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Tadashi has been together with Kei—properly, officially together—for two years now, but he can count the number of times he and Kei have gone out on actual dates on one hand. Oh, they stay in for dates all the time—they just don’t go out for them all that often.
Tadashi doesn’t mind it all that much.
He’s not sure what he expected when he and Kei got together; not sure he expected anything at all. He’d been so stupidly in love for so long that actually getting together with Kei almost seemed impossible, entirely out of reach.
And then Kei had found one of Tadashi’s dumb little notebooks filled with dumb little ‘Tsukishima Tadashi’ doodles, and suddenly, Tadashi had gone from the stupid boy pining for his best friend to the stupid boy dating his best friend.
So he doesn’t mind that dating Kei is not the ‘typical’ dating experience.
Truth be told, he’s perhaps even a little too smitten; Kei could come home and tell him that he’s murdered a guy, and Tadashi’s response would most likely be, “oh no, are your shoulders stiff now? Do you need a massage?”
But if he had had expectations, they would not overlap one bit with what Kei is actually like in a relationship.
He doesn’t go out with Tadashi not because he doesn’t care, but because he cares too much.
“I hate it when other people look at you,” he’d admitted four weeks into their relationship.
And Tadashi had been elated. Gods, he still is; so, so elated.
He loves it when Kei comes home and interrogates Tadashi about his day, just to make sure Tadashi didn’t miss anyone flirting with him, because apparently, sometimes Tadashi doesn’t notice.
He loves it when Kei goes through his phone as a safety precaution. Tadashi now has it set up so that Kei’s fingerprints unlock it too, so that Kei can open it whenever he feels the need to.
He loves that Kei had been the one to bring up moving in together, not even three months into their relationship.
Kei always wants to have an eye on everything Tadashi does, just to make sure, and Tadashi is so into him.
He’d thought that maybe, dating Kei wouldn’t be all that different from being friends with him, but Gods, he’d been so, so wrong about that. Boyfriend-Kei is everywhere, makes sure Tadashi never goes anywhere alone if it can somehow be avoided, and Tadashi adores that.
Because it means that Kei cares.
Kei cares so much.
Tadashi is so, so into Kei, and Kei is just as into him, and it’s possibly his favourite thing about dating Kei: that he not only gets to have him, but that Kei seems just as desperate to keep Tadashi as Tadashi is to keep Kei.
The side effect of that, however, is that they barely go out, and while Tadashi is genuinely fine with that usually, he’d also love to show his boyfriend off sometimes. His fiancé.
Kei proposed to him a week ago—finally!—and they’re hopefully getting married within the year, so now Tadashi has a beautiful ring on his finger and can call himself Kei’s fiancé.
The ring is lovely, and marks him beautifully; he already has a tattoo of Kei’s name, but the ring feels like a promise that this goes both ways, that Tadashi is not only Kei’s but Kei is his, too, and he’s only had it for a week, but he knows that if someone were to ask him to take it off, he’d cry.
But he has yet to show the ring off to his friends; he barely gets to see them, seeing as Kei doesn’t like it when Tadashi goes out without him, but Kei isn’t in the mood to go out and meet other people often, to keep an eye on them so that nobody flirts with Tadashi, and Tadashi doesn’t like making Kei upset.
But he’s desperate to meet them now, with Kei in tow: to show off his ring, and his fiancé, and gush for a few hours.
He’s wanted to be Tsukishima Tadashi since he was in primary school; he still can barely believe that now, at the age of twenty, he’ll finally get to fulfill this dream.
So he has to convince Kei to go out with him to see the rest of their friend group. That’s fine, it’s fine; Tadashi can do that. He’s managed before, he can manage now. If all else fails, he has well-practiced puppy-eyes to fall back on that Kei is pretty weak for.
His plan goes into action as soon as Kei comes home.
Tadashi is waiting for him wearing Kei’s clothes, which is both a strategic decision—Kei is usually much more agreeable whenever Tadashi is wearing his clothes—and one born out of Tadashi’s desire to be branded as Kei’s as loudly as possible at any given point.
And he just really loves wearing Kei’s clothes in general; they’re big and comfortable and smell and feel like Kei, and Tadashi daydreamed about what he’d look like in them a lot before they got together. It’s only fair he should get to wear them whenever possible now.
He’s cooked food for Kei, he’s even baked some strawberry shortcake, and he recorded that dinosaur documentary Kei mentioned a few days ago.
He’s ready with charm and food and puppy eyes at his disposal, and his pursuit is a noble one: he just wants to show off his fiancé.
Tadashi feels like his chances are good.
“Baby?” Kei says.
He’s walking tiredly into the living room of their apartment, and Tadashi immediately forgets all of his plans.
Kei looks tired, too; he’s slumped, and there are rings under his eyes, and his hair is ruffled in a way that indicates he kept touching his head with his hand in a gesture of distress.
Tadashi knows Kei, and he knows what a happy Kei looks like, and this isn’t it.
“Tsukki,” he half-whines, stumbling over his own feet in his haste to get to Kei and wrap his arms around him.
“Hi baby,” Kei says.
He softly wraps himself around Tadashi, planting a little kiss in his hair.
“How was your day?”
“Not very exciting, but I cooked for you!” Tadashi responds eagerly.
His days usually aren’t exciting; he’s taking mainly online courses at university. He only has one in-person lecture, on Tuesdays.
Because of this, he usually only leaves the apartment with Kei or to go grocery shopping.
Last semester, all of his courses were in person, and Kei got very grumpy about all the people who tried to talk to and hit on Tadashi, so he’s avoiding that possibility as best he can this time around.
He might become Kei’s housewife—househusband?—altogether after he finishes university; he wouldn’t mind at all, and he knows it would make Kei happy.
The thought of staying home and cooking for Kei and maybe raising a few children makes happy butterflies flutter in Tadashi’s stomach.
“What did you cook?” Kei asks, untangling himself from Tadashi.
Tadashi can feel all of his nerve cells go on alert, his body thrumming with energy, the way it always does when his cooking is about to be evaluated by Kei, when anything he’s done is about to be evaluated by Kei.
If he wants to be Kei’s housewife, he has to be a good housewife, he has to have Kei approve of and be happy with him! The mere thought of Kei deciding Tadashi isn’t good enough after all makes him feel panicked.
Tadashi can barely stand the few hours he’s separated from Kei during the day, he’d lose his mind if he’d suddenly have to learn how to live without him again.
“I made curry,” he proclaims proudly and leads the way into the kitchen.
“And strawberry shortcake,” Kei responds, his eyes zeroing in on it immediately.
“And strawberry shortcake,” Tadashi agrees happily.
His heart is beating elatedly; Kei has straightened up, taking in his favourite dish, and it makes Tadashi feel like a very accomplished house-spouse.
Kei carries a plate with him to the living room, foregoing the curry entirely; Tadashi doesn’t blame him for it. Kei seems to have had a hard day, and as long as Kei eats anything Tadashi has prepared and smiles, it’s a win in his book.
They settle under the kotatsu, Tadashi leaning against Kei.
He watches as Kei eats the strawberry shortcake, slowly, savouring it; watches how the tension slowly melts out of Kei the longer they sit there, Kei just eating and leaning into Tadashi’s side.
Something in Tadashi croons I can do that, I can make him happy, I can make him relax.
He would admonish himself for it—now is not the time—but he’s always been desperate to make sure Kei needs him just as much as Tadashi needs Kei. He’s not sure how he’d even stop.
So he just watches Kei eat, and is happy he can do this for him.
Eventually, Kei puts the plate to the side and just leans even more heavily into Tadashi’s space, wraps his arms around him and nuzzles his face into Tadashi’s hair.
He’s so physically affectionate; Tadashi didn’t think he would be, before they got together, but he is, and it’s easily Tadashi’s favourite thing in the world.
That he, of all people, gets a Kei who is not only affectionate but physically affectionate, seeks his touch.
It feels undeserved and heady and he wants to be good enough for Kei to never make it stop. He feels like he’d simply combust, burn to ashes beneath Kei’s very hands, if he’d have to give this up now, now that he’s gotten used to it.
“You stayed in, right?” Kei murmurs into Tadashi’s hair.
Tadashi nods eagerly against him, leans closer into Kei’s touch.
“I did,” he says, some pride swinging in his voice that he cannot suppress.
It’s a stupid thing to be proud of: that he did the bare minimum and stayed home, when he knows that’s what Kei wants him to do. Any good fiancé could do that.
But Tadashi wants Kei to be proud of him, even for doing the bare minimum, just because Tadashi did it so happily for Kei. He wants his behaviour to sing, I wouldn’t do this for anyone else, but for you I’ll do everything.
He wants Kei to know it: how happy he is to be Kei’s, to behave in a way that will make Kei happy.
“Good,” Kei says, sounding very pleased with both Tadashi and himself.
“I guessed so. You only smell like yourself and food today,” he adds a few seconds later.
He murmurs it into Tadashi’s hair, and Tadashi preens.
Kei is a sensitive person; he’s always been sensitive to sensory stimuli, to the point he gets overwhelmed quickly, and often needs some time in low-sensory environments to calm down again; Tadashi has known this since they were kids.
What he hadn’t been prepared for, however, was how much that would carry into their dating life: how often Kei would bury his face in Tadashi’s hair and smell the university and other people on him, and how much he’d hate it.
Tadashi used to shower right after coming home, every time, but that just felt disingenuous, like he didn’t want Kei to know how many people he’d come into contact with, but the smells of others on him made Kei uncomfortable, and no matter what option Tadashi picked, it just left him feeling unhappy.
It’s much better like this, when Kei doesn’t have to smell the outside and other people on Tadashi because Tadashi hasn’t been out.
“And your day was tiring, Tsukki?” Tadashi asks, softly.
Kei nods into his hair.
“I was surrounded by absolute idiots. I got asked by someone how the fucking copier works. You have to press one button.”
Tadashi snickers. He likes it when Kei laments about the idiots he’s surrounded with; Tadashi has always enjoyed gossip a little too much, enjoyed listening to Kei bitch about people, and the enjoyment he derives out of Kei’s bitching has only increased since he almost entirely stopped taking in-person classes and therefore significantly had to lower his own bitching.
Kei brings one hand up to pet Tadashi’s hair, and Tadashi leans into the touch.
“I’m so glad you, at least, have a brain,” Kei grumbles.
Because Tadashi is nothing if not predictable, he preens under that, too.
“Which reminds me. What did you want?”
Tadashi immediately starts feeling guilty. He hates that Kei can read him this easily.
“Who says I wanted something?” he asks, shiftily.
“Yamaguchi,” Kei says, sternly, and Tadashi flinches a little.
Kei barely calls him by his family name anymore.
“You think I don’t know how to read you? You definitely wanted to ask me something originally.”
“Well,” Tadashi says. Kei has got a point there.
“What is it, baby?” Kei asks, his voice now softer.
Tadashi sighs a little.
“I just—we haven’t gone out at all since we got engaged, Tsukki! And the ring is so pretty, and I love you so much, and just maybe I just wanted—could we maybe, possibly, meet up with some friends? The two of us? I just want to show off the ring a little! Tsukki please, texting people that we got engaged and showing people the ring in person is not the same thing at all!”
Kei lifts his face out of Tadashi’s hair.
They just look at each other for a moment; Tadashi feels pierced through by Kei’s gaze.
Finally, Kei says, “Sure.”
“Really?” Tadashi asks, excited.
“If you want to talk about how we got engaged and show the ring off a little, that’s more than alright with me,” Kei allows. “Just don’t embarrass me.”
By which Kei means that he’ll preen possessively while feeling absolutely embarrassed by having to admit that he actually got down on one knee and proposed to someone the entire time anyway.
“Thank you, Tsukki!” Tadashi says.
He feels like he might be sparkling.
If anyone deserves to sparkle, it’s him, the thinks. He’s just really, really excited; he’s Kei’s, and he’s engaged to Kei, and he’ll get to show it off to everyone.
Kei will let him go out and show his ring off to everyone!
He couldn’t ask for anything more.
He can’t wait to marry Kei.