Work Text:
Electric fan.
The noise is oddly comforting.
Electric fan, toaster. Jam. Clean, soft bed sheets. Fluffy bath towels - fuck, bath.
Denji's running out of fingers to count on; the overwhelming number of luxuries he never would have imagined having.
Water that tastes like nothing. No stale, metallic taste. Pillows that feel like clouds under his head. The apartment even smells clean. A dry kind of smell - no dampness in the air. Just the soft scent of laundry detergent mixed with cigarette smoke. The smell of cigarettes doesn't bother him half as much as the smell of rotting, damp wood and dust and decay.
Denji can't sleep.
He stares at the ceiling - the neat, white plaster, no cracks, no speckles of black mold. The electric fan whirs next to his bed, filling the otherwise empty silence of the apartment.
He sits up, and stares at the wall instead. Clean, unchipped paint.
For the best part of his life, his nights were uneasy. His door hadn't been secure, against weather or anything else - it would have been too easy for someone to break in and murder him in his sleep, or a wild animal to come maul him to death, or something. He can't count the amount of times the rain flooded his shack, soaking the floor, all the way over to his bed. The amount of times the wind shook the walls. The sound of animals scratching at the dirt outside in the dead of night. The cobwebs, the dust, the bugs. Every night the paranoia held him back from comfortable sleep.
Denji slips out of bed. What time is it? Probably past midnight, right?
The paranoia should have disappeared the second he got here. This place is unfamiliar, though. In a way, it's worse. The thought makes him feel guilty; it's not like he's ungrateful. This place is great, really - in the daylight, anyway. It's night now, though, and it's dark and weird and lonely and it just feels like he doesn't belong here. This is a stranger's home. He doesn't have any family left.
He misses Pochita.
Denji pads out to the living room as quietly as possible. He stops to stare at the appliances in the kitchen. He doesn't know what half of that shit does. Stares at a piece of paper stuck to the fridge. Some kind of shopping list, probably - he figures out a couple letters. Gets bored and gives up before he can deduce the first word.
He stands in the middle of the living room, staring at nothing. It occurs to him that he's going to be exhausted in the morning, but he can't bring himself to care. He can't sleep in this unfamiliar, too-clean place. Not without Pochita.
His mind keeps drifting back to the bugs. Horrible, freaky little bugs crawling under his bed and over his face while he sleeps. Pochita would chase the big ones. Eat them sometimes, too, which Denji would find pretty gross, and then feel guilty that he wasn't feeding the little devil well enough.
Denji wonders if there are ever bugs in Hayakawa's apartment. Probably not, right? It's pretty damn clean.
The thought nags at the back of his mind anyway.
"What the fuck are you doing?"
Denji jumps. He hadn't even heard the door sliding open. "Uh," he says stupidly, "nothing. I'm just- I was-"
"Forget it," Hayakawa says coolly, eyeing him with an unreadable expression. He looks different like this, Denji thinks - his hair falling loose and messy over his shoulders, baggy grey shirt and darker grey sweatpants. He'd looked so put together earlier, so pristine in his uniform with his crisp ironed shirt and his annoying perfect hair.
Denji had wanted nothing more than to take a pair of scissors and cut that stupid ponytail off his head.
Now though, the guy looks so... normal. Kind of rough around the edges, actually, and it makes Denji think his perfect exterior is a facade; makes him wonder if anyone else has seen him like this, pouring a glass of water at the kitchen counter with tired eyes and wrinkles in his shirt.
"The fuck are you staring at?" he snaps, glaring at Denji as he sips his water.
"Jeez, nothing!" Denji snaps back, bristling. "Would you back off?"
"Hey, do not speak to me like that. This is my-"
"Whatever!"
Hayakawa's eye twitches. "Go to bed."
Denji falters.
"Denji, go to bed before I kill you."
"You can't do that," Denji says uncertainly. He's pretty sure he can't actually die, but if he did, where would he end up? In pieces in a dumpster again? Buried in the woods, getting eaten by worms and bugs? His stomach churns at the thought.
"Go to sleep."
Bugs. The word echoes in his head uncomfortably. He thinks about the cockroach he found in his bed a few weeks ago. Shudders. He's not scared of bugs - he's not a coward - they're just gross and creepy and they have too many legs. "I can't sleep."
"Yes you can, and you will if you value your life at all."
"Will you check under the bed for cockroaches?"
He blurts the question out stupidly, his mouth moving faster than his brain. The two of them stand in an uncomfortable silence for a minute, staring each other down.
"Pardon?"
"I said-"
"Cockroaches...?"
Denji flushes, feeling extremely dumb. "Or, like, any other bugs," he mumbles, "I guess."
"Denji, there aren't..."
"Could you just check? Please?"
Hayakawa sighs deeply. Shrugs a little. "Alright. Yeah. Sure, fine."
They walk to Denji's room in silence. Denji watches from the doorway as he crouches down to check under the bed, pushing the mattress up. The guy's pretty damn thorough, Denji will give him that.
"No bugs," he says, straightening up again, and sits down on the edge of the bed. "What's the deal, anyway? You got a phobia or something?"
"No," Denji says defensively. "I'm not scared. I just- I just don't like them! They're creepy and gross!"
"Right."
"I'm not scared," he repeats. "There were just a lot of roaches in my old place and mosquitoes that bit me and your place is really clean and nice and-"
Denji stops himself mid ramble, feeling tears welling up in his eyes. He pushes at them with his palms. He will not cry. "Thanks for checking. I'll sleep now-" and, as an afterthought, "Hayakawa-san."
"Denji, I..."
There's another uncomfortable quiet moment, and Denji suddenly feels vulnerable, and he hates it. "What?"
"You can call me Aki, if you want. It's fine."
Denji stares at him. "Oh."
"I still expect you to be respectful. Especially at work. Got it?"
"Yeah, yeah, I'll keep it in mind."
"Okay. Good." Aki stands up, shooting him another unreadable look. He seems to carefully consider his words before speaking again. "You'll let me know if you need anything else?"
"Sure," is all Denji manages to say.
"Okay, good," Aki repeats. "Well, goodnight, Denji."
"Night, Aki."
It occurs to Denji that part of why Aki is so annoying is because the bastard's expression is frequently indecipherable. Denji doesn't know what he's thinking, and it's infuriating. Ninety percent of the time his expression is neutral; the other ten percent, Aki is flat out glaring at him. He hasn't smiled once since they met. Before he leaves, though, Denji's almost certain that the corner of his lip quirks up a little.
The room is too quiet again; the only sound is the gentle buzz of the electric fan. It's a little too cold, but Denji doesn't turn it off. The sound is comforting, somehow. Besides, he has plenty of thick blankets to keep him warm.
He stares at the perfect ceiling. No mold. No leaks. No rainwater dripping through cracks.
The air's clean smell isn't half as unfamiliar now.
"Pochita," he whispers to the darkness, "I think we're home."