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A shuffling noise and the ruffle of cloth shake Hirano out of his slumber. He squints at the small sliver of light coming from the tiniest opening between the curtains. the noise seems far away, in another room. His head is pounding, he doesn’t really want to know why. The water bottle near the bedside table is half empty, the label peeling off, it’s different from the one that used to be there on the previous day.
Hirano buries his face into the pillow, refusing to get up at whatever ungodly time in the morning it was. His eyes flutter close before he listens to the ruffling again, something makes a loud noise when it scratches the floor, clicking and clacking that sounded like kitchen utensils. It takes his eyes almost fluttering close once again for him to realize he lives alone. Those should not be common noises for early morning. He almost rolls out of bed, startled. It’s hard to stand up, his head is fucking pounding again. Why the hell was that?
Grabbing the first hard, metallic object he could find to whack the intruder on the head (a hair dryer), Hirano slowly steps out of the bedroom and makes the least noise he can make towards the kitchen, slow and steady.
His intruder is lucky Hirano’s reflexes are still rusty from just waking up, because the blow dryer comes damn near close to hitting a head of messy orange hair.
“What the fuck, Hirano?” yelps the intruder, clutching the empty frying pot close to his chest.
Hirano blinks. He looks at himself. There’s a blow dryer on his hand. He’s wearing a half open button-up shirt and denim pants, fly open. He looks at his intruder, dressed in a similar manner, holding a frying pot and protecting it with his dear life.
He reacts the best he can manage. “Oh, it’s you, Sasaki. My bad.” Hirano puts the blow dryer down. “But why are you in my kitchen?” His voice is strained by the annoying headache.
It’s Sasaki’s turn to stare blankly at Hirano and the environment around them. Hirano’s apartment, the one he barely stays in due to his job demanding him to travel all the time, the one he’s been staying in for his week off, the one Sasaki very precariously drove them to after a very strange reunion with their high school friends.
He places the frying pot on the counter and breathes in. “I made you breakfast, and you’re hungover.”
“I don’t get hungover.”
Sasaki rolled his eyes. “Whatever you say, eat something or the migraine’s gonna get worse.”
“You’re not eating?” Hirano found the pot with pancakes on them. Of course Sasaki would make pancakes for breakfast, who the hell eats such a thing first thing in the morning?
“Don’t eat in the morning, makes me sick.”
“Sit down and eat.”
With a sigh that blew the messy fringe away from his eyes, Sasaki complied.
The migraine does get better after Hirano eats and he can finally smell the strong scent of alcohol in his shirt. Hirano frowns as he eats the final piece of pancake, propping an elbow on the table and leaning his face against it, letting his eyes travel around the kitchen.
The place should be familiar to him, but it is so intactly clean every time he comes back to it that it never really feels like he lives there, he hasn’t peeled off the plastic from the new fridge, some stuff still smells like bubble wrap and cardboard. He sighs, leaning more of his weight into his hand, his eyes scanning his current tablemate.
“So…” Sasaki’s eyes avoid him, fixated on the now empty plate, he makes little circles on the remains of syrup with his fork.
“I drove us here. From Ogasawara’s place. Yesterday.” He sounds like he’s giving a report. “Your car is ok. Hanzawa gave me the address. No one died.”
Hirano hummed as he took a sip of the freshly made coffee on the table. “Why did you make coffee? You hate it.”
“You say it makes you less moody. I don’t wanna talk to morning dragon Hirano, thanks.” Hirano shrugged, he couldn’t really deny that.
Sasaki sighs, pushes his plate aside and lies down on the glass surface of the table, smushing his cheek against the cold material, Hirano could see him stretching his legs under it, a small yawn coming out of his mouth. He wants to laugh, Sasaki really does act like an overgrown cat.
It’s that line of thought that drives his hand to pet the messy half brown half orange strands, surprisingly soft even if Sasaki keeps frequently dyeing them. He makes a satisfied noise, eyes fluttering close. “Did you sleep at all?”
“Nah. Your sofa sucks.”
“You could’ve used the bed.”
“There’s only one bed, idiot.”
Hirano stands up, his hand retreating, he walks around the table and places it back, burying on the hair closest to Sasaki’s nape, slowly scratching the spot. “I blacked out all night, you know. Don’t think I’d care.”
Sasaki raises up his torso, startled, Hirano retreats his hand again. “The hell you’re saying?” he squints at Hirano.
Hirano snorts, holding back a giggle. He grins at Sasaki. “That you could’ve used my bed to sleep instead of earning yourself eyebags and cooking for the guy that made you go through all this trouble. It’s only fair.”
Sasaki’s stunned for a split second. “Did you just say I could sleep with you, Hirano?” he deadpanned.
Hirano finally laughed, giving Sasaki’s shoulder a little reassuring pat. “See, sleep is already making you stupid. Yeah, you could. You’re tired.”
“Are you serious?” Sasaki’s face is slightly red, eyes obscured by his hair again. Hirano’s hand twitches, urgin to brush it just a little more, it is so soft.
Hirano finally laughs “I’m kidding, yeah, but it’s not like your girlfriend is gonna complain, you don’t have one. You take up too much space though, so not all the time.” He decides to soothe the urge by poking Sasaki on the chest, the button-up he was wearing had seen better days.
They walk to the bedroom, the bed still isn’t made. Hirano takes a shower. Sasaki doesn’t. He also doesn’t care about the bed’s state, throws himself on the side Hirano wasn’t sleeping on, since it is pretty big. He lies down on his back and stares at the ceiling as Hirano leaves the bathroom with clean clothes and wet hair. “You should get one some time, a girlfriend. Aren’t your parents all annoyed about it?” Sasaki says.
“Nah, don’t feel like it.” Hirano sits on his side of the bed.
“What a heartbreaker.”
“You’re one to say.” he snorts. “Well aren’t you a hopeless romantic?”
“Gross.”
“Yeah.” Hirano sighed, hanging up the towel used to dry his hair. “I gotta leave to sign some stuff for work.”
Sasaki snuggled under the hastily thrown covers “Bring lunch.”
Hirano rolls his eyes. “Will do.”
He’s about to open the room’s door again when Sasaki stops him on track. “Hey.”
“What is it?”
“You’re not asking? If I did something stupid last night?”
“Why would I even think of that, stupid?”
Sasaki hides his face under the covers. Hirano smiles. “Stay for lunch then. I’ll bring dessert.”
Hirano is not blind to the weirdness of the situation. He turned on his phone to see several texts from Hanzawa accusing him of being the stupidest human being on Earth, one text form Ogasawara has him asking him if he was alive. Why?
Because Sasaki sucks at driving, because Hirano is a disaster when drunk according to all people who have seen it, because it was their first time actually seeing each other instead of Hirano texting Sasaki for updates since a weird breakup from their silly high school thing.
They never really put a name to it, it was more of a mutual self indulgence. Hirano wanted Sasaki under his eye so he wouldn’t drown in his own self-deprecating thoughts, Sasaki wanted some human heat. He never figured out what the hand holding and quick kissing behind the closed doors of the disciplinary committee could mean. Sasaki’s eyes were always cold, unreadable, all the way through high school.
Hirano doesn’t know what to make of it right now, there’s no supposed “ex-lover awkwardness” around. As if he could call Sasaki such a thing.
He parks the car and sends out a text in reply to Hanzawa, tells Ogasawara he’s okay.
He hesitates a little and asks Ogasawara another thing.
“Is Sasaki still living at his parents’ place?”
The phone rings quickly. Damn, he owes Ogasawara some apologies on Sasaki's behalf for making him worry. “yep. He’s been trying to leave for some time though.”
Hirano thanks him for the reply.
He picks takeout for two for probably the first time in his life, sends a picture to Sasaki and tells him to set the table.
At lunch, he’ll talk about how the house really feels like no one lives in it, how rent doesn’t seem to be fair when he’s mostly sleeping in hotels. He’ll ask Sasaki about his home, about grad school, if he’d want to live with him if anything happens.
It just feels natural, Hirano justifies.
In the end, it really is, Sasaki’s surprise is slight, agreement is natural.
The smell of plastic and cardboard fades away some months later, replaced by the faint sound of bread and baking goods.
They didn’t get another bed. The sofa still sucks.
At the end of their first month living together they kissed in the living room, because Sasaki was just a little too persuasive and Hirano couldn’t deny it.
Hanzawa now has two people to be angry about. Ogasawara is still himself. It just feels natural.