Work Text:
“It’s so awesome,” Yuuta explains, slashing through a scrap of tape with his apartment key. “It does pretty much everything- keeps timers, sets alarms, plays music. It’s really easy to use, too! all of it is voice activ-”
He stops short, flaps of cardboard still in his hands.
“Hmm?” Toge prompts, realizing. “Sujiko?”
He wants to hear how Yuuta was about to finish that sentence. All of it is-
Yuuta sighs. “Voice activated.”
Bingo. Toge shakes his head, stifling a laugh at his boyfriend’s expense. This was classic behavior for Yuuta- so well meaning, but somehow always missing the mark. One of the world’s most capable sorcerers, and one of the world’s least capable humans. Toge goes right back to flipping through the magazine on his lap, folding back a page with a sleek navy sweater for Yuuta to look at later. He’s already forgotten about the whole exchange by the time his boyfriend speaks up again.
“I’m so sorry,” he says, stricken. “I’ll return it! I’ll put the tape right back on, and we can-”
“Okaka.” Toge shrugs him off. “Okaka, takana.” Don’t worry about it.
“Are you sure?” Yuuta asks, still frowning at the open box on their counter.
“Shake," he insists. Yuuta had been so excited for the package to arrive all day, refreshing the tracking practically non-stop. He’d run all the way down the stairs of their apartment building the second the package room e-mailed them. Toge wasn’t about to take away a small joy from Yuuta.
Besides, Yuuta had a habit of letting his various internet purchases fall to the wayside. He’ll see something online, get convinced it’s going to change their lives, and then watch it collect dust in a corner of their apartment after about two uses. Just last week he'd ordered a fancy blender. As it turns out, Yuuta doesn’t really like smoothies and found the blades were annoying to clean. Toge can already see exactly how this will go. Yuuta will spend one blissful hour with his new fixation, and in a few weeks Toge will put it back in its box and tuck it into their coat closet while Yuuta is out on a mission, and Yuuta won’t even notice it’s gone.
“You’re the best, baby,” Yuuta praises, swinging around the kitchen island to drop a kiss on Toge’s head. “I promise I’ll read the fine print next time.”
Toge spends the rest of the night listening to Yuuta poking and prodding at his new toy. Alexa, he calls it. Why it has to have a real name, Toge isn’t sure, but he goes with it. Yuuta hooks it up to their wifi and then starts asking it questions and setting timers for nothing. Toge can only laugh, amused by his boyfriend’s brief enthusiasm. He wonders how long it’ll take for Yuuta to move on completely.
Poor Alexa, he thinks, you don’t stand a chance.
***
“If you’re sure you don’t need a timer…” Yuuta starts, leaning on the counter. “How about this? Alexa, play Mellow Folk.”
“The station "Mellow Folk," on Amazon Music.”
A plunky guitar and a throaty singer start to fill the room as Yuuta grins, closing his eyes as the music washes over him. Toge turns back to the onions he’s sweating, uselessly dragging them back and forth with his wooden spoon.
Okay, so it’s safe to say that Toge has underestimated Yuuta’s ability to stay interested. Using the device has become standard practice for him now. Every time Toge is cooking, Yuuta runs into the kitchen and asks if anything needs timing. If it doesn’t, he goes out of his way to find another task for it. He does all of this very presentationally, as if he’s proving to Toge that this was a worthwhile purchase. He doesn't seem to realize that Toge could care less what Yuuta spends his outrageously high special grade salary on, as long as he’s happy.
If anything, Toge should be grateful for the addition of an Alexa to the house. Yuuta is ten times more interested in helping out in the kitchen, and ten times less likely to burn one of their meals- something he’d certainly been known to do in the past.
Yes, Toge should be happy about Alexa. But if he’s being honest with himself, he can’t wait till Yuuta forgets about it. Its playlists were mediocre and repetitive at best, and their oven already had a timer built into it. Toge was glad Yuuta was having a good time, but he still couldn’t help but think Alexa was a bit unnecessary. The voice was a bit annoying, too.
It takes a couple weeks for Toge to start getting really peeved with it, though.
It had been a long and grueling day. Managers were scarce and Toge had had to change trains three different times to get to his mission assignment this morning. The curse hadn’t been easy to locate either, so despite leaving first thing, the whole affair had taken most of the day. By the time he gets back, the sun has already started to set and Toge wants nothing more than a shower and a quiet night in with Yuuta.
They can order take out, Toge figures, and then watch a couple episodes of the fairly innocuous home improvement TV show that Yuuta had started taping a few weeks ago. The whole elevator ride up, Toge is picturing falling asleep with his head in Yuuta’s lap as the TV flickers bluish light on their clean white walls.
The fantasy is quickly shattered. The elevator doors open and as Toge's ears are met with a bout of raucous laughter. He feels his mood instantly start to sour, sure that one of their annoying neighbors is having a party again. As he steps closer though, he realizes that the loud laughing man is actually his loud laughing man. Yuuta is laughing so hysterically that Toge can actually hear him from all the way down the hall.
Toge is not sure he has ever heard Yuuta laugh like that.
As he gets closer to the door, Toge can hear the muffled warble of Yuuta’s voice as he chats with someone. Toge feels himself getting heated. Who could possibly be so interesting to him? Maki and Panda had both been busy with their own missions today so it couldn’t be one of them. That didn’t leave much of a list.
“You are too much,” Toge hears Yuuta guffaw as he reaches the door. He can’t get the door open fast enough. He bursts in, all ready to catch Yuuta in the act.
But the apartment is empty. Just Yuuta, elbows balanced on countertops. The TV is off and he doesn’t even have his phone out. He’d been completely alone just now. So who could possibly have been making him-
“Alexa, stop!” Yuuta says through a cackle, turning to greet Toge. “Babe! You’re never going to believe it- Alexa tells jokes.”
Oh. So the person responsible for making Toge’s notoriously sleepy and well-mannered boyfriend loud enough to disrupt the whole building was Alexa. A literal machine. Perfect, Toge thinks, that’s absolutely perfect.
And then, traitorously, his mind adds: Oh my god. Does Yuuta think Alexa is funnier than you?
Toge quickly shakes the idea out of his head. That's ridiculous. He’s just being overly-sensitive because he’s had a long day. There’s no doubt in his mind that he’s the best-humored person in Yuuta’s life. Alexa is a hunk of plastic and wires. There’s no competition, obviously.
“Come over here!” Yuuta demands excitedly. Toge shrugs off his coat and drags himself over. He’s tired, and Yuuta hasn’t so much as said hello to him yet, but he might as well come see what all the fuss is about. When he reaches Yuuta in the kitchen, he pops up on his toes to leave a kiss on Yuuta’s cheek, but Yuuta barely even notices. “Alexa! Tell me the joke of the day!”
“Sorry,” Alexa chirps. “I've already told you the joke of the day.”
“Oh.” Yuuta frowns, clearly disappointed. “Well. It wasn’t that funny anyways.”
Toge doesn’t have it in him to argue about it. Clearly, it had been funny enough for Yuuta to laugh out loud, but whatever. Toge doesn’t really want to hear the joke anyway.
“I wonder what else it can do?” Yuuta muses, staring at the device like it's some great and mystical mystery he's been tasked with solving. Toge goes and takes his shower, not wanting to witness it for even a second longer.
They don’t wind up watching TV together that night. Toge sits on the couch as Yuuta flits around the apartment, googling new prompts for Alexa. He asks what feels like a hundred different questions as Toge quietly stews, eyes twitching as his boyfriend holds a conversation with the device. This will all be over in a few days, he reminds himself as he makes his way to the bedroom for an early night. Yuuta is getting it all out of his system right now.
But as Yuuta laughs, loud enough to be heard from the other room, Toge really starts to doubt it.
***
A few days later, the hype has finally started to die down. Alexa is by no means forgotten about, but Yuuta has started to calm down a bit. He only uses it a few times a day, and all of the requests he makes of her are practical and reasonable. Toge could deal with that.
And, more importantly, the majority of Yuuta’s attention has shifted back to Toge.
That particular morning, Yuuta wakes up first. They were supposed to be indulging in a lazy Sunday morning, but Yuuta always gets antsy and decides a head start on the day. He sneaks out of the bedroom early that morning to give Toge a little extra time to snooze, and Toge is too out of it to even notice him go. By the time he wakes up, not only is his bed empty, but Yuuta is out of the room taking a call.
“Takana?” he inquires sleepily as Yuuta pads back into the bedroom.
“Yeah,” Yuuta sighs, confirming Toge’s suspicion. “Gojo is already dispatched and another mission came up. They need me today after all.”
Toge juts his bottom lip into a pout, but it’s half-hearted. This was just the life of a sorcerer sometimes. When Yuuta is done getting dressed, Toge reaches out for one last embrace before he goes. Yuuta surprises him by leaning in and scooping him up. He carries Toge to the couch and sets him up with a fluffy blanket, all the television remotes, and a goodbye kiss.
“I’ll be back as soon as I can," he promises. Toge gives his hand an affirming squeeze, a silent plea for him to be careful and quick.
Once Toge hears the front door click, he lets his eyes drift back shut. It was rare to get a nap in in their apartment, with Yuuta always bouncing his knee or reading something off his phone. Toge figures if he really has to spend the whole day without Yuuta, he can at least treat himself to this. He sinks into the couch cushions, letting sleep fall blissfully over him.
And then something in the kitchen starts chiming.
Toge’s eyes jerk open. No way, he thinks. He wouldn’t have.
But the sound is persistent, dinging over and over again incessantly. It won’t be ignored. Reluctantly, Toge sits up and makes eye contact with the black tower on his countertop. The top flashes blue.
Toge has no choice but to get up and investigate. Something warm and vanilla-soaked hits his nose, and Toge realizes that Yuuta has tried to cook them breakfast. He flicks off the oven and peeks inside, finding some sort of golden crusted french toast bake sitting sweetly in Toge’s deep teal Le Creuset baking dish. Sighing, he closes the oven door. It was very thoughtful of Yuuta to do that, but it doesn’t solve Toge’s problem here.
“Okaka,” he tries hopelessly, staring crestfallen at the device. Alexa doesn’t even hear him, the alarm trampling right over his plea. Toge walks over and gives the device a little flick. Still nothing. He didn’t want to stoop to this, but- “Stop.”
Of course, though, cursed speech only works on entities that contain cursed energy, so the command dies the second it leaves Toge’s tongue. For chrissakes.
Toge pulls out his phone and pulls up Yuuta’s location. When they first set it up on their phones, it had been a practicality. Two sorcerers dating should be able to know where the other one was at all times; If something was to happen to one of them, the other would be the first one to notice their absence. But ever since they set it up, Toge has started completely abusing it- pulling the app up just to see how far away Yuuta is while picking up their takeout, in hopes that his dinner is close by. Today he’s a bit more serious. When Toge finds what he’s looking for, he dials Yuuta’s number.
The phone answers on the first ring.
“Toge?” Yuuta says, panicked. It’s unlike Toge to call him in the middle of the day- unlike Toge to call him in general, when he can get his point across easier with a text. “Is everything okay?”
Toge can still hear the bustle of the freeway in the background, so as the app had stated, Yuuta has not yet arrived at his mission destination yet. Otherwise, he wouldn’t have risked disturbing him. But if Yuuta isn’t actively fighting a curse, he’s dealing with this.
Instead of answering him, Toge flips the phone onto speaker and the mic up to the noisy electronic.
“Toge?” Yuuta asks again. Then, a few seconds later. “Oh.”
Oh, is right. “Shake,” Toge confirms for him, biting back the urge to add an ingredient that would convey his annoyance a little better.
“Alexa,” Yuuta calls through the phone. It stops blinking and chiming immediately, allowing Toge to release a breath he hadn’t realized he was holding. “Stop Timer.”
Peace at last, Toge thinks.
“I’m so sorry, baby. I completely forgot,” Yuuta explains, mumbling into the phone so Ijichi or whoever is in the front seat doesn’t have to listen to them exchange pet names. “It won’t happen again. Enjoy your breakfast?”
Toge rolls his eyes. He could hardly be mad at Yuuta when he’d been trying to do something so sweet, but still. He can’t help but be a little annoyed.
After they’ve exchanged goodbyes, and- in Yuuta's case- a quick I love you, Toge shoots Maki a quick text.
Toge Inumaki: I have a new arch-nemesis.
Her reply is instant.
Maki Zen’in: not this again
Maki Zen’in: the fucking alexa?
Toge thinks it’s only proving his point that she already knows what he’s talking about. It’s offended him so many times that Maki can place it immediately. That had to mean Toge wasn’t crazy here, right?
Toge Inumaki: You haven’t heard the way he talks to it
Toge Inumaki: So loving
Maki Zen’in: aw, you’re not used to Yuuta having eyes for anyone but you, huh
Toge won’t even dignify that with a response. Of course Yuuta wouldn’t have eyes for anyone but him. They’ve been dating for years. This was the only serious relationship either of them had ever had. Maki correctly interprets Toge’s lack of response as an annoyed denial.
Maki Zen’in: holy shit
Maki Zen’in: you’re actually jealous
Maki Zen’in: that’s hilarious
Toge Inumaki: Go away.
Maki Zen’in: wait, wait, wait
Maki Zeni’n: so let me get this straight
Maki Zen’in: your boyfriend goes out on missions with his ex-fiancee all the time
Maki Zen’in: literally still wears her ring
Maki Zen’in: and *this* is what you’re gonna decide to be jealous about?
Well, when she puts it like that.
Toge knows how stupid this is. Really, he does. It’s just a machine. He should go eat his boyfriend’s breakfast bake and put these thoughts to bed for good.
Instead, he texts back one simple word.
Toge Inumaki: Yup.
Maki Zen’in: stay petty, king
***
The incident is quickly forgotten. Yuuta comes home that night with a bouquet of flowers with orangey-peach roses and pinkish peonies from a small independent florist he found near the mission site. Toge houses them in a cute, crystal cut vase, fussing with the sprigs of sword fern till they rest just so. Then, he just happens to place the arrangement right in front of Alexa so he doesn’t have to look at it for the rest of the night.
Ha, he thinks to it smugly. Take that.
The next morning, though, Toge finds them about two inches to the left. He assumes it was an accident on one of their parts, and slides the vase right back into place. But after lunch, he finds them in the center of their island, completely out of Alexa’s way.
Toge grits his teeth. This feels personal, like he and Alexa are having a passive aggressive little dispute for dominance, but the truth is actually worse: Yuuta must have moved them. Yuuta, who had left every single decoration to Toge’s whim and never had an opinion on so much as a throw pillow, suddenly cared enough to move flowers?
When Yuuta re-enters the room and finds Toge glaring at it, he clearly does not recognize the expression of fury on Toge’s face.
“I don’t know how we ever lived without her,” he says fondly, eyes wandering to her newly unobstructed spot on the counter.
Wait a minute.
Her?
That’s a joke. That has to be a joke. If he’s not joking, this is officially too much for Toge to bear. It was one thing for Alexa to live in their house, and it was quite another for Yuuta to start regarding it as an actual person.
Yuuta starts fussing around the kitchen as the wheels in Toge’s mind start churning. Even as peeved as he’s been about the new addition to their household, he’s never quite let his mind jump to the obvious conclusion. It lingered darkly in the background of his thoughts, threatening to spill over like a rain cloud, and now he could no longer deny it. There’s only one thing that Alexa can offer Yuuta that Toge can’t. Words.
Toge likes to think he’s long past being insecure about the limitations in his day-to-day speech. Ever since he made friends with the students at Jujutsu Tech, it was rare that he ever felt misunderstood. Within a few months of knowing them, they knew the quirks of his language as well as their own. Yuuta had been even faster on the uptake. Now, he probably understands Toge better than anyone. Sometimes Toge doesn’t even need to talk at all for Yuuta to know what he means.
But that wasn’t the same thing as having a conversation, was it? It had always been easy for them back at school, because Toge’s little interjections were just a small part of a larger discussion. Now Toge starts to wonder- has Yuuta been longing for more since they moved out on their own? Toge quite likes the little silence that he and Yuuta had fallen into over the past few years- where things rarely needed to be said aloud- but maybe that was one-sided.
Was Yuuta getting bored of him? Was he so desperate for someone new to communicate with that he’d resorted to buying something that could talk with him?
Toge Inumaki: I think Yuuta is sick of me.
He knows Maki isn’t likely to be sympathetic, but he can’t help himself. He needs to get this off his chest, and he clearly can’t tell Yuuta about it. Yuuta would be far too nice to ever admit that he’d wanted something that Toge couldn’t give him.
Maki Zen’in: what are you talking about, he’s literally obsessed with you
Maki Zen’in: when we went to dinner last week he cut his meat with one hand so he could hold yours with the other
Maki Zen’in: it’s actually disgusting, how much he loves you
She’s right. Of course she’s right.
Maki Zen’in: wait a minute
Maki Zen’in: is this about the fucking alexa again?
Toge Inumaki: …
Toge Inumaki: No comment.
Maki Zen’in: toge
Maki Zen’in: i swear to god
Maki Zen’in: you are the dumbest person I know sometimes
Maki Zen’in: yuuta would have rika eat that thing for breakfast if he thought it would please you.
But he shouldn’t have to, Toge decides. He deserves to be selfish. And if he has someone to talk to besides Toge… maybe that isn’t the worst thing in the world.
***
That night, with his head resting on Yuuta’s chest, Toge decides he’s officially over it.
This is Toge’s favorite part of the day, both of them lying in bed as they city lights filter in through the blinds. Yuuta mumbles things like i’m not that tired or let’s just talk for a little while as his eyes start drifting shut. He’s a lot less sleepless than he once was, now that Toge all but anchors him to the bed. Toge takes a lot of pride in that.
They’re both about to slip into sleep, lazy and lolling, when Yuuta clears his throat.
“Alexa,” he whispers. “Set an alarm for 8 AM.”
Toge jerks up, eyes flying open. A little blue light flicks on from Yuuta’s bedside table, softly glowing as it works. No. No no no. Absolutely not.
"Alarm set for 8 AM tomorrow," Alexa reports dutifully, voice echoing loudly against their bedroom walls. "When the alarm sounds, if you need a few more minutes, just ask me to snooze."
“Isn’t it great?” Yuuta smirks, stretching his arms. His eyes are already glued shut. “They make a mini version. For the bedroom,” he explains, as if that makes it better somehow. As soon as the words are out of his mouth, Yuuta settles in and nods off. His breath deepens, chest starting to sag. Tonight, Alexa has put him to sleep instead of Toge.
Toge would never dare wake him up, not in a million years. His boyfriend's sleep is too precious to disturb.
But Yuuta is out of his fucking mind if he thinks that thing is going to live in their bedroom.
***
Toge wakes up alone.
Not only does he wake up alone, he wakes up to it.
Yuuta, evidently, forgot about the alarm he set last night. He must have slipped out already for his morning run, thinking he’d leave Toge to catch an extra hour of sleep. But now, Alexa is dinging in his ear and there is absolutely nothing he can do about it.
Toge likes to think he doesn’t have many flaws, but even he would admit that his morning persona is one of them. When someone other than Yuuta gets him in the first five minutes of his day, they are usually aghast. Toge is grumpy and snappish and on a warpath for anyone who gets in between him and his breakfast. Unless there's a half-drained mug of tea in his hand, it’s probably not safe to talk to him.
Which is why, instead of gently unplugging Alexa from the wall, he reaches across the bed- across the empty space that his boyfriend should be taking up- and yanks.
Finally, Toge can breathe again. The apartment falls back into silence, and Toge buries his head into Yuuta’s pillow, sprawled across the bed as his body lulls back into sleep. But once he’s been still for a few moments, he can hear puttering in the apartment. Oh shit.
“Hey, Toge?” Yuuta calls from the kitchen. “Are you awake?”
Toge jumps up, suddenly completely awake, and looks down at the device in his hand with horror. He hasn’t just pulled the plug from the wall, he’s ripped it free. The little disk is resting in his palm, but the wire has snapped right down the middle, its tail hanging over the edge of the bed in ruin as Toge stares at it dumbfounded.
He’d been angry when he pulled it out. Had he accidentally added a bit of cursed energy to that tug? Whatever the case, the new Alexa is decidedly dead. Toge might as well have taken a pair of scissors to the cord.
His mind races with ways he might possibly recover from this. Could he replace it before Yuuta notices? Could he play it off as an accident? Is there a spot for him to hide it? From the depths of his early-morning brain, Toge does not once consider just coming clean. Coming clean would involve him explaining to Yuuta that he was jealous, and that simply wasn’t an option.
“Toge? What are you doing in there?” Yuuta calls, clearly able to hear that he’s up and about. The floorboards start to creak and Toge looks down at the wreckage in his hand with panic. Just as the door to their bedroom starts to crack, Toge snaps into action and shoves the remnants of the device behind his back. “Oh hey,” Yuuta greets, noticing with confusion that Toge is sitting in the most suspicious pose known to man. “Are you, um… is everything okay?”
Toge nods frantically, sinking his knees into their mattress as he worries about the end of the wire hanging out from behind him. Other than that, he stays as still as humanly possible, hoping Yuuta is still none the wiser.
“Okay.” Yuuta frowns, eyebrows creasing. “Well I’m gonna bring the trash down real quick, but when I get back you totally have to hear the new joke Alexa was telling me. It was a-
“I’m sorry, ” Alexa interjects from the other room. “I don't know that one. Try asking me something else, Yuuta. ”
Yuuta.
Whatever guilt had been eating at Toge a moment ago is instantly replaced with hot, burning rage. Alexa is calling Yuuta by his first name? Is this a joke?
“Alexa, stop!” he calls to it, brushing it off with a laugh. “Guess she was listening.”
Yeah- because she’s always fucking listening. Alexa has probably been gathering information this whole time for the coup d'état she’s getting ready to stage. This is fucked. This is so extraordinarily fucked that Toge can’t even take it anymore.
“I’ll be back in a minute, ‘kay?” Yuuta tells him, somehow missing the twitching of Toge’s eye as he turns around.
Once the door clicks, Toge pushes himself off of the bed and shuffles to the kitchen. He doesn’t even realize at first that he’s still clutching the evidence in his hand. When he reaches Alexa, he holds it up to her face as if she has eyes.
See this? Toge thinks to it. This’ll be you one day if you don’t fucking watch it.
A little blue light circles around the top, almost as if it had heard Toge thinking. At this point, the thing is just fucking toying with him. Toge is totally about to lose it.
“Die, bitch.” He tells it.
But when Toge turns his back, he hears crackling. He whips back around to see a puff of smoke, the lights on Alexa’s crown flashing wildly. Oh no. Oh no, oh no, oh no.
Toge’s command landed. How was that possible? Alexa didn’t have any cursed energy, and when he had tried it earlier, it bounced right off. What could have changed since-
Oh hell no. Suddenly Toge remembers something he’d once heard about Miwa’s sword. Apparently after using it for so long, it had become imbued with her cursed energy- making it something almost resembling a cursed tool. A once ordinary object that now harbored residual fragments of its user's energy.
And of course, Toge’s big, stupid labrador of a boyfriend is dripping with cursed energy. It would hardly take any time at all for something he uses frequently to become infused with bits of it. Jesus- half of their fucking apartment is probably cursed.
The revelation doesn’t make the situation any easier to deal with. Even though Toge’s mind wants to snag on the fact that Yuuta literally liked his computer-generated girlfriend enough to make it a cursed tool, it doesn't help him right now. Toge has still told his boyfriend’s prized possession to go die. He has to fix this, and quick.
“Stop,” Toge commands. The lights flash blankly at him, but the smoke doesn’t stop. “Work.”
“Yuuta,” she says warmly. “Do you have a question, Yuuta? ”
Jesus. She’s literally on fire and she’s still clinging to his boyfriend. “Okaka,” Toge snaps.
“Sorry, I don’t understand 'Okaka,'” she chirps, and Toge is filled with an overwhelming desire to reach out and wring her neck out of sheer rage.
“Ikura,” he swears, tone of his voice turning nasty. “Mentaiko Ikura.”
If she had any idea of the names he was calling her right now, she’d be offended for sure. But she’s still going haywire, lights blinking frantically as her body overheats from the core. They’re seconds away from disaster here, Toge can tell.
“Cool down,” he commands, taking pity on her.
Instantly, the machine stops whirring and the lights go down. Toge lets out a hefty sigh. He’s stopped it, then. If he’s lucky, she’ll hold out for a while and Yuuta will be none the wiser to today’s exchange. Just as Toge is about to relax, she chimes in once more.
“Yuuta.”
Oh, she’s just mocking Toge now.
“Yuuuuta,” she tries again, mooning. “Are you there, Yuuta? ”
Toge grumbles unintelligibly beneath his breath, wishing he could tell her exactly where she can find Yuuta. In my bed, every night. He’d tell her. That might shut her up.
“Try asking me if I can play you a love song," she croons, completely obsessed. “Yuuta.”
Toge’s jaw literally drops.
“Alexa,” he says sweetly, his mind officially made up. “Blast. Away.”
There is a single moment of stillness, and then the little machine bursts into flames. Pieces of plastic and metal explode into the room, bouncing against the wall and littering the countertops and the floors. Toge can’t help but smirk as he looks at the wreckage, eyes going wild.
Finally, he thinks. The bitch is dead.
“Toge?”
Shit.
Toge whips around to find Yuuta standing in their front doorway, hand still on the doorknob as his mouth falls open.
“What happened?” He asks, face flooding with alarm. “Is that- is that fire? Is that Alexa? ”
Guilt swells in Toge. He opens his mouth to squeeze out a shake, to vocally fess up to his crimes, but no noise comes out. The look of horror on Yuuta’s face is too much to bear. Toge has been caught completely red-handed and all he can do is stand there dumbstruck as a small flame licks at their granite countertop. Yuuta is about to rush and put it out, Toge can feel it, but he takes one step and stops short.
“Wait, what’s in your hand? ” He realizes, minor emergency completely forgotten.
Toge slams his eyes shut, the weight of the other Alexa he viciously slaughtered suddenly extremely heavy in his palm. What the fuck has he just done?
“Toge!” Yuuta realizes, springing into action. He grabs a towel off their oven rack and snuffs out the charred remains of his beloved device. Once it’s handled, he turns slowly to Toge, eyes narrowing with understanding. Toge shivers. He can’t help but wither under his boyfriend’s gaze when he gets serious like this. “Toge,” he says quietly, intention clear. “What did you do?”
It all comes spilling out. Yuuta listens with great care, patiently sifting through Toge's old texts with Maki and frantic explanations scrawled on post-its. He gently sweeps up the floor and clears the countertop, collecting all the remaining pieces into a trash bag. He pulls Toge in for a hug and whispers softly in his ear, wiping down his flustered tears. He takes it all in stride and assures Toge that it will all be alright. That he isn't upset. That Toge was always first in his heart.
Then, he calmly details the terms of Toge's punishment.
***
“Alexa,” Yuuta calls, the sound of his voice chorused by the sizzling of vegetables in his pan. “Set a timer for fourteen minutes.”
Sighing, Toge pulls out his phone and opens the timer app. He watches the seconds start to click down and wonders how he possibly let his life get to this point. He’s about to hop down from his spot on the counter to fetch a water from the fridge, but Yuuta whips around the second he moves a muscle.
“Ah, ah, ah,” he scolds, walking over to the fridge and pulling out the drink himself. “Amazon Alexas are meant to sit on the counter.” He pops the tab back and passes the sweating can to Toge, smiling easily and going back to his spot in front of the stovetop like nothing’s happened. Rolling his eyes the second Yuuta turns his back, Toge shakes his head and takes a sip.
When he’d promised Yuuta that he’d make it up to him, this is not what he’d had in mind.
Well, Yuuta had said, eyes sincere and giving away no sign of the mischief he was about to enact. I think it’s only fair if from now on… that you be my Alexa.
This has been going on for three days, and it shows no sign of stopping. “Alexa,” he calls. “Will you play music off Toge’s IPhone?”
“Sha-ke,” Toge says dimly, unamused.
“Shake, Yuuta,” Yuuta corrects. “Alexa and I were on a first name basis.”
Toge forces back a groan and flicks on a playlist, one he knows Yuuta will like. He holds the phone up high and faces the speaker toward Yuuta so he’ll have a good look at Toge obeying his little command when he turns back around. He must sense this, because looks over his shoulder with a soft, loving expression. If Toge wasn’t busy pouting, it would melt him straight to the core.
“You know,” he says lazily, not taking his eyes off of Toge. “This all could’ve been avoided if you’d just told me how you felt. I’d have boxed her up and sent her right back to the warehouse.”
Toge shrugs. Somewhere deep down, he’d probably known that, but it was too late to do anything about it now.
“You’re my number one.” Yuuta promises, eyes shining. Toge sticks his tongue out in response, unable to just take the compliment. “So maybe next time we have a conversation before you resort to capital punishment, hmm?”
Toge lets out a breath and knocks his head back against the backsplash. He’s tired of this. Hopefully this conversation is leading to some kind of wind down. Surely Yuuta won’t make him keep this up forever, right?
"Alexa?” he requests, and this time Toge gives him a full view of his eyes rolling back into his head. Yuuta catches it, and returns that gesture with a broad smile. “Just one last request.”
Ugh, Toge thinks, preparing for the worst. Here we go again.
“Come give me a kiss.”