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The only time Ash had seen a dishwasher in action was around a year ago, when they went down to Los Angeles to investigate further about Banana Fish and he and the others had gone to Jessica's house, Max ex-wife. Ash had messed with after she suggested Eiji and him to model for her magazine; he figured mustard would be harder to take off the dishes when she washed them once it dried off, so he asked for even more mustard from her, calling her an old lady, just to add fuel to the fire. He knew she knew Ash was just trying to mess with her, she was actually smart, unlike her ex-husband.
Little did he know about her "dishwasher", which she turned on with a grin on her face as she looked at him, "you thought you were smart huh?". He didn't know how the machine worked, but he could obviously tell it washed the dishes on it's own judging by her smug attitude. Ash just left the room with a disgruntled face.
Ash had never seen a dishwasher in his life before. When he lived with Jim all the dishes were washed by hand by Jennifer, and when he lived with Dino he never came close to the kitchen, and when he finally managed to get some freedom and live by himself he always ate outside, either at Chang Dai or food from a food cart, so all the business of dish washing was alien to him.
That was, until he met Eiji, who quickly took the role of apparent house-wife and washed all the dishes by hand. Ash wondered why he did that and when he finally asked, Eiji just answered "because I like a clean house, and is good for stress".
Watching him do that sometimes made Ash feel uncomfortable, like he should be doing something, try to help out somehow, but Eiji always insisted on doing it himself and Ash struggled to understand why even after he told him he felt useless locked in that apartment all day because well, Eiji was helping out enough already! He took the pictures of Dino's men and he was always there to listen to him. And all the members of the gang liked to stop by to get some of his cooking whenever they could. After Eiji arrived their place was almost never empty, there was always people either looking after Eiji or enjoying some peaceful time on his company, it was good to have him around.
But he also wasn't going to get in between Eiji and things he wanted to do, because one, he always got away with whatever he wanted one way or another, and two, when Eiji got mad, he was a force to be reckoned with. People always liked to compare Ash to a devil, but they had clearly never seen Eiji pissed, so ultimately Ash let him wash the dishes by hand because it was easier than dealing with his antics.
But one day, he finally saw a chance to help Eiji around the house when he went to get Shorter and Sing from Chinatown for a game night at their apartment.
The opportunity was perfect, the gang members were all out on business, Kong and Bones were going to escort Eiji to Chinatown, their apartment was going to be entirely empty, just Ash. He could finally do house chores without anyone looking at him weird because of it.
They were probably going to be out for a while, he prayed line 6 was delayed.
He looked at the pile of dishes in the kitchen and his hopes went down the drain, there were at least seven different pots and pans full of grease, dark and sticky, bowls of different sizes with what he assumed were sauces of different colors stuck to them, three colanders apparently (what did Eiji even used them for?), six plates of different sizes used to put the food in, not counting the ones they used to eat, and he didn't even wanted to start counting the cutlery. And a blender, big and dangerous-looking, made of glass, precariously on top of everything else.
Looking back on it, he shouldn't have let Eiji cook another Japanese diner, he should've just asked for a shrimp salad.
He approached the sink, looked at the mess and tried to asses the situation, to approach the problem logically; but where was he supposed to even start!?. Did he needed a special chemical to get rid of the grease? the sponge didn't seem sturdy enough to fight it.
He grabbed one of the colanders that looked like an UFO from one of those aliens movies and it suddenly popped open, getting little droplets of dirty, greasy water all over him, staining his white t-shirt an ugly brown, shit.
He dropped the dishes, clearly trying to know what he was working with first was a mistake and he didn't want to get any more grease on him so he decided to look for the place where Eiji kept all his cleaning supplies first and work from there.
But where to even start? He barely used the kitchen so he didn't know where Eiji kept everything. He quickly discarded the top shelves, Eiji wouldn't keep necessary things out of his reach.
Ash let out a little chuckle, it was always cute the way Eiji reacted every time Ash teased him about his height, and- What was he even thinking!? he couldn't afford to get distracted at times like these, focus Ash, Focus! he said to himself.
At the third try, when he finally opened the cabinet under the sink, he found the cleaning supplies, good! now all he needed was to know... what... each one... did.
Well, he wasn't going to read all that, good for them, or sorry that happened. Although, the one in a sorry state was himself.
He unlocked his phone and he quickly typed "how to wash the dishes" on YouTube. The first video just had the face of a man who was apparently, Khaby Lame? he clicked on it without thinking much of it, he only had so much time and the video was only 15 seconds long, it had to be enough.
As it turned out, it wasn't enough, the video was just the man reacting to how ridiculous some "hacks" were. Other videos were lengthy, eleven minutes was the default mark of the videos that had faces of white women smiling with white kitchens on the background, and labeled white vases that contained the cleaning supplies.
Leaving aside how creepy the vibe was on those thumbnails, the time he had was very limited now, he sighed, and finally faced the dishes again. Then he looked down at his stained t-shirt, and then at the pink apron Ash had teasingly bought Eiji with the words "best moma" embroidered inside a red heart with white lace framing the heart.
Karma was a bitch.
Defeated, he took the apron and put it on. He could imagine the face Eiji would make if he saw him like this.
He ventures on his own then, and starts with the blender, without soaking it in water first, he puts dish soap directly on the sponge and starts rubbing the blender, first on the outside, and then on the inside, which was gross and had remains of a sauce at the bottom that just wouldn't go away.
He dipped his hand further down and started scratching the sauce underneath the blades when suddenly he felt a sharp pain on his fingers.
"AH! Crap!" He yelled out, more in surprise than pain if he was being honest, who would've thought those blades would be so freaking sharp!? He barely even grazed them!
That was it, he couldn't do this anymore, he had already done everything he could and failed, there was no way in this world that he would ever go near dishes and sponges again.
While holding his hand underneath the water on the sink he looked at their dishwasher.
"Fuck taking the high road" Ash mumbled. And what if it was cheating? the dishes were going to get cleaned after all, weren't they?
Ash also didn't know how to use a dishwasher, but it couldn't be rocket science, right? Just, put the dishes in and let it do it's magic, right? Right.
That thing looked so old, it seemed like they pulled it straight from the 60's, maybe they actually did. It was full of rust and sketchy stains that just wouldn't go anywhere even if Eiji tried his best to take them out, the door was faulty and couldn't close all the way, but he had to make do with it anyways. Shit had gotten personal now.
He loaded the dishes (nevermind they got blood smeared on them, they were getting washed anyways) and was about to close the door- when he realized he had forgotten about the dish soap. Where the fuck was he supposed to put it? Bah, he couldn't care any less, he sprayed it over the dishes and closed the door.
Tried to. He pushed a little harder, nothing. The water would leak for sure. He pushed it with his hip three times, until he heard a loud click.
He puled on the handle, didn't budge. Again. No luck. Now the door wouldn't open...
But that was a problem for later. Those dishes were getting washed Right Now.
Okay! Good!
Now all he needed was to turn it on.
There were several buttons with words that mean little to nothing to him. What did "Sani cycle" even mean? and "plate warm"? What? Why would you want to warm your plates on the dishwasher?
He settled on the button that said "normal wash" on god that's the only thing he needed right now, just normal please.
When he pushed the button he was startled by the loud 'BRRRRRRR' of the machine pouring water over the dishes.
He hit his hand against the kitchen counter and was unpleasantly reminded he still had a bleeding wound to attend to, so he went to his and Eiji's bedroom to clean and bandage his wounds.
After washing his hands to get rid of the food and blood that coated his hands, he sat on the bed to clean his cuts, they weren't that deep, but small amounts of blood were still pouring from them, he put the cotton soaked with alcohol over them and resisted the urge to yelp at the pain and grunted instead. His face must be so red.
He finally opened his mouth to breathe after the pain subdued a little and started bandaging his fingers with tape.
Ash was just about to finish when he suddenly caught a faint smell of something getting burned.
He looked up and across the hallway.
*WAS THAT SMOKE COMING FROM THEIR KITCHEN-!?*
—
Finally, after an hour on the freezing cold of autumn in New York Eiji was finally back at One Columbus Place with everyone on tow.
Picking Sing and Shorter was actually very quick, he was expecting his trip to chinatown to be at least two hours long, but fortunately, they were already waiting for him at the station, so they all quickly jumped on a train back.
The elevator wasn't working because of maintenance, so they had to take the stairs all the way over to their apartment, with Sing and Shorter at the front and Kong and Bones right behind Eiji, as it had become custom for them.
"-And no cheating this time man!" Sing reproached Shorter. They had been talking about the last time they gathered for game night, when Shorter had beaten everyone on monopoly, but Eiji had seen the faces Shorter and Ash threw to each other, he was convinced that Ash, who "casually" decided to be the bank, had been handing Shorter more money under the table than what he actually needed. Only they knew what plans they had for today.
Shorter put a hand to his heart "Ah!, I am pained you'd think I would use such low tricks to win! Dishonor! Dishonor on you! Dishonor on your cow-!" Shorter pretended to faint over Sing.
"Ugh- Shorter. Move!" Sing tried to push him off "you weight like an elephant!"
"This muscles don't come for free, baby" Shorter pointed out with a smirk and proceeded to kiss his biceps and show them off.
Eiji laughed as they finally reached their floor.
"Eiji~! My dear boy~" the guys were startled by an older woman who came out of an apartment that was next to the stairs.
They could smell her perfume from where they stood, it smelled old, but in a good way, and she looked like the witch from the waste but on her good days, you could tell that even though she clearly was 80 years old, she still took care of herself, she dressed flamboyantly and used lots of complementary jewelry. She held a mean-looking brown cat with her right hand.
"How are you Mrs. Coleman?" said Eiji.
"Oh, you know, the usual, the usual" she motioned at nothing in particular with her left hand.
"Guys, you go ahead, I have to talk business with Mrs. Coleman" Eiji said looking back at them. At this, the old woman smiled mischievously.
The guys behind Eiji all looked at each other a little confused.
"O-okay, we will handle the groceries then" Sing reassured Eiji. "Yo, Kong, Bones, grab the other two bags" said Shorter, and with that the boys headed to the apartment a few meters down the hall.
Mrs. Coleman saw them take a few steps away from them and then turned to Eiji with a sly smile. "So! Eiji~ how are things going with Mr. Handsome?" she wiggled her eyebrows as she said that.
"Well, actually-"
He then heard a loud crash followed by a very loud
"BROOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO"
and a very alarmed
"BOSS!!!!!!!!"
Eiji turned back to Mrs. Coleman "Could you excuse me for a moment?" he gave her his most polite bow and smile and he sprinted to their apartment.
He ran towards the front door and froze at the frame.
In front of him, Shorter was with his phone held high, in selfie mode, waving at the camera, and a very desperate Sing trying to take the phone away from him pleading "Shorter please! Stop!".
He looked to his left, where the camera was pointing at and-
He could not believe what he was looking at.
Kong and Bones jumping from one side to another, holding their heads on their hands and screaming frantically "Boss! Boss! what do we do!!??"
"Don't just stand there! bring more towels to put the fire out!" Eiji looked at Ash as he said that.
Ash...
Ash was wearing his apron, his hair was disheveled, and there were stains of blood on the towel he was trying to put out the fire with, desperately hitting at the dishwasher where it was.
He couldn't just stand there, so he ran back to the end of the hallway to grab the fire extinguisher that was next to the stairs. Mrs. Collins just stared dumbfounded as the scene developed.
Eiji thrashed through the front door, dashed towards the kitchen, took the lock out of the fire extinguisher, pointed at the source, and pressed the handle.
The force with which the CO2 came out was stronger than he expected and the hose started to move around wildly, smearing some over Ash, Kong and Bones, who stopped dead on their tracks like statues before Eiji could get it back into control and direct it towards the source of the fire a split second later.
He kept on holding the handle down, until there was no trace of the fire at all and most of the fire extinguisher was empty.
Eiji just kept staring at the burned down dishwasher in disbelief gasping for breath as his adrenaline levels came down. That was, until he heard Ash's voice:
"E-Eiji, I'm cold-" He had his eyes closed and was holding the towel mid-air, immovable like a statue.
"Oh! sorry! sorry!" Eiji left the extinguisher on the floor and hurried to get the towel from his hand and ran it through the hot tap water and came back to gently caress Ash's face with it until most of his skin came back to a normal temperature. Ash slowly opened his eyes again and looked directly at Eiji's eyes, he gasped and became flustered again.
"Eiji I- I'm sorry I-"
Kong and Bones started coughing and that's what made Eiji finally look away from Ash.
"Sing, please" He looked at Sing pleadingly and Sing understood right away. "Sure thing" he grabbed the towels from Kong and Bones and did the same Eiji did, ran them under the hot water and gave them to them so they could clean themselves up.
"Aaand there you have it folks, never leave your cats alone in your house, you never know what they're up to and you may come home to some nasty surprises! take care of your pets! peace out!"
Eiji and Sing both looked at him with disdain.
"HAHA- What!? Aww come on, the joke was on point, and we thankfully had Eiji here to save the day!" he hugged Eij by the shoulders as Eiji pouted and proceeded to shrug him off.
"I'm glad I at least knew where the fire extinguisher was".
"Okay! Time to start cleaning the mess" said Shorter. Eiji started standing up when Shorter pressed him down to the chair again, "nah nah, this one's on me, you stay here and tend to the battered kitten you have in front of you, on God he looks like he could use some help" Shorter snorted.
"HEY!" yelled Ash.
"Thank you, for being this kind I'll-" started to say Eiji, but Shorter interrupted him.
"What do you mean? I'm always this kind" he said as he smiled down to him.
Eiji huffed, and after Shorter walked away he turned to Ash again.
"So ummm.... What in hell happened?"
"I- triedtowashthedishesbutitwastoodifficultsoIusedthedishwasherinstead" Ash mumbled.
"What was that? I'm japanese and english no good speak, say again?"
Ash scowled at Eiji and repeated himself in a clearer voice, "I tried to wash the dishes but it was too difficult so I tried to use the dishwasher instead. That thing was so old some wires probably overheated and burned the wood of the lattice. There, happy?"
Eiji tried to contain his laughter, and maybe it was that his adrenaline had finally worn out and a huge sense of relief washed over him, but he just couldn't contain himself as he bursted out laughing.
"BWAHAHA ASH- Oh my-" he cleaned the tears from his eyes with the back of his hand. "Thank you, for-" he giggled some more, "thank you for your effort, I'm glad you were not badly hurt". He looked up to Ash again with a tender gaze and he pressed his hand against Ash's cheek. "Seriously, I'm glad you're safe".
Ash softened his gaze and placed his hand on top of Eiji's as Eiji ran his thumb over his cheekbones.
"By the way, you look so sexy on that apron" said Eiji with a suggestive smirk on his face.
"You really had to say that right now..."
"You know I was gonna die if I didn't".