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Kukui is sure he’s having a brain aneurysm. He must be. He must be hallucinating, or dreaming, or having a medical emergency, because the scene in front of him cannot be real. He refuses to believe it.
“Professor!” Ash says, voice bright and cheerful. “Didn’t think you’d be home so early!”
Kukui breathes in through his nose, steepling his fingers, and tries to comprehend how in the world Ash could possibly be acting so nonchalant about this.
He’s staring. He can’t even think of what to say right now, or what emotion he should be feeling. Anger, probably. All he is is absolutely flabbergasted, and there’s still a large part of him that can’t accept this as reality. Under his gaze, Ash grows steadily more sheepish, rubbing the back of his neck. “How was your day?”
How was your day, he asks. As if there isn’t the absolutely more pressing matter of the fact that he is literally ankle-deep in water. As if Ash didn’t flood his house.
He closes his eyes and tries to keep his voice neutral. The thing is, he’s not even angry. He’s just so completely floored he doesn’t know how to react. “My day was fine, Ash. Why is the house flooded?”
“Oh, that?” He says. As if it’s weird for Kukui to be asking that question. As if that isn’t obviously the thing they should be addressing right now. “Don’t worry about it, Professor, there are some guys comin’ in a little bit! And I’ll pay for everything.”
See, Kukui is not even worried about the money right now. Sure, Ash offering to pay does probably make it so Kukui will be less angry once he gets over his shock, but that is not what concerns him the most. “Ash - what were you doing?”
He shuffles his feet a little. It swishes the water around. “Well - you know, you were tellin’ me about washin’ my clothes, right? So - I, uh, I washed them! Like you asked. Except that all the floors are gettin’ washed, too.”
Kukui absolutely cannot figure out how this happened. He must be dreaming, right? Because he showed Ash how to do his laundry. How to put the clothes in, put detergent and softener in their containers, and to set it and press start.
How did this even happen? How did Ash manage to mess up laundry this badly?
He shakes his head. He breathes. “Show me how you did your laundry.”
Ash tilts his head, amused, as Kukui has come to notice Ash does when he's just done something crazy that he thinks is normal; when he thinks Kukui is the unreasonable one. He does this - all the time. Kukui has only had Ash living here for just shy of three weeks, and he has already come to recognize Ash’s little quirks. Like, for example, the fact that he confidently assumes that he knows how to do everything, and that it doesn’t matter if he messes up, because anything can be fixed.
Case in point. Ash is completely unbothered by the fact that he has flooded the house; he doesn’t even deem it worth mentioning. Oh well, he probably thought, once he somehow broke the washing machine, time to fix it.
But Ash shows him, nonetheless. Kukui has to wade through the water to get closer. His socks are wet and they are squelching in his shoes. “So, you see, Professor, I just put the clothes in, like this, and then I thought ‘Oh, people are supposed to wash their sheets, too, right? People that have beds do that.’ So then I went and got my sheets and my blanket, and I put that in, too, and then I thought I should probably wash the towels in the bathroom, so I did that, and then it was kinda a lot so I had to stuff it in to all fit. And then I got it closed, and I pressed the buttons like you told me to! I think I got all the buttons right, but I must’ve pressed something wrong, because I don’t think all the water is supposed to come out, right? Or, at least, it didn’t when you showed me.”
And, suddenly, it all makes sense.
Something Kukui has also come to notice about Ash, which he finds strangely intriguing, is the fact that despite Ash’s lack of personal hygiene, he keeps the house remarkably clean. It’s a little disturbing, the way that on the occasional time he peeks his head into Ash’s room there is almost no indication someone is living there. It’s completely pristine; no clothes to be seen, bed made with hospital corners, floor spotless. When Ash feeds his pokemon, or eats food, or does the dishes, Kukui would never be able to tell. Everything is spotless - not a crumb on the floor, not a spot on the counter. Nothing. It’s like Ash is afraid to make a mess.
Or, more likely, it is because Ash is used to life on the road. Living out of a backpack. Leave the wilderness cleaner than when you arrived. Pokemon Center rooms are only free as long as you keep them clean.
And besides, this kid is relentlessly kind. He offers to pay for the food Kukui provides, and doesn’t understand when Kukui says that he is the adult. Ash shouldn’t have to pay to live somewhere.
So, of course, he’s going to be kind. He’s going to clean his sheets, and the towels, and everything he can. Kukui swears that last night, after dinner, was the fourth time he’d seen Ash sweep the floor this week.
The clincher is, though. Ash has not lived in a house for several years. And he doesn’t know how to do laundry, and he doesn’t know he has to wash his clothes, and he doesn’t really know what a home is supposed to look like.
Kukui never really felt the anger, but he knows there is no way he can get angry now. Not at this kid, who only wants to help. Who Kukui has lived with for less than three weeks and yet he cannot imagine living without.
It’s only the beginning of the school year, and he is already starting to worry about when Ash will eventually leave.
“You’re not supposed to stuff it so full,” he tells Ash, who does this dramatic sort of tilting up of his head, like his moment of realization must be punctuated with a full-body movement. “ Ohh ,” he responds, the word drawn out. “That makes sense, Professor!”
Both of them are standing in ankle-deep water and Kukui doesn’t know how to feel. “Well,” Ash says, “I get that you probably don’t want to get all wet - you can go, if you want! I’ll clean it all up!”
Kukui blinks. He stares. Ash stares back. “Or…not?” He amends.
“I think you should let me do the laundry from now on,” Kukui tells him. Ash jumps up onto his toes, his arms flapping around a little, protesting. “Oh, no, Professor! You don’t have to do that! I’ll clean my own clothes, you know? You said I gotta, and you shouldn’t have to do that for me, you know? I mean, you’re already doin’ all this,” he waves his hand around the house vaguely, “and you don’t have to do any more! I got it!”
Kukui doesn’t know how else he can illustrate to Ash how much he has not, in fact, ‘got it.’ Kukui is still scared that Ash will leave if he pushes him the wrong way, or accidentally insults him, and Kukui absolutely will not stand for that. He absolutely would take a flooded house any day over it being empty. It’s loud, all the time now. Even at night, when Ash talks in his sleep, sometimes, or gets up to get water and trips. It’s always loud. Kukui very quickly grew to love that. He doesn’t want to go back to the way he used to live.
And so he doesn’t want to insult Ash, but he also doesn’t want him doing laundry. “Ash, you don’t need to earn your keep here. You are welcome, no matter what. You live here. I’m not going to kick you out, got it?”
Ash tilts his head that way once again, like he’s humoring Kukui. It’s still maddening, but he is also growing strangely fond of it. “I know that, Professor! Besides, if you did, I’d still go to school, you know?”
Not the point, and Kukui wishes he could just get through to Ash, sometimes. Through all those layers of humor and smiles and careful misunderstandings and literal thinking. Through all of it, he wishes he could just get inside that kid’s head. Drill it into him: You are welcome here. Drill it into him: Don’t leave. Drill it into him: You can tell me how you feel.
“Please, Ash,” he says, trying not to let the frustration show. “Let me do the laundry. If you really want to help me out, let me wash the clothes.”
Ash screws his face up, a little, like he’s confused, or maybe offended. He is scanning Kukui’s face, which lets him know that Ash is trying to figure him out. He’s silent for a little while, before doing his sideways smile. “Sure, Professor, if you really like doin’ laundry that much. I mean, I didn’t think it was really all that fun, but if you like doin’ it I don’t wanna take that away from you, you know?”
Not the point. Not the point, not even close, and Kukui is so flabbergasted by Ash’s inability to grasp simple intentions sometimes, but he has to choose his battles and if this means that Ash will stop trying to do the laundry, he counts this as a win.
He smiles. It’s a little strained. “Thanks, Ash. Now, what do you say we get out of here and let those guys you called figure it out?”
Ash smiles, and shrugs one shoulder, and says “Sure! Those guys are real good at what they do, you know? They’ll have it fixed in no time!”
By the time they are leaving, they pass the guys Ash called, and Kukui swears he recognizes them from somewhere. There’s three of them - one with pink hair, one with blue, and one with a misshapen coat and a large hat. Ash smiles at them, that big megawatt smile that makes Kukui’s heart do a fond little flutter (not that he’d ever say that aloud), and they give him a thumbs up.
By the time the workers are inside the house, Kukui feels distinctly like he’s missed something.