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Reon’s cousin moves out of their shared apartment in Wakabayashi the August before their second year at Tohoku. His uncle (the owner of said apartment)’s only requirement to keep living there with the “family discount” (read: rent free) is to find an occupant for the second bedroom on his own.
He meets a few potential renters the week the ad goes up; two students who’d only been dating for a month and a businessman with a small, badly-trained parrot come to see the apartment before a man named Kindaichi replies to the ad. The name is familiar, but Reon can’t place it until he opens the door and sees a face that has definitely glared at him from the other side of a volleyball net on several occasions, standing next to a less-tall but equally onion-headed older man. The tall kid’s eyes widen.
They don’t talk about it until Kindaichi Sr. excuses himself to the washroom mid-way through the tour.
Kindaichi has his arms crossed, his gaze somewhere in the vicinity of the crack in the kitchen floor tile when Reon makes his first attempt to connect.
“You played high school volleyball, right?” he asks, and Kindaichi looks up at him in surprise.
“Yeah,” he replies. “I was a middle blocker at Aoba Johsai.” He takes a moment before asking, “You were at Shiratorizawa, weren’t you?”
Reon nods, smiling. “Yup. I knew I recognized you.” He keeps nodding, but Kindaichi’s eyes are back on the floor. The toilet flushes somewhere through the wall.
“You excited to start your first year?” Reon reaches again.
“Yeah,” Kindaichi says. “Yeah, mostly.”
“Nervous, huh? What are you in?
“Electrical engineering,” Kindaichi replies. There’s a moment of pause before he asks, “You?”
“Business,” replies Reon.
They come back to sign the lease the next week, and Reon helps Kindaichi and his parents carry his boxes out of the elevator the week after that. He makes himself scarce for the tearful goodbyes.
Kindaichi is a pretty attentive roommate, especially after living with Reon’s cousin; he usually does his dishes right away, and takes out the trash before it touches the lid without Reon needing to ask. He doesn’t leave any of his mugs in the living room, and spends most of his time in the apartment in his bedroom with the door shut.
Reon is reminded of how he felt when he first moved in with his cousin; all the furniture wasn’t his, the spices in the cabinet weren’t the brand he liked at home, it didn’t smell how he expected when he walked in the door. He tries making Kindaichi feel more comfortable in the space by chatting as he’s in the doorway leaving for class, or cooking dinner, or emerging out of his bedroom at 11am after clearly staying up all night (he’s a first year; Reon’s not surprised).
They make significant headway after Kindaichi catches Reon watching volleyball in the living room and elects (of his own accord!) to sit down and talk about it. Reon’s reminded of slowly befriending the wary cats that used to come around his parents’ yard.
Reon is pleased the first time Kindaichi has a friend over.
“This is Kunimi,” Kindaichi says, dropping his backpack on the floor next to the kitchen. “Is it cool if he hangs out for a while?” It’s the middle of the day and Reon is filling his water bottle at the sink before class while Kindaichi is just coming back from his own. Kunimi, a bored-looking guy with a middle part, raises a hand in greeting as he pulls off his sneakers with his heels. He looks familiar too; Reon wonders if he also played for Aoba Johsai.
“Of course,” replies Reon, twisting the lid back onto his bottle. “Stay as long as you like. I won’t be home until later.”
“Later,” as it turns out, is a relative term and highly subjective to interpretation. Reon realizes this when he opens the apartment door and makes direct eye contact with Kindaichi over Kunimi’s shoulder, clearly too busy with Kunimi’s tongue in his mouth to react quickly enough to shove him away.
Kindaichi tries anyway, pushing Kunimi off him, who slowly turns to look at Reon. He looks a little guilty, mouth shiny with spit, but Kindaichi looks like he might actually pass out, face turning ghastly and grey. A few seconds pass as Reon stands in the doorway, feeling rather large and weird, before Kindaichi speaks.
“Kunimi was just helping me cook,” he says, like he’s trying to convince himself. All three of them notice Reon’s glance to the completely bare counter behind them. Kunimi trains huge eyes onto Kindaichi. “We haven’t started yet but, um, that’s why we’re…”
“Okay,” says Reon, and bends to start unlacing his sneakers. He notices Kunimi tug at Kindaichi’s sleeve in the corner of his eye, and there’s the sound of hurried whispering he can’t quite make out. When he places his shoes in the organizer and steps out of the genkan, Kindaichi’s face has graduated from grey to red. Reon walks by the two on his way to his room, thinking about what he could possibly say to make sure Kindaichi doesn’t have his own things moved out by morning.
He decides on it’s okay.
“It’s okay if you were kissing,” he says, pausing at the edge of the kitchen. When Kindaichi’s eyes widen, Reon adds, “Or cooking. Both are okay, this is your apartment.”
“See?” murmurs Kunimi, elbowing Kindaichi gently in the side.
Kindaichi swallows. “Alright,” he says, as Reon gives him a smile and turns back towards the hallway between their bedrooms. He figures Kindaichi might not want to chat this time around.
“I’m sorry,” Kindaichi adds, as Reon enters the hallway. He takes a step back and turns to look. “When you said you’d be home later, I thought that meant like… later-later. I didn’t think you’d be home when we were still, um… cooking.”
“Don’t worry,” says Reon, leaning a shoulder against the wall. “You can cook all you want. Bake, even.”
Kindaichi nods, and even if he doesn’t smile at Reon’s joke, his shoulders seem to relax. Reon notices Kunimi’s hand reach out, fingers tangling into Kindaichi’s.
Later, as Reon tries not to doze off in front of his laptop before finishing his paper, Kindaichi knocks on his door. They talk, Kindaichi perched awkwardly in the doorway, but it’s the longest conversation they’ve had since they moved in together.
Kindaichi starts leaving his mugs on the coffee table, after that. Reon takes it as a win.