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Seijuurou is always quick to rise in the morning. He arranges his pillows after fluffing them up, stacks them one by one, and checks his cellphone for messages. If the day requires nothing from him, then he spends a few minutes brushing up on world news and takes notes on the trends of the stock markets. They will surely serve their purpose later in meetings, since he doesn’t believe in relying on his financial department for their numbers.
Tetsuya, on the other hand, likes to lay undisturbed. Legs tangled in cotton sheets, hugging a bolster when it should’ve been Seijuurou’s arm, burying his face in sponge when it could’ve been Seijuurou’s shoulder. The rhythmic rise and fall of his chest—inhale, exhale, inhale, exhale. Muffled words and incoherent sounds. Eyelashes quivering once or twice, a daydream playing behind his eyelids.
When he wakes, he recites his dreams to Seijuurou lucidly, like an elegant poetry the Gods blessed him in his sleep. Only the good dreams, of course. Seijuurou is quick to chase away the nightmares with his kisses when Tetsuya awakens with a gasp on his lips.
“Good morning, Akashi-kun.”
“Good morning, Kuroko.”
Outside, sunrise splits the weak skies open like a golden melon, bathing their room in putrid yellows from the curtains.
Breakfast is served in the form of eggs. Scrambled eggs. Boiled eggs. Half-boiled eggs. Sunny side up; yolk oozes from the wound when Seijuurou spears them. They’re ineggspensive, hardly denting Tetsuya’s wallet, and offers a healthy diet for the two. Often on sale for ¥99 past 7 p.m. in their local supermarket, Tetsuya picks out the weekly groceries, and Seijuurou rolls the trolley along.
Putting the sizzling pan away in the sink, Tetsuya splashes it with a jet of cold water. Steam rises. He coughs. So begins Tetsuya’s tiresome progress of scrubbing out the burnt bits with a silver brush. “What time do you have to go to the office today?”
Precariously perched on a rickety stool, Seijuurou pauses mid-sip into his coffee. “Nine,” he finally answers, finally letting the tepid liquid touch his lips. “The meeting won’t be starting until ten, but I want to look through some reports that came in yesterday night. Some of them pulled all-nighters in preparation for today.”
“Sounds big.” Tetsuya laughs. “Are you coming back for lunch?”
Seijuurou thinks this over his next sip. “I don’t think so.”
His answer gets Tetsuya looking at him over his shoulders, hands nimbly rinsing suds from the dishes. “I thought of doing the laundry later, but the weather forecast said it might rain this evening. If you’re not returning for lunch, then I’ll do the laundry tonight.” Then, a bit too mischievously, the corner of Tetsuya’s lips tugs into a wry smile. “If not, we’ll run out of fresh clothes to wear.”
Facing domestic crises like this has lost its charm on Seijuurou. Once upon a time, he thought it was a cute idea to see Tetsuya running around in two-day-old shirt while busily sorting out the whites; now, it’s a haunting dilemma imagining himself going to work in yesterday’s shirt and crooked tie. What a disaster. Who knew living out of the Akashi manor could be so hard on him.
No more maids pressing his shirts to a crisp, no more butlers announcing today’s lunch, no more drivers parading him around town.
Instead, Tetsuya guides his hands to fold cotton shirts and linen sheets to perfection, texts him the necessary ingredients to make dinner, and rides shotgun just so he’d be Seijuurou’s private GPS to the world.
“I’ll return to pick up the laundry,” Seijuurou decides, already up on his feet as he piles the mug onto his plate, handing them over to Tetsuya’s accepting hands. “We can’t risk running out of clothes.”
Beautiful, beautiful Tetsuya with his unruly morning bed head, wearing the ghastliest dish gloves, throws his head back and laughs.
Tetsuya has always been foolishly stubborn.
But that’s what makes him endearing. Foolishly endearing dog. Someone should collar his neck and hand Seijuurou the chains, befitting of his status. Brand him for being the beast he is. It’s the best way of dealing with stubborn ones. But Tetsuya does not like being controlled, nor being branded. He’d shake his head and bite the chain from Seijuurou’s hand, only to toss it far from a human’s grasp.
Nobody will control him.
Not even Seijuurou.
”—what do you mean you’re not coming for lunch!?” Daiki hollers from the other line. If he goes a pitch higher, he could audition for the nearest opera as their lead soprano. ”So this is how it goes, huh? You said you’re gonna find some time for old friends—“
At times, the Lakers player defeats a diva on screen even though he’s a full-time basketball junkie, and at times, he reverts to Satsuki’s trope of a ganguro gangster prowling the streets. Seijuurou simply can’t decide which character Daiki’s channeling through their phone call. “Aomine, I repeat—“
”—and your secretary told us to make an appointment with you even though we’re your ex-teammates—“
“Can you tell him to shut up before I punch him?” Taiga bluntly interjects, his gruff voice carrying over Daiki’s near-hysterical shouts. ”He’s worse than—“
“You’re not the one who had to be on-hold for fifteen minutes just to get a chance to talk to this guy, and you’re not the one who came back from halfway across the Earth just to catch up with this guy—“
With every phone call Seijuurou receives from his old friends, it’s always borderline catatonic when it comes from Daiki, like the cellphone is an earth-shattering invention he’s never had the chance to use before. Poor Daiki’s never been good at words, what with his appalling 5% in Japanese Language back in Teiko; a dire contrast with Seijuurou’s circled 100% sitting on the top right hand corner of his exam papers. Naturally, Seijuurou sees no reason to get angry at Daiki for behaving like he’s still 14.
“I promised Kuroko to pick up the laundry later,” Seijuurou responds, casually checking his wristwatch to consult the time. Ah, perfect. Thirty minutes to twelve. “I’m sorry for having to reschedule suddenly, Aomine, when you’ve come all the way from LA to see me—“
The guffaw that erupts from the earpiece almost makes Seijuurou drop his phone. ”Wait, are you serious!? Tetsu made you do the laundry? Holy shit—“
“Don’t mess with Kuroko, if he says you gotta do your laundry, you gotta do your laundry even if you’re the CEO,” Taiga chimes in warningly, expectantly, almost as though he’s reliving some grim nightmare back in his Seirin days with the shadow. ”Hey Akashi, listen—s’okay if you can’t make it today, we can always find some other guys to bug. Just—just do your laundry, okay?”
“Just to clarify with you in case it wasn’t clear enough,” the redhead sighs, “I offered to do the laundry out of my own volition. There was no need for Kuroko to force me at all. I’m aware of my own responsibilities.”
”Sure, sure, because you know if you refuse, Tetsu’s Ignite Punch will be waiting for you.”
Seijuurou’s itchy fingers folded the corner of the report sitting before him, rolls a pen halfway across the stretch of white continent, and begins drumming the table on their own. “It has evolved to Ignite Punch Kai, if you must know.”
The immature snorts and hooting laughter bursting from the other line strangely doesn’t bug Seijuurou, as he finds himself smiling at the nostalgic sound resonating throughout the lonely room.
Street basketball and identical red-white uniforms, righteous Vorpal Swords versus fallible Jabberwocks, Coach Kagetora’s guerrilla training and Tetsuya’s rough hands when Seijuurou tucks a kiss on his blistered palms, Tetsuya’s tender smile when he tiptoes and plants one on Seijuurou’s forehead, and just Tetsuya’s misty eyes when Seijuurou leans forward and whispers an open secret into his ear.
There’s no hiding it.
Seijuurou is not a god.
Nor does he work as a weather anchor on NHK afternoon news segment, which is the closest physical equivalent of a rain god.
As soon as he parks his car outside the gates of their shared residence, the pregnant clouds following him from office conveniently rip open and scatter cold drops in their wake. It must’ve been a challenge from the divine forces above, you see, for wrenching away the gods’ greatest treasure and making him a captive of Seijuurou’s love. So they simply must devastate and hurl obstacles in Seijuurou’s every path just to see him suffer.
By the time he’s taken refuge at the front door, Seijuurou drenched from head to toe. There’s cold rain water pooling in his leather shoes and wet socks squeeze his feet in a sticky mess. He could’ve unlocked the house to warm himself up before battling the natural forces, yet promises of clean laundry solidly remains his priority.
Seijuurou leans his briefcase against the door sill and readies himself to plod through the rain, but stops short.
“Oh.”
What’s left of Tetsuya’s hard work on pinning their shorts and sweats are scattered over the front lawn in a medley of colours, soaking up brown puddles. Somewhere in the daub of green by the bushes is Seijuurou’s favourite black hoodie, and resting on the veranda is Tetsuya’s boxers. The only thing worth an honourable mention is how Tetsuya’s wristbands held his fighting spirits as they cling onto the clotheslines with all their might, despite the pegs nearly coming off in the turbulence.
Systematically plotting his tactics on catching all these clothes whilst bracing the rain, Seijuurou finalises his strategy with a nod. Pulling his sleeves all the way to his elbow and slicking back his bangs, ten minutes later he’s already out on the battlefield again, getting pelted in the eyes by fat bullets of water.
Seijuurou: 1.
Rain: 0.
The thing about washing machines is that…
“No—it’s the button closest to the left.”
… they often have too many buttons for just a simple action.
In theory, there are only two important things required to operate the machine: START and STOP. In practice, Seijuurou isn’t sure what he should press when there are buttons bigger than his eyeball with the words SPIN and TIMER and SOAK and everything else that he’s never considered before. What is the correct sequence of actions? Only Tetsuya knows, as he is the rightful owner of the washing machine from the day he bought it.
Cradling the phone with his shoulder while sorting the muddied whites from the colours, Seijuurou glances at the LED panel and spots glowing notches next to the image of a half-filled basin. “I should press that first?”
”Yes, Akashi-kun. Get it up to 3/4, please.”
With seven taps and seven beeps — because he accidentally pressed one more notch and made it a full wash instead of the required three quarters, so he restarted from a scratch — Seijuurou follows Tetsuya’s calm instructions. A loud ding! indicates he’s on the right track. It brings satisfaction to his heart, for some reasons. “Next?”
Somehow, Tetsuya sounds terribly relieved with his competence on the other line. “Take the liquid detergent and pour out half a capful. No, wait—make that a capful, please, since it sounds like the clothes are stained badly.”
Considering Seijuurou’s current of wearing a button-up artfully splattered up to his neck with mud, stained badly is an understatement. Still, he pushes all the whites first and leaves the coloured ones for the next batch. While clean water gushes in to submerge their clothes, he measures out a perfect cupful of detergent and pours it in. Pungent lemon pervades their laundry room.
After rechecking everything twice to ensure he’s done everything correctly, Seijuurou clears his throat. “Alright, what’s next?”
“Please take the softener and put in a capful too—it’s the purple bottle next to the detergent. There should be a little slot on the inner left to pour it in.”
That sounds easy enough. Seijuurou locates the aromatic softener branded Downy—Tetsuya’s favourite choice, douses the lavender liquid into the respective slot, and recaps the bottle. That should be enough. His finger hovers over the start button. “Done. So I’ll just start the machine then?”
“Wait—please wait, Akashi-kun. We still haven’t set the amount of time for the machine to spin, or for it to soak.”
This is news to Seijuurou. Like an evil genius unable to press the big red shiny button of worldwide destruction, he reluctantly withdraws his finger. “…alright, so should I press the timer button instead?”
He doesn’t expect Tetsuya to laugh at him on the other line, when this is certainly no laughing matter. Between soft chuckles half-drowned by the wailing children in the background, Seijuurou sees the stretch of Tetsuya’s pink lips when he smiles and feels the puff of warmth hitting his earpiece when Tetsuya speaks with a tone he reserves for Seijuurou’s ears only.
“Akashi-kun should do the laundry together with me next time. Please remember the steps, I’ll quiz you on it.”
Ah, Tetsuya. Sweet, stubborn Tetsuya. Nothing is more powerful than how Tetsuya professed his loyalty to Seijuurou in a cramped shower cubicle under a warm spray of water, rinsing Seijuurou’s soapy hair, washing suds off their bodies, taking turns in drying one another.
His voice had been quiet, airy, lined with the milestones of Teiko to Seirin to separation when he, too, whispered an open secret.
The scent that greets Tetsuya when he throws the door open at 6:36 p.m. is sweet soy sauce sizzling on the frying pan. His stomach automatically growls at the invitation coming from the kitchen. Setting down his house keys on the alcove, Tetsuya crosses the living room and plods over towards the kitchen, only to find apron-clad Seijuurou stir-frying vegetables with his trusty pair of cooking chopsticks.
"Welcome home, Kuroko," Seijuurou greets without needing to look over his shoulder. An expert flick of his wrist throws the rest of the vegetables into the air in a magnificent flip that should win cooking shows worldwide. They fall like petals on the pan as he continues stir-frying. "Dinner is going to be ready in a few minutes."
By right, Tetsuya would've taken his favourite spot by the fridge with a cup of tea, whiling away the minutes to come as he observes Seijuurou's unparalleled expertise in everything he touches. Today's Tetsuya has him gently plodding over and slipping his arms around Seijuurou's waist, burying his face in the crook of Seijuurou's neck. Fine baby hair tickles his cheek as he breathes in the clean scent of lavender and home, letting the shared warmth radiate through his skin.
As expected, Seijuurou doesn't falter in his movements. Another flick of his wrist sends the vegetables soaring in the air, and he quickly adds a dash of sauce into the pan. But his voice is a gentle caress that strokes Tetsuya's cheeks, even when his hands are incapable of completing the task.
"You're very affectionate today. Did something happen?"
Mulishly, Tetsuya shakes his head. "No. I just thought that Akashi-kun deserves a reward for operating the washing machine by himself today."
"We'll discuss about rewards after dinner." And of course, even between slight bursts of chuckles, Seijuurou's hands are steadily plating the dinner contents onto a plate, switching off the stove, and putting aside the greasy pan lest anyone gets burnt. The end of Seijuurou’s cooking show should be a signal for Tetsuya to move but.
He doesn’t.
Why should he, when he’s found his rightful place?
Perhaps sentimentality has gotten the better of him, for when Seijuurou turns and returns Tetsuya’s embrace, he angles his head upwards and whispers years of an open secret into Seijuurou’s ear.
“I love you.”
/end
