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“Are you and Rin dating?” Chigiri pops the question out of nowhere, their previous topic at hand was about croc winter boots, neon green croc winter boots.
“What the fu–how did you come to that conclusion? How does that relate to what we’re talking about?!” Isagi drops the piece of strawberry that was laced onto his fork, it falls sadly onto a pile of oozing chocolate syrup and crepes.
Chigiri glances at Isagi and then takes a bite of his tiramisu before meeting sapphire eyes once again. “I don't know, ever since you guys started rooming together, you just seem…”
“Seem what?”
Chigiri sighs and looks at Isagi like he's the most disappointing person he's ever encountered. “Dude, I don’t know. You guys just have the perfect ratio.”
“What the hell does that mean?”
“Ten out of ten chemistry.”
“Can you elaborate, please.”
“You’re like, the chocolate chips to his cookie dough. ”
“Bro–what the fuck?”
“See! You wouldn’t get it, stupid isagi-diot.” Chigiri ruffles his hair off his shoulders and spoons the final soggy bits of his cake into his mouth and washes it down with cola. Tiramisu and cola. What strange tastes for a princess.
“But can you tell me why you thought we were dating?” Isagi asks with a narrowed stare.
“You guys seem like newly weds. He buys groceries and you cook, he vacuums and you mop, he showers first and then warms up a bath for you. If that’s not love, I don’t know what is.” Chigiri levels him with a deadpan stare as if Isagi and Rin being in love and dating was the most sensible thing on the planet.
As if it made more sense than the nutmeg dribbles Sae sometimes did, or the overhead shots Shidou could pull off.
“Well, yeah, because that’s how it works? He can’t cook, so I do it. He hates mopping, so I let him vacuum. He prefers showers, so he’s being considerate of me by heating up the bath after.”
“He wants to wife you up so bad.” Chigiri shakes his head with the most pitying stare he can muster.
“He threatened to kill me a month ago.”
“That was a month ago, now he seems like he would beat you up, but then tuck you into bed.”
“He wouldn’t dress my wounds?”
“No, that’s too much of a softie thing for him.”
“Are you stereotyping him right now?” Isagi gapes, exaggerating his voice.
“What? No-!”
“Chigiri, I can’t believe you would say that!” He says loud enough for everyone in the cafe to turn in their direction.
“Isagi, shut up-!” Chigiri whisper-yells and stuffs a complimentary turkish delight into Isagi’s mouth.
Isagi laughed and chewed while Chigiri rushed to pay and pull Isagi out of the cafe.
“You really talk too much!” He reprimands, pulling Isagi by the hand through the crowded roads of tokyo.
Isagi laughs and tips his head back. “Can you blame me? Your reactions are just too funny! You looked like a cat that got its tail stepped on.”
“What the heck?” Chigiri couldn’t help but giggle too. “Am I Rin, now?”
“No, I wouldn’t say that. Rin looks like a wet cat when he’s embarrassed.”
“You’ve seen Rin embarrassed?!” Chigiri swivels his head to the side to stare at Isagi.
“Yeah? Oh-! He’s calling me.” Isagi’s phone chimes with a small jingle from an anime opening. Neon Genital Evolution? Chigiri isn’t sure. Isagi watches lots of weird things.
Chigiri watches Isagi pick up and say, hello? what’s wrong? Maybe Chigiri was hallucinating, but Isagi’s voice definitely had a weird fondness to it.
Isagi talks on the phone animatedly for about, 5 minutes, and then hangs up. “I gotta go now, he’s trying to make ramen and eggs. He’s gonna burn our place down.”
“What are you, his wife? And what did you mean by ‘our’ place?” Chigiri questions and zooms his eyes in on Isagi’s wallpaper. It’s a black cat with amber eyes, and holy shit is that Rin’s hand holding it????
“What else do I call it? ‘Mine and Rin’s place’, ‘Rin and I’s place’, ‘the place in which I live with Rin’? None of them flow, easier to just say our place. ” Isagi stuffs his phone into his tote bag and looks up. “I’m gonna go now, it was fun hanging out with you, Chigiri!”
Isagi flashes him a smile and dashes to catch a bus. Oh, those two are so dating.
Isagi gets home and yells. “I’m home!” No answer. He turns and realizes that Rin’s very matte, casual dress shoes are nowhere to be found.
“What a bastard…” Isagi whispers tiredly. “Walking me all the way here and then leaving… motherfucker.”
He walks into the kitchen and finds a pot on the stove with cold water and noodles floating dully in it. A half-cracked egg sat on the side with yolk oozing out of it.
Isagi takes in the sight and can’t help the laughter that bubbles up. “What an idiot…” he sighs and grabs a bowl to place the egg in.
He takes the noodles out of the cold water and places them in a plate with paper towels to drain. He boils the water on the stove and drops in the spice packets. He gingerly drops the noodles in, making sure not to burn his hands.
A little while later he also drops in the egg.
He’s going through the fridge looking for green onions when he hears the front door open.
Rin walks into their shared apartment and notices two very obvious differences from when he left and now. 1, Isagi’s black, platformed converse are sitting lop-sidedly in the doorway. And like the good roommate he is, he pushes them into order and places them on the shelf.
He glances at the platforms of Isagi’s shoes. Platformed or not, he still barely reaches my shoulder… Rin thinks to himself.
2, the house smelled really good. It smelled like food, Rin was hungry.
He grabbed the plastic bag he put down and walked into the kitchen, he was met with Isagi’s backside who was currently digging for something in the fridge.
He peeked his head out of the fridge. “Rin? You’re back? Hey, motherfucker, where did you go? You walked me all the way here, but then you-! Oh, are those green onions?”
Isagi gets up and walks to Rin, he peeks into the plastic bag Rin is holding loosely. “Is this why you left? Because we ran out of green onions?”
“Yeah.” Rin says, enjoying the warmth of Isagi’s hands as he prys the bag away from his grasp.
“What a good kid.” Isagi stands on his tiptoes and pats Rin’s hair, smiling fondly at his junior.
“I’m only a year younger than you.” Rin frowns, ducking away from Isagi’s hand.
“Still a kid~” Isagi hums and leaves to chop the onions.
Rin stands behind Isagi and places his arms on either side of the counter, caging him in. He leans into Isagi’s hair. “Why did you start cooking? You should’ve called me and then we could’ve done it together.”
“Because working with you in the kitchen is like assembling furniture without the manual, blindfolded.” Isagi leans back into Rin, the latter having his nose buried into Isagi’s hair. “Remember when you burned a stove?”
Rin snaps his head up and leans down to Isagi’s shoulder. “That was so long ago, I can fry an egg without burning anything now.”
“You fry eggs using garlic butter.” Isagi turns his head, meeting Rin halfway.
Close, they were too close. Isagi could count his eyelashes. He could see a tiny mole under Rin’s left eye. Was that always there?
“It tastes good. It adds flavour.” Rin lifts his head up and moves away from Isagi. He’s leaning on the counter beside him now.
“Do all rich kids have weird tastes? Chigiri eats his tiramisu with cola…” Isagi muses from the side, he dumps the cut up onions into the noodles and places a lid on top.
“I grew up eating western food mostly, like, steak. You know what that is?”
“Of course I know what that is.” Isagi grits out a smile. “I’m not stupid.”
“Oh my, what a surprise.” Rin smirks in triumph, successfully having pissed Isagi off.
Isagi unties the apron from his waist and grabs two bowls from the cabinet. “Half of this is mine because I cooked it. We split the egg. What do you want to drink?”
“There’s sprite in the fridge.”
“Oh, was that yours?” Isagi asks from the side, carefully splitting the noodles into the bowls.
“It’s not yours? I thought it was yours.” Rin grabs the bowls and two sets of chopsticks and walks to the table to place them down.
Isagi opens the fridge and grabs aforementioned sprite. “Actually, I think this might be Sae’s. He forgot it last week.”
“Okay, well, it’s ours now.” Rin walks back and grabs two cups for them.
They settle down nicely and have a quiet lunch, Isagi’s kinda happy that Rin called him to inform him about making noodles. He wouldn’t admit that to Rin though.
You take a bath first, then we’ll watch the soccer recording… was what Rin said but, Isagi’s way too tired for this. He lays in bed and lazily watches the ceiling. Hot water must have some sort of healing effects, Isagi feels sore and sluggish. The perfect feeling after a bath.
He turned over on his side and let out a shaky yawn, tears glazing over his eyes. Yeah, he was really tired.
Before he knew it, he was asleep.
Rin walked out of the bathroom and was met with a curled up Isagi, asleep, on the wrong bed. Rin told him to wait for him so they could watch the soccer recording together, but he feel asleep. On Rin’s bed.
Rin sighed and walked over to the bed. “Isagi, Isagi… Isagi, wake up.” He whispers a few times.
“Isagi, hey, Isagi. Isagi!”
Just how tired was this lukewarm bastard?
“Isa-” Rin stops midway before shyly gritting out, “Yo…Yoichi.”
No answer. Motherfucker.
Rin clambers on top of Isagi, staring at him from above, both arms caging Isagi’s head. He can see everything clearly now, the soft wisps of hair on Isagi’s forehead. His eyelashes. Why did everyone say Rin had nice eyelashes? Isagi’s lashes are far prettier. Isagi’s skin was still slightly red and sweaty from him bath.
Rin gulped and moved his head away before he did something he would regret.
He watched the slow rise and fall of Isagi’s chest and suddenly an idea popped into his head.
He hesitantly drags a hand down Isagi’s ribs. He jolts awake with a small yelp and meets Rin’s shocked eyes.
“You-! What the fuck?!” Isagi whacks Rin on the head and pants heavily. “Why are you looming over a sleeping person like a freak?! Why did you wake me up like that?!”
Isagi bares his hands and viciously tickles Rin in the stomach. The latter jumps and makes a move to grab Isagi’s hands. Isagi laughs at the startled, cat-like expression on his face.
Rin pushes him down and starts tickling him in the stomach, Isagi laughs and tries to roll of his grasp.
“Rin-! Ahahah! Hey, Rin! Sto-!” Isagi laughs breathlessly. His stomach is beginning to hurt from the force of his giggles and he’s slowly getting sweatier and sweatier.
“Rin!” Isagi pipes up and looks straight at him, Rin abruptly stops and stares at Isagi. They’re both out of breath from the tickling and the previous effects of drowsiness from bathing suddenly return.
Rin collapses onto Isagi’s chest, his heart beating rapidly. He stays like that for a few seconds, and then feels Isagi cautiously place his hands on his back.
He holds his breath, he can feel Isagi’s heartbeat. He can feel Isagi trying to steady his breathing and the arms around him hold him tighter.
“Oh, oh I like you.” Rin whispers.
“You, what…? ” Isagi shakily exhales.
“I like you.” Rin lifts his head and looks at Isagi, really looks at Isagi this time.
He stares at those familiar sapphire eyes and doesn’t look at them as if they’re something to take for granted. He looks into them like he’ll never be able to do this again.
The immense capacity of love pooling in Rin’s eyes is enough to leave Isagi bewitched.
Slowly, hesitantly, he places an eager hand on Rin’s cheek. “Maybe, I like you too.”