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Back when he still lived with his parents, Reo never particularly looked forward to coming back home; he’d accepted it as part of a routine, sure, but it was never much more than that. He’d dreaded it in the years that the relationship between him and his parents was especially tense, postponing it by spending his evenings dragging Nagi anywhere and everywhere. Home had been little more than a place to rest, a place to hear out his parents’ complaints and plans for his future. His neutrality towards it stayed even after he moved out on his own; maybe even intensified, the plain and empty walls of his apartment dampening his mood.
It’s different now, though.
Now, he cocks open the front door and slips inside, quiet in an attempt to keep his early return a surprise. He slips off his shoes, places them slightly on the rack, smiles at the faint melody being hummed in the kitchen. It’s nothing he recognizes, his taste too sophisticated for the Billboard’s Hot 100 playlist that Kunigami has the habit of listening to, but Reo wracks his brain for a title anyway as he takes the brief detour of washing his hands.
He takes another detour to leave his suit jacket tossed over the back of their couch so he can coo at their still unnamed cat when she moves to brush his calves, before finally entering the kitchen.
“Hey,” Kunigami says, as soon as Reo drapes himself over his back and hides his face in his shoulders. He doesn’t so much as startle at the sudden contact, and instead presses a kiss to the crown of Reo’s head. “You’re home early.”
Reo hums in reply, smiling into the fabric of Kunigami’s hoodie; it’s soft, overwhelmingly so in comparison to his own work clothes, and Reo presses his cheek further into the material. He gives himself a few seconds of that, to relax, before he lifts his head and hooks his chin on Kunigami’s shoulder, gaining a front row seat to watching him peel apples in measured strokes. He’s wearing the apron Reo got him as a gift years ago, he notices, the pattern on it half-faded, and the little bow tied around his neck tickles Reo’s cheek.
“Did I manage to surprise you this time?”
Kunigami smiles, half-heartedly trying to bite it back. “You're not as quiet as you think you are,” he tells him, light laughter on his breath, and their cat meows her agreement from the hallway. “It might’ve worked if you just came straight into the kitchen, you know, instead of announcing your arrival by clattering around the whole place.”
“I literally just took off my shoes and washed my hands,” Reo whines, “and left my jacket in the living room. You’d kick me out of the kitchen if I hadn’t.” Kunigami nods his agreement, smile widening at Reo’s petulant tone. In retaliation, Reo wraps his arms tighter around his midriff and uses his fingers to tug at the fabric of his apron. “Were you really not the slightest bit surprised?”
“Maybe a little,” Kunigami says; it’s better than nothing, even if he’s always been a shit liar. “Next time, you should stop Yukimiya from phoning and ruining the surprise, you know. Like he did this time. And last time. And the time before, too, I think. Matter of fact, you should probably stop enlisting him in your get-out-of-work schemes. And stop making those to being with, as a self-proclaimed hotshot future CEO.”
“What I’m getting from this is I should find a new accomplice,” Reo says and Kunigami gives him a funny little sigh to play into the act. “Wait,” he pulls slightly away from Kunigami to better see his expression, “he has your number?”
“He’s your bestie,” Kunigami says by way of explanation, not taking his eyes off the apple in his hands. Reo opens his mouth to fall into his usual rant of how he’s not really besties with Yukimiya, that instead they have a rather complicated frenemy thing going on because Yukimiya’s as annoying as he is helpful, but Kunigami beats him to the chase: “and we’re friends, too, so. Of course he has my number.”
“Since when are you friends?”
“Since you used to drag me to half of your weekly coffee dates with him, last year, when you couldn’t stand his ass,” Kunigami says. Reo remembers that, albeit very vaguely. “He helped me organize your birthday party last year—and, as I’m sure you remember, he used to crash our dates at your apartment all the time. We’ve been here less than a month and he’s already come over unannounced more than a handful of times.”
“Maybe it’s high time we apply for a witness protection program,” Reo mutters. “I can’t keep having him ruin all my plans like this.”
“Or you could just not call him when you leave work early.”
“Where’s the fun in that?”
Kunigami rolls his eyes as he picks up the last unpeeled apple. He starts peeling it and Reo watches over his shoulder, in silent awe at his motor skills; the one time he’d tried peeling something with a knife he’d cut himself nearly five times. “I am happy you’re home early, though.”
He flushes as he says it—not as much as he would’ve a month ago, when they first moved into their shared apartment, but enough to make the freckles splattered across his skin blend into his cheeks more. Reo tilts his head on Kunigami’s shoulder, getting a better look, and grins at the way Kunigami struggles to keep his eyes steady in front of him.
“Aw,” he says, “you really missed me?”
“I’m happy you’re home early, since it means you can help me,” Kunigami amends. “That’s all.”
“Sounds like you missed me, in my expert opinion.”
“You’re the one who calls me on all your lunch breaks.” It’s a low blow, because sure, maybe that’s exactly what Reo does, but Kunigami fails to consider the fact that none of Reo’s coworkers are him. So. Checkmate, Reo thinks. “Sounds like you missed me.”
“Yeah, right,” Reo scoffs. When Kunigami gathers his peels into a tiny pile and leans to the side to throw it into the trash, Reo leans along with him, making it difficult to keep balanced, and definitely not proving his point.
“Since we got that settled,” Kunigami says, pausing as he reaches to pull out a proper knife, “aren’t you going to help me?”
“Mmmm, no, I think I’d rather watch my trophy husband cook than do anything else.”
“You can watch me cook while helping me,” Kunigami says. He slices the first apple in half then cuts out the core with practiced ease. Reo watches as he reduces the two halves into a pile identical little cubes, and steals a few of them from the cutting board to pop into his mouth. “And we’re not married.”
“Yet,” Reo tacks on, unable to stop himself. Kunigami shakes his head but he can’t repress his smile nor the way his skin burns, and Reo thinks about the little box he has tucked away at the far back of his nightstand drawer and about the little box he accidentally found tucked away in Kunigami’s, too. “Besides, you don’t really want my help. You always say I’m a nuisance in the kitchen.”
“Because you latch onto me instead of helping me. Like you’re doing right now.”
“What's the point of having a trophy boyfriend if he can’t even cook by himself?”
“I do have a job, you know. Don’t think that lets me qualify as a trophy anything.”
“And yet I still come home to find you cooking for me in a silly little apron I got for you,” Reo grins, using his fingers to tug on the drawstrings of said apron, unable to make the bow around Kunigami’s waist even budge with the knot he’s tied. “Screams trophy boyfriend to me.”
“Trophy boyfriends don’t cook,” Kunigami tells him. “Their sole job is to look pretty and smile.”
Reo rolls his eyes. “Fine,” he says. “Screams househusband to me, then.”
“Because I’ve never once come home to find you cooking for me.”
“Well. Not this home.”
“You know what I mean.”
Reo gives a few more tugs on the drawstrings of Kunigami’s apron. “The few times I have ended up in you banning me from your kitchen. My kitchen, too, actually! You don’t even let me make you breakfast these days.”
“You’re not banned,” Kunigami says, though his voice falters against the rhythm of his knife to the cutting board. “You’re just not the greatest chef, to put it lightly.”
“Not the greatest chef!”
“Or baker,” he tacks on. “Or anything to do with the kitchen.”
“Thanks,” Reo says. He ducks his head, hiding his face against Kunigami’s back, effectively muffling his voice when he speaks. “Nothing beats hearing words of support like these from my lovely boyfriend when I come home after a long, grueling day of work.”
Kunigami brushes right past Reo’s dramatics, for better or for worse.
“You’ve burned all the dinners you tried to make for me,” he says, taking on the role of a food critic a bit too seriously—and it makes perfect sense why he and Yukimiya became friends, actually. “I love you, really, but there’s a reason I’m the one who cooks. I cooked most of the times we ate at your old place, too.”
“In all fairness, that’s because we mostly met up at my apartment,” Reo says. “Yours wasn’t enough of a shower to warrant hanging out there too often.”
“Classist asshole. Thanks.”
“It was homey?” Reo laughs when Kunigami moves to elbow him, just barely managing to dodge. It forces him to let go of Kunigami, but he solves that problem easily enough by slipping into the space right next to him, leaning on the counter and holding up his hands in surrender. “Kidding. Kidding! I loved it, promise.”
“Really? You called it a shit hole like a hundred times, at the very least.”
“In my defense, you had three nosy roommates,” Reo tells him. He gets an unimpressed look in return as Kunigami sets down his knife and goes to rinse his hands, but it’s not like he’s lying; Kunigami’s former roommates were nosy as all hell, as bad as Yukimiya, and hanging out at his apartment was impossible without at least one of them butting in. “You can’t fault me for preferring my sexy roommate-less apartment. You preferred it, too, didn’t you? Anyone with a brain would.”
“I can fault you for being an asshole about it,” Kunigami tells him. Reo pouts, watching as Kunigami wipes his hands on the apron and finds his way back to him again, then meets his eyes as he goes to loosen Reo’s tie. “Couldn’t have taken it off in the car?”
“Well,” Reo leans back against the counter, forcing Kunigami to lean forward after him, “I heard bitches love a man in uniform.”
“You’re wearing a dress shirt and tie. It’s not really a uniform.”
“I’m also wearing slacks,” Reo adds helpfully. “I can go put on my suit jacket, too, if you want. If that’ll complete the look.”
“A suit isn’t a uniform,” Kunigami tells him.
“It’s better than nothing, isn’t it?” Reo wraps his arms around Kunigami’s shoulders, settling one of his hands against the back of his neck, skimming the ends of his undercut. He pulls him closer, too, almost making him smash his head into the cabinets. “Oops.”
“Reo,” Kunigami says, voice chastising, near exasperated, though he doesn’t make a move to pull away. Instead he does the opposite, giving Reo’s tie a tug before his hands slip to bracket Reo’s sides. “You’re ridiculous.”
“You like it,” Reo says.
Kunigami sighs. “I do,” he says, unable to keep up the act of being pained about it as his mouth curls into a smile, and Reo mirrors it before pulling him into a kiss. Kunigami indulges him for a brief moment before he pulls away and Reo gives chase to his mouth. “I also need to finish preparing everything before our friends get here. I’m already running late.”
“Don’t say that,” Reo groans, giving up and knocking his forehead against Kunigami’s. “Can’t we call it off? We should call it off. I hate having dinner with your friends.”
“You don’t hate having dinner with my friends,” Kunigami says. Reo thinks that’s not the thing to focus on, but whatever; he decides it’s secondary to everything else, as Kunigami grazes his side with his hand, hooking his thumb through the belt loop of his slacks. “You like Isagi’s company just fine.”
“Moment of weakness,” Reo says. “I’m never prepared for him to be a fellow stock connoisseur, and routinely fall under his spell for a few hours. I’m prepared now.”
“You like Bachira, too.”
“Yeah, until I found out he reads tabloids.”
Kunigami pauses, brows knotting together. “You read tabloids.”
“I don’t base my entire personality off it,” Reo says, because he doesn’t, and ignores Kunigami’s muttered disagreement. “I occasionally dabble in reading tabloids. Bachira runs a gossip blog. There’s a difference.”
“Right,” Kunigami says, sounding as though he doesn’t buy it in the slightest. Reo huffs, tugs on the apron string around his neck. “But you agree that you have the affinity for gossip in common, yeah?”
“Yeah, if I have to.”
“So it’s not going to be that bad,” he reasons, “you can talk with Bachira about gossip and with Isagi about stocks. Doesn’t that sound like you’re about to be having the time of your life?”
“And what’s your proposed topic for Chigiri?”
Kunigami pauses, narrowing his eyes at Reo as he thinks. Reo waits, drums his fingers against his skin, before Kunigami’s features relax into a smile. “You do hate having dinner with Chigiri,” he admits, more amused than anything else.
“I have having dinner with Chigiri because he hates me,” Reo says, like a child, even though it’s been long since he and Chigiri truly hated each other; they’ve had to sit through way too may events together for that to be the case. Still, Reo thinks he’d rather die ten times over than admits he holds any sort of positive feelings towards him, so. “Ugly ass. Couldn’t we have not invited him?”
“You wanted to,” Kunigami reminds him. Reo opens his mouth to protest—and remembers that Kunigami’s not lying; he did, a few days back when they were thinking of inviting a few friends over and Reo felt like a little angel, full of forgiveness and patience and other catholic bullshit. “I suggested just inviting the couples, justify leaving him out with that.”
“I still think we should’ve just invited your sisters over instead. They like me.”
“You get along too well,” Kunigami says. He presses a small kiss to the top of Reo’s head before he straightens in his spot, seemingly determined to get back to work. Reo rolls his eyes but he follows suit, letting his hands slip from the back of Kunigami’s neck to his shoulders before letting go of him completely. “I’m not having you and Itsuka gang up on me again.”
“You like it,” Reo says, jabbing an accusatory finger at Kunigami’s chest. “You told me multiple times it’s nice to see us get along. You can’t lie your way out of this one. Besides, Itsuka told me I’m funny. And Cool. I think that’s reason enough to have at least her over again.”
“Itsuka's nice, she says that to everyone,” Kunigami tugs on Reo’s belt loop, once, twice, before slipping his thumb out. “Don’t let it go to your head.”
“I could tell she meant it.”
“Okay, empath.”
“You’re just jealous because she doesn’t think you’re funny or cool.”
“I couldn’t care less what my sister thinks of me, I promise,” Kunigami catches Reo’s hand in his, intertwines their fingers, and Reo gives him an unimpressed look in response. “I do care what our friends think, and they’re gonna get on our asses if they arrive and nothing is ready, so. You helping me or not?”
“That feels like your problem to deal with, no?”
“We’re cohosts,” Kunigami tells him. He tugs on Reo’s hand, skips his thumb over his skin, and gives him a sad little frown. “You’re supposed to at least pretend to help me.”
“You’re not as good at guilt tripping as you think you are,” Reo says with a heavy sigh, “but fine, I’ll help you. If I fuck something up it’s not on me, though.”
“Of course not,” Kunigami beams at him and Reo’s mouth lifts in a smile right back. “Now, let me just find the right pan…”