, finally processes what he’d just initiated, and feels his cheeks heat up exponentially.
What would’ve happened if the oven’s alarm hadn’t gone off?
Saihara begins to pull himself off the couch, and sees that Ouma’s hurriedly pulling open the oven door. Bare-handed.
“O-Ouma-kun! You can’t try to grab it without the oven mittens,” he shouts, alarmed. His warning’s said too late, though, and he winces as Ouma reaches inside with both hands, quickly retracting them when they make contact with the cake pans inside.
“Ow!” He hisses, “It’s hot!”
Saihara makes his way to the kitchen, turning off the oven, before grabbing both of Ouma’s hands without hesitation. The skin of his fingertips are red, and Saihara frowns. It looks painful…
“Come over here, hold it under some cold water,” he says, pulling Ouma towards the sink. Ouma follows, albeit reluctantly.
“It doesn’t hurt at all, Saihara-chan! Just a small burn, you know,” Ouma insists, and Saihara already knows it’s a lie.
“You just burnt all your fingertips. You don’t have to lie, Ouma-kun,” Saihara murmurs, and Ouma pouts. As Saihara lets the cold water run down onto Ouma’s hand, the smaller boy opens his mouth.
“Wow, we should get married! You’d be the perfect wife, nishishi!” Saihara chokes on his saliva, blood rushing to his cheeks.
“W-what?!” Saihara asks, not sure he heard it right. Ouma giggles again, flicking some water onto his face with his fingers.
“That was a lie, Saihara-chan,” Ouma reveals teasingly, nudging his shoulder. Saihara doesn’t know whether to be disappointed or relieved, so he decides on the latter.
Ouma’s able to hide whatever pain he feels really well, since his face is pretty much blank throughout the whole bandaging process. The only hint of emotion Saihara had seen during it was when he first received the burn. Hopefully, it doesn’t hurt still…
Saihara insists on finishing the cake, to the disappointment of Ouma. Saihara manages to convince Ouma to sit at the counter and not needlessly touch anything, while he works on frosting the cake, which had cooled while he was tending to Ouma, by himself.
By the time everything’s prepared, it’s just past three am, and Ouma seems impatient.
“Can we try it now?” He asks, laying sprawled on his stomach. He stares at Saihara with wide eyes, a frown on his lips. While Saihara would have suggested going to bed, seeing Ouma’s expression makes him scrap the thought entirely.
“Okay,” he answers without any hesitation, which seems to surprise Ouma a bit. Then, the other boy brightens, sitting up attentively.
Saihara cuts them slices from both cakes, bringing them to the living room table, and as he sets them down, he realizes something.
Ouma, who’s fingertips are still burnt, is unable to use his hands to feed himself.
“Huh,” Ouma hums, seeming to realize the situation. Then, he grins. “Seems like Saihara-chan’s gonna have to feed me!”
“I— uh, what?” Saihara asks, surprised. Ouma holds up his hands.
“I know you’ve noticed, but I can’t hold the fork with my hands,” he comments. Saihara nods dumbly, and then straightens.
“Okay, I-I guess I’ll feed you?” He mumbles, embarrassed. It comes out as more of a question.
“Cool!” Ouma chirps, leaning closer. “Your call, my beloved!”
Saihara tries, he really does, to will his blush down, but it ultimately fails, and he reaches for Ouma’s plate. He cuts some of the strawberry cake with the fork, and brings it to Ouma’s lips.
As Ouma’s mouth opens, his cheeks displaying a faint blush, Saihara feels like his heart is about to burst out of his chest. Calm down, Shuichi. Calm down, he tells himself when Ouma’s lips wrap around the fork, taking in the cake. He lets out a soft exhale as Ouma leans back, eyes closed thoughtfully.
“Hmm, Saihara-chan’s cake is tasty,” he says, nodding. His eyes open, a mischievous glint to them. “Don’t worry, it’s not a lie.”
“Ah, I’d find it incredibly hard to mess up boxed cake mix,” Saihara remarks, and then turns his gaze to his own two slices. Well, he says that it’d be hard to mess it up, but taking a look at the coffee cake… he has to wonder about that.
Curious, he uses his own fork to pick up a piece of the coffee cake, and tries it.
…
It’s… surprisingly good. It has the distinct taste of coffee, and a hint of sugar from the frosting, balancing the bitterness.
“Hey, hey, how is it?” Ouma asks, a wide smile on his face. Saihara smiles, nodding.
“It’s actually really good,” Saihara compliments, then takes another bite. “But, why does this look a lot different than what was on the box?”
Ouma sinks into the couch, sighing. “Well, since Shumai doesn’t like sweets as much as moi, I decided to fix up the recipe a bit. Add some coffee to balance the sweetness, you know,” he explains smugly. Saihara’s eyes widen. That’s actually very thoughtful of his roommate… he feels his heart swell a little.
“Thank you, Ouma-kun,” he says, genuine. Ouma blinks, and Saihara swears he sees a blush on his cheeks.
“Yeah, yeah,” he mumbles, waving his hand dismissively. In an instant, he reverts back to his usual cheerful self, leaning towards Saihara. “Hey, lemme try some though!”
Without a second thought, Saihara cuts off a piece with his fork, bringing it to Ouma’s lips. Ouma’s eyes widen just a fraction, but he eats it nonetheless.
He wonders for a moment why Ouma had seemed surprised during that… and then as he takes another bite for himself, he realizes.
He hadn’t switched out their forks. Indirect kiss?
As soon as Saihara realizes, his eyes widen, and Ouma smirks.
“You know, Saihara-chan, you’re being forward today,” Ouma teases, and Saihara begs to differ. He’d like to call it a series of coincidences, since he honestly hadn’t meant for them to happen. “Could it be… you like me~?”
“Yeah,” Saihara mumbles on instinct, and then freezes. “Uh—!”
Ouma’s expression goes from playful to surprised to serious all in a split second, and Saihara looks away guiltily. He opens his mouth to try and apologize, but Ouma beats him to it.
“It was a joke, Shumai, you don’t have to lie like that,” he says, voice devoid of emotion. Devoid of emotion, other than what Saihara recognizes as bitterness(?).
“I-I’m sorry if I made you uncomfortable,” Saihara apologizes, shaking his head. Ouma tilts his head in confusion.
“Of course I’m not uncomfortable. Because that was a lie, right?” Ouma asks, sounding genuinely curious. Saihara swallows. He would deny it… but he honestly can’t bring himself to, not when he heard Ouma’s bitter tone when he made his previous statement.
Oh boy, here goes nothing.
“It’s not a lie. I like you, Ouma-kun,” he admits, pointedly avoiding eye contact. Ouma’s silent for a moment, and Saihara refuses to bring his gaze up.
And then, he hears a quiet snicker. He looks up, alarmed, and sees Ouma laughing.
“Saihara-chan, do you know why I woke up at two in the morning just to bake?” Ouma asks, scooting closer towards him. Saihara shakes his head, a no. He’s still a bit curious about it, actually.
Ouma leans towards him, dropping his head on Saihara’s shoulder. “It’s because I couldn’t get my thoughts off you,” he whispers, and Saihara almost thinks that his hearing is playing tricks on him.
“You— what?” He asks, mind wiped blank. Ouma huffs, staring into his eyes.
“Don’t you get it? I like you too. Hard to believe you’re a detective and you still haven’t found out yet, yeesh.”
Saihara processes the words, the gears slowly turning in his head. Ouma-kun likes me? Wait, really?
“You’re… you’re not lying about that, are you?” He asks, cautious. He doesn’t want to doubt Ouma, but he also really doesn’t want it to end up as a joke.
Saihara expects Ouma to exclaim that it’s a joke, but instead, the purple haired boy swings a leg over Saihara’s lap, leaning his forehead on Saihara’s. “You want me to prove it?” He murmurs, voice dropping a few octaves.
The small “yes” that escapes Saihara’s lips almost goes unheard by the two of them, and Ouma leans down to press his lips against Saihara’s. They’re soft, is the first thought that crosses Saihara’s mind, and his cheeks flame.
Saihara faintly tastes the remains of the strawberry and coffee cakes, his mouth opening to allow Ouma’s tongue some entrance. Honestly, he wouldn’t have ever expected his first kiss (yes, his first kiss), to have been a full on make-out session, but he really can’t complain. A messy first kiss, that’s for sure, but who can blame him when he’s been harboring a crush on his roommate-of-one-year for the past two years?
Ouma giggles against his lips, finally pulling back, and licks his lips. “Saihara-chan tastes like coffee, nishishi!” He teases, purple eyes sparkling. Saihara smiles softly, wrapping his arms around Ouma’s middle.
“Are we dating now?” He asks, propping his chin atop Ouma’s shoulder. Ouma snorts.
“I would be more surprised if we weren’t dating,” he comments. “Well, you’re lucky! You have the honor of dating Ouma Kokichi.”
“Yeah,” Saihara says, playing along. “I’m glad we’re dating now.”
He revels in the way Ouma splutters in embarrassment, pulling away with red cheeks. Cute, Saihara thinks giddily. Honestly, from baking in the middle of the night with his roommate, to becoming boyfriends? He wouldn’t have ever expected it.
Boyfriends. It has a nice ring to it.