Work Text:
“Amagi, you’re leaving practice early?”
Niki turns his head, swallowing a bite of a granola bar. He’s on the floor, currently, having dramatically collapsed after their last runthrough of Crazy Roulette and begged Rinne to toss him some food, so Rinne decided to dump an entire bag worth of Niki’s emergency granola bars on top of him. Which means he gets a fun sideways view of HiMERU approaching Rinne, who already has his practice bag slung against his shoulder and one hand on the doorway.
Confusion dances across Rinne’s face briefly, before smoothing over into a neutral expression. (Or, at least, as neutral as Rinne’s expression ever gets, which is to say halfway to his signature crazy grin.) “What, I didn’t tell ya?”
HiMERU shakes his head. “Though, HiMERU would not be surprised if you had planned to sneak out without telling the rest of us in the first place.”
“C’mon, Merumeru, you don’t have that little faith in your dear leader, do you?”
HiMERU stares Rinne dead in the eyes, expression unchanged. Niki holds back a laugh.
Rinne snickers at HiMERU’s expression, adjusting his bag. “Nah,” he says, “I just have a meeting with some of the CosPro execs, and Vice Prez said he’d rip my balls off if I didn’t go this time, so! Your poor, hardworking leader has to leave you early.”
“There’s no way Ibara-han said he’d rip yer balls off,” Kohaku says from where he sits by Niki’s head, in the same breath that HiMERU glares at Rinne and says, “Language, Amagi.”
Rinne cackles. “Ya caught me! He didn’t, but he did threaten our budget again, so Rinne’s gotta go to the boring meeting. See ya!”
He pulls the practice room door open, pausing briefly in the doorway. Rinne looks at Niki, and Niki takes another bite of his granola bar. “I’ll be home by seven,” Rinne says.
Niki sighs. He knows what Rinne is asking him. “I have work until eight,” he tells Rinne, “so if you want dinner from me tonight you’ll have to wait, okay! No dragging me out of work early!”
Rinne grins. “Your cooking’s always worth waitin’ for, honey! Okay, byeeee~!”
And with his signature, hyena-like cackle, Rinne slams the door to the practice room shut behind him.
Niki finishes the final bite of his granola bar. Ah, he hadn’t even started thinking of what he wanted to cook for dinner… they have some fish he could use, maybe? Pan fry that with some herbs, maybe.
“Niki-han,” Kohaku says, interrupting Niki’s train of thought. Niki cranes his neck to meet Kohaku’s eyes, but as soon as he does Kohaku gets this strange look on his face and looks away.
“Hm? What’s up?”
There’s an awkward pause when Kohaku doesn’t answer, still looking away from Niki. And then HiMERU breaks the silence, saying, “Shiina… does Amagi regularly call you by terms of endearment?”
Niki laughs. “Terms of endearment? What are you—” His eyes widen, and he shoots up from where he was laying on the floor, a couple stray granola bars falling off of his chest at the movement. “Oh. Oh , Rinne-kun called me honey.”
“So he doesn’t normally do that,” Kohaku says tentatively, like he’s confirming the statement. Niki turns towards him — he catches sight of himself in the mirror of the practice room, and he looks distressed .
“No, he doesn’t normally do that! Why would he?” Niki wails. “Kohaku-chaaan, what does this mean —”
“Rinne-han calls you his wife,” Kohaku supplies, like that helps whatsoever.
And then it does, weirdly — Niki gasps in realization. “He’s just teasing me! Getting on my nerves! Just like when he calls me his wife — Kohaku-chan, you’re a genius!”
HiMERU raises a single eyebrow in Niki’s direction. “You don’t think Amagi might be flirting with you, Shiina?”
Niki looks at HiMERU in the reflection of the mirrors. “Flirting? Why would Rinne-kun flirt with me?”
HiMERU and Kohaku share a look that Niki can’t interpret. Niki looks over at Kohaku, hoping he’ll take pity on poor, stupid Niki and explain — but then Kohaku just sighs and says, “Well, we should be gettin’ back to practice, then.”
That’s the end of that strange interaction. Niki pushes the thought of Rinne calling him honey from his mind.
-
Niki’s excited.
It’s his first free day in a long time, and Niki has the kitchen to himself, and he is so excited to try out a bunch of new recipes. First on his list is experimenting with some French macarons — Niki’s been meaning to expand his knowledge of Western sweets, and macarons are a classic for any baker. Not that Niki’s a baker, primarily — he’s definitely more comfortable with a nice cut of meat than pastry flour — but it’s good for him to cover all his basics! What kind of chef would he be, if he didn’t at least know how to do that?
But anyways. The macarons.
Niki measures out all the ingredients for the meringue carefully, then puts them in the stand mixer and sets it to high. That should take a bit to whip, meaning Niki can get started preparing the rest of the ingredients.
He sifts the almond flour into a wide metal bowl, then checks on the meringue — it still needs a bit more time, probably — before checking the recipe book again. Then looks at the ingredients he set out on the counter, and—
“Rinne-kun!” Niki calls. He waits a beat, and then there’s the sound of movement from the living room, and Rinne’s head peeks through the door. “Can you grab the icing sugar for me? From the baking cabinet.”
“Ya can’t grab it yourself?”
Niki shakes his head. “The meringue is almost done whipping, and I don’t want it to break while I grab the sugar,” Niki explains. “But I don’t want to just turn off the mixer before it’s done, either.”
Rinne looks at the stand mixer, then back at Niki. “This baking stuff’s so complicated, y’know?” he complains, but he walks over and grabs the sugar for Niki anyway. “Dunno why you don’t just buy these… whatever they are if you want to eat ‘em so badly.”
“French macarons, Rinne-kun,” Niki says, peering into the bowl underneath the stand mixer. He turns it off, then lifts the whisk attachment to test if the meringue is stiff enough. It looks great, so Niki takes the bowl out and sets it next to the almond flour he already measured out on the counter. “Thank you for grabbing the sugar for me — you’re the best! So sweet for once! I can hardly believe it!”
Rinne laughs, leaning on the kitchen counter next to Niki’s ingredients. “Not as sweet as you, sugar,” Rinne says, and the scoop of icing sugar Niki was carefully putting atop the sifter to add to the almond flour falls from the spoon with a whump , sending a slight cloud of white into the air and making Niki’s nose itch.
HiMERU’s words echo in Niki’s head. “You don’t think Amagi might be flirting with you?”
Niki whips his head to look over at Rinne, but by the time he has Rinne’s already got that stupid smug smile on his face, laughing that stupid cackling laugh of his, and as he walks back out of the kitchen he says, “When am I not sweet to my dear wife? You wound me, Niki!”
Niki stares at Rinne’s retreating back, covered in a fine dusting of icing sugar, and can’t think of a single thing to say.
-
Niki is sitting on the couch when Rinne gets home.
Niki’s so mad at him, seriously! He stole Niki’s cash while Niki was at work, and then Niki heard from HiMERU that Rinne was headed off to his favourite pachinko parlor, again! And usually whenever Rinne does this he waits until Niki’s fast asleep to get back home, so that he doesn’t have to deal with Niki’s wrath — but not today! Niki’s going to confront him about it and he’ll make Rinne listen, no matter what it takes!
Which is why, when Rinne sneaks into the living room of their apartment and looks confused as to why the lights on, Niki clears his throat loudly and relishes in the shock that passes over Rinne’s face before transforming slowly into a sheepish smile. “ Heyyy , Niki,” Rinne says. “Aren’tcha usually asleep by now? Don’t you have work in the morning?”
Niki huffs and crosses his arms over his chest, because he does and it’s already two in the morning and he has to be awake in four hours to get ready for his morning shift, but confronting Rinne was way more important! Otherwise, Niki might snap! And then he’d stress eat their entire stock at the cafe, and he’d get fired, and then what? “Maybe! It doesn’t matter! You have to stop stealing my money to go gamble, Rinne-kun!”
“Aw, but I made it all back and then some,” Rinne says, and he digs into his pocket with his free hand — he’s holding a white paper bag with his other hand, for some reason? — and pulls out a wad of cash, at least doubled in thickness from what he stole from Niki earlier. “ And I went outta my way to buy my darling wife some food!”
Niki narrows his eyes at the bag. Rinne walks over and sets it tentatively on the coffee table in front of Niki, like he’s scared Niki is going to bite him if he gets too close — which Niki won’t lie and say he hasn’t considered — and then backs away.
He opens the bag — there’s a cheeseburger and some fries in there. The fries are half cold and the cheeseburger has gotten a bit soggy, but Niki’s never been one to turn down free food. He pulls the burger out of the bag and takes a big bite, then glares at Rinne again. “Don’t think you can get away with this just because you bought me food,” Niki says, except it isn’t nearly as threatening as he wanted it to be, words muffled around the burger. He swallows, and then realizes— “Hey! Wait! If you thought I’d be asleep, you just bought this burger for yourself!”
“ Whaaat of course not!” Rinne says, but Niki’s on to him. Still, he’s already eaten half the burger, so he just takes another bite. “C’mon, Niki, baby , you know I only have your best interests in mind!”
Niki chokes on the burger.
He manages to swallow the food, coughing harshly, and then turns on Rinne with eyes that are tearing up from nearly choking to death (what a way to go) and says, voice hoarse, “Don’t think you can just call me stupid pet names to get out of this, Rinne-kun! I know what you’re doing!”
Rinne freezes, stupid grin still in place but alarm flashing briefly through his eyes. “You do?”
Niki nods. “You’re just trying to fluster me! Get on my nerves! Distract me! And I’m telling you now, it won’t work, Rinne-kun!” He takes a bite of the burger after, as if to punctuate his sentence. Maybe Niki should be more cautious about not choking again, but food is food and Niki’s always hungry.
Rinne laughs. “Yep, totally! You caught me.”
There’s something in Rinne’s eyes that doesn’t match his words — something a bit sad, a bit relieved. Niki isn’t sure what to make of it.
He considers asking, maybe — but then Rinne dashes forward and snags the container of fries from the bag, and the question slips from Niki’s mind as he yells and leaps off the couch to save his bounty from Rinne’s greedy hands.
-
Sometimes Niki wonders what god he pissed off in a past life to have been assigned the Rinne Handler.
There was a big CosPro party — one of those big fancy ones where Niki has to wear a suit, or at least something close to it, and there’s a big buffet table of fancy food that makes Niki’s mouth water and Rinne always drinks way too much champagne. That last part is the important one, now, as Niki carefully hands Rinne a glass of water before sitting down next to him at their assigned table for the evening. (HiMERU and Kohaku were here, but they disappeared at some point during the evening and Niki was too busy making sure Rinne wouldn’t run his mouth too hard around all the execs and get them fired to pay attention to where they went.)
“Nikiiii,” Rinne says, after he’s drained about half the glass of water, “have I ever told ya that you’re the best?”
Niki rolls his eyes. “Why would you ever tell me that, Rinne-kun?”
Rinne shrugs, finger tracing around the rim of the glass idly. “‘S true, isn’t it?”
“I think you drank too much,” Niki tells Rinne, and Rinne shakes his head.
“Nooo, I drank just enough. Just right,” Rinne says, and then Niki sighs and throws one of Rinne’s arms around his shoulders and carefully helps him stand up.
“Your dorm’s on the third floor, right?” Niki asks.
He doesn’t expect an answer, but Rinne nods his head anyway. “I don’t wanna go there, though,” he whines. Niki nods politely to one of the execs as they pass by on their way out of the room. “Wanna stay with Niki.”
“Well, your brother is already asleep, and I bet Hinata-kun is too,” Niki says, because he definitely remembers the twins leaving the party a couple of hours ago, “so we can’t go to my room. And the apartment’s too far when you’re all floppy like this. So I’ll just drop you off at yours, okay?”
Rinne grumbles, but doesn’t protest much as they walk to the dorm building, Niki guiding them into the elevator and punching the button for the third floor before letting go of Rinne’s arm and watching him slump against the wall.
“Will your roommates be there?” Niki asks. He knows half of the answer, probably — he definitely saw Hiyori strongarm the rest of his unit out of the room with a loud proclamation about how it’s been too long since they’ve spent the night together — but isn’t sure about Rinne’s other roommate. Plus, getting Rinne to think about his roommate’s schedules will hopefully sober him up a bit more.
“Kanacchi… might be,” Rinne says thoughtfully. “I think Hiyori-chan said he won’t be, though.”
The elevator door opens with a ding , and Niki watches Rinne drag himself unsteadily out of the elevator, then follows behind. He makes it to his dorm door without any incidents, fumbling slightly with his key before managing to get the door open. Niki follows him inside.
The lights are off, so Niki shushes Rinne and then shushes him again when Rinne starts giggling in response. Rinne stumbles over to his own bed and collapses, giggling all the while.
Niki walks over, about to sigh and quietly lecture Rinne — only for Rinne to grab him by the arm and drag him down to the bed with a yelp that Niki is just a beat too slow to stifle. He hopes he didn’t wake Kanata up.
“Rinne-kun, what—” Niki says, but Rinne shushes him before he can even finish his sentence, wrapping his arms around Niki and pulling him closer.
“Niki, Nikiiii,” Rinne practically singsongs, voice barely louder than a whisper, “you’re so cute, y’know?”
“What are you even on about now,” Niki huffs out. He tries to get out of Rinne’s grasp, but even while on the way to sobering up from being drunk Rinne is freakishly strong. “Your weird distraction tactics stopped working a while ago, you know that?”
“They aren’t distractions, darling,” Rinne says, and Niki has to take a moment to reel from Rinne calling him darling , of all things, “you’re cute. I mean it. I always mean it, Niki’s just so mean —”
“I am not mean—”
“Mean to yourself,” Rinne says, softly. He lets his head drop forward, burying it in Niki’s shoulder. “Niki should have figured it out by now,” he says, voice muffled by the fabric of Niki’s blazer, and then as Niki’s trying to figure out a response to whatever the hell Rinne just dropped on him, Rinne starts snoring softly.
The nerve of this guy, really.
Niki sighs, then tries to extricate himself from Rinne’s vice grip and fails spectacularly. Rinne couldn’t have even let him take off his shoes or jacket or anything before trapping him here?
There’s a soft giggle from behind Niki, and when he manages to shift himself around so that Rinne is pressed against his back, Niki can just barely make out Kanata sitting up in his bed in the dim lighting. “You two seem cozy,” Kanata says softly, in that quiet, lilting way of his, and Niki could about burn up from embarrassment.
“Sorry we woke you, Shinkai-kun,” Niki whispers back. Rinne shifts against Niki and buries his face deeper into the junction of Niki’s shoulder and neck, and Niki shivers slightly as Rinne’s breath hits his skin. “Please don’t mention this in the morning, I think I’d die. Especially if Rinne-kun ends up not remembering any of it.”
Kanata laughs softly. “I promise,” he says, and then he lays back down in his bed and seems to fall back asleep.
It’s a wonder that sleep eventually comes to Niki, when he spends the next few minutes, or hours, running Rinne’s words through his mind, trying to make sense of them.
He wakes up the next morning still pressed against Rinne, still in those uncomfortable party clothes. Niki did manage to kick his shoes off before he fell asleep, so at least he had that small bit of comfort.
Niki shifts slightly, trying to turn around to face Rinne, and Rinne whines in protest. “Good morning, Rinne-kun,” Niki says, and Rinne lets out a small hum in response. “Do you want to talk about what happened last night?”
Because that’s the conclusion Niki came up with after all that thinking, rubbing his two brain cells together to find a solution — if Rinne remembers, then they’re going to have to talk about it. Because Niki has too many questions, and he won’t lie and say he hasn’t been affected by Rinne’s … whatever it is, the pet names, the ‘wife’ thing, the fact that he would probably be willing to date Rinne if he ever thought Rinne would see him like that.
Rinne whines, burying his face in Niki’s shoulder again. “You couldn’t have waited ‘til we ate breakfast, at least?” he asks.
“So you do remember,” Niki says. “What did you mean when you said they weren’t distraction tactics?”
Rinne unburies his face from Niki’s jacket, scrunching his nose up. “Exactly what I said, duh,” he says, and Niki wriggles an arm up between them so he can flick Rinne on the forehead. “Ow. I was hoping you’d get the hint before I ended up telling you while I was drunk, though.”
“Well, I’m pretty stupid,” Niki says. “Rinne-kun didn’t think that one out very well.”
Rinne’s eyes meet Niki’s, and Niki doesn’t think he’s ever seen those blue eyes be more honest. “If you want me to stop, I will.”
“When did I ever say that?” Rinne looks surprised, so Niki sighs and continues, “I still won’t be your wife, but if that was your way of saying you wanted to date me, or something… then yeah, we can. I still think you should have been more straightforward, though.”
A smile spreads across Rinne’s face, slow and sure. “So you liked it when I called you baby? And honey? And darling?”
Niki suddenly can’t meet Rinne’s gaze, cheeks flushing. “... Maybe,” he admits.
Rinne grins. “Great.”
-
“Next, please!”
A familiar head of untamed red hair and a confident grin meets Niki at the cash register of Cafe Cinnamon. “Hey, cupcake,” Rinne says, and Niki hates the way it causes him to flush.
“Rinne-kun!” Niki hisses. “We’re in public!”
Rinne laughs. “Relax, relax! Besides, I’ve called you way worse in here before. I think your manager just gave up on getting me to behave.” He’s not wrong — Niki’s manager did just give up, especially with how often the rest of Crazy:B seems to insist on making this their hang out spot.
“If you aren’t going to order anything, I’m kicking you out of line,” Niki says instead of replying.
Rinne scans the menu, then leans back in towards Niki and says, “Hey, can I get it for free since we’re dating?”
Niki flicks his forehead. “Idiot Rinne-kun. No, you can’t.”
“Then… I’ll get a slice of honey cake and a latte,” Rinne says. Mercifully, he pulls his phone out to pay for the food, and Niki punches in the order and completes the transaction without too much hassle. “Thanks, sweetpea.”
“You know,” Niki comments idly, “when we started dating and I figured out your whole pet name game I thought you’d get less obnoxious with them, not more .”
Rinne laughs again. “When you seem to love them so much? I’d never think of stopping, pumpkin.”
He heads towards the pick up area, and Niki prays he isn’t blushing as hard as the heat in his cheeks tells him he is.
-
“Is dinner ready?”
“Almost,” Niki replies. He blows carefully on the spoon full of sauce he made, then sips it, humming quietly to himself as the flavours dance on his tongue. “Hm, it’s missing something… a bit bland, maybe.” He turns to look at Rinne, who is leaning on the counter next to their spice rack, then back down at the saucepan, stirring it carefully with a wooden spoon. “Could you pass me the salt, babe?”
There’s no response from Rinne, for long enough that Niki glances back over at him. “Rinne-kun?”
Rinne’s face is bright red, mouth slightly open. “You called me babe,” he says, and he sounds slightly dazed.
Niki laughs. “Did I? I didn’t even notice.” Rinne blinks, then paws at the spice rack until he finds the salt and hands it over to Niki, face still a brilliant shade of red. “You seemed to like it.”
Rinne groans, wrapping his arms around Niki’s waist and burying his face in Niki’s shoulder. “I’m never going to make fun of you getting flustered when I call you petnames again,” he says, words muffled.
“Sure you won’t,” Niki agrees amiably. He takes another spoonful of the sauce, eating about half of it before holding the spoon in front of Rinne, nudging him to take a bite. “I think this is done now, Rinne-kun!”
“Tastes good,” Rinne agrees.
They serve and eat dinner, nothing more than their usual affair. Nothing more, except now Rinne has Niki thinking.
“You’re spacing out, Niki,” Rinne says, and Niki realizes he was, the food on his plate only half-eaten.
“Just thinking, babe,” Niki says, taking another bite of his food, and the delightful shade of red Rinne turns causes a wicked smile to curve over Niki’s face. Oh, he’s going to have so much fun coming up with a list of every pet name he can think of and seeing how well Rinne reacts to all of them…