Chapter Text
Gokudera had a scar on the underside of his wrist, right at the base of his palm.
Hibari was pretty sure he was the only one who knew about it, but that might mostly be because he was there when he got it. It had started, as most arguments did between them, because of money. Though Hibari had been living with Gokudera for a year now, he still had access to his parents’ bank account and the seemingly endless amount of cash that sat within it. He wasn’t sure why they hadn’t cut him off—an ugly part of him often whispered that it was because they’d never even noticed that he moved out—but it allowed him to continue to live the way he always had: job-free and fast and loose with his money.
Gokudera was often horrified by this, for reasons that Hibari still didn’t really understand. He’d been rich once – why wouldn’t he buy all of his meals and live in a luxurious apartment instead of scraping by with a job that barely paid anything at all? But instead, he insisted on paying for a shitty apartment himself, cooking his own meals, and being offended whenever Hibari suggested otherwise.
Hibari had mostly learned to stop suggesting otherwise, but the one area he refused to back down in was this: hamburger steak. It was his favorite meal, and unfortunately one that Gokudera definitely couldn’t afford. It would be one thing if Hibari liked it the cheap way, with chicken and pork, but no, he wanted authentic hamburger steak – which meant the more expensive beef variety. He insisted on buying it, Gokudera demanded to know why he couldn’t just eat something they could buy at the grocery store and prepare, Hibari would declare that nothing on Earth tasted as good as professionally prepared hamburger steak, Gokudera would defensively ask what was wrong with his cooking, so on and so forth.
It was a sore subject, and one that came up more often than it probably should. At this point there was barely any anger behind it – it was just routine to argue about it.
“You know what your problem is?” Gokudera asked the most recent time it came up.
Hibari had many problems, but he doubted that any of them were the ones Gokudera was referring to. Besides, the way it was worded irritated him enough that he deemed it unnecessary to respond.
Gokudera hadn’t been waiting for a response anyway, and continued confidently, “You don’t know how to cook. If you did, you wouldn’t waste money on this.”
Said the one chowing down on the hamburger steak like it was his last meal on Earth. Hibari narrowed his eyes at him. “Why would I waste time doing that when I can just order this?”
“Because!” Gokudera waved his fork in the air to emphasize his point. “It’s cheaper, healthier, fun, and you get a sense of satisfaction out of making something delicious.”
Hibari tilted his head skeptically. It was unlikely that any of that was true – Gokudera had a tendency to over-exaggerate.
“You know what?” Gokudera said, suddenly standing up. “I’ll just teach you. Come on.”
He then marched the few meters it took to reach the kitchen. Hibari just stared at him over the back of his chair. “You’re going to prepare another meal now, after we just ate?”
“We can refrigerate it and have it tomorrow.” Gokudera leaned back against the stove, crossed his arms, and gave him a fiery stare. “Well?”
No one could force Hibari to do anything he didn’t want to do. But Gokudera did have a certain pull to him – Hibari liked it when he got all riled up. So he stood and followed him into the kitchen.
Gokudera decided they were going to start with something easy, which was apparently curry.
“The first step is food prep – it’s easier to cook when everything’s been cut beforehand,” Gokudera said, pulling out carrots, onions, potatoes, and chicken thighs from the fridge. He set everything on the counter, placed a carrot on the cutting board, and then handed a knife to Hibari.
Hibari took the knife and, honestly not entirely sure what to do with it, began stabbing at the carrot.
“What the— You’re trying to chop a carrot, not murder someone in a back alley,” Gokudera interrupted, grinning. “Look, see, cut it like this.”
He handed Hibari a mini whiteboard with a complex mathematical diagram on it. There was something vaguely carrot-shaped in the middle, if Hibari squinted hard enough, but if these angle measurements and force calculations were supposed to teach him anything, they sure weren’t doing their job. Gokudera was smart, incredibly smart—Hibari often got a little hot and bothered watching him flaunt his intelligence—but he was absolutely incapable of passing that knowledge onto anyone else.
Hibari smirked and gave the whiteboard back. “You do know that you’re the only one who can comprehend that, don’t you?”
Gokudera huffed and tossed the whiteboard aside. “It’s really not that complicated! Here, I’ll just show you.”
He stepped into Hibari’s space, placing his hand over Hibari’s on the knife and guiding his chopping. This would’ve been a much more effective teaching technique if Hibari could concentrate on anything besides Gokudera’s body against his, the warmth and smell of him demanding all of his attention. Lately, he’d been wanting to do more than just kiss Gokudera, but he didn’t really know how to bring it up. It stayed with him, though, and made itself known at the most inopportune times.
“You’re not even listening, are you?” Gokudera huffed under his breath.
Hibari wanted to bite him, not chop a carrot. He definitely hadn’t been listening.
Gokudera shook his head in exasperation. “Okay, whatever, we finished the carrot anyway. Let’s just move on.”
Gokudera walked him through cutting and prepping the rest of the ingredients, which honestly took so long in and of itself that Hibari could hardly believe this was supposed to be easy. If this recipe was easy, and they’d already spent half an hour chopping everything, what in the world were more complicated recipes like? Wouldn’t someone spend their whole day cooking?
Once Hibari had more or less passed the prep stage, Gokudera had him cook the onions in oil on the stove. He was then told to stir, so Hibari took a wooden spoon and began harshly scraping the onions around the interior of the pan. Almost immediately, some of the onions flew out, smacking onto the floor and the counter.
Gokudera barked out a loud laugh. “What the hell was that? I’ve never seen anyone stir so hard they flipped the onions out of the damn pan!”
“You’re the worst teacher,” Hibari snapped back. “You’re like Mr. Nezu.”
“Shit, I’m not that bad, am I?” Gokudera laughed again. “That guy made fun of you if you got a question wrong and always showed off how smart he was.”
“Exactly.”
Gokudera huffed and crossed his arms. “Maybe you’re just a terrible student. You skipped class more than I did, and that’s saying something.”
“I am a terrible student,” Hibari agreed. There was no sense in hiding it – Nami Middle itself had always been his priority, not the classes or subject matter. “Still doesn’t make you a good teacher.”
“Fuck you,” Gokudera said, but he was smiling. Hibari found himself distracted once again and leaned in to kiss him this time.
Gokudera kissed him back, his eyes sliding shut as he reached up to bury his fingers in Hibari’s hair. Hibari gasped, biting Gokudera’s lips until he opened his mouth for him with a hiss. Hibari eagerly licked into his mouth, desperate to taste as much of him as he could. Arousal shot through him as Gokudera reciprocated, a now familiar heat twisting in his stomach.
A different kind of heat suddenly pricked at his hand, and he pulled back slightly as something caught his eye. “Hayato.”
“Hm?” Gokudera still had his eyes closed, breathing hard, and he hadn’t noticed what Hibari had.
“Our curry is on fire.”
“What—?!” Gokudera whirled around, only to find a pillar of flame bursting up from the frying pain. He cursed and hurried to take the pan off the heat with one hand while he groped for the fire extinguisher hanging on the wall with the other. Because he wasn’t paying full attention, he set the pan down only slightly on the counter and it soon began falling to the floor, taking the burning curry along with it.
Hibari watched Gokudera, seemingly instinctively, reach out to grab it, only to flinch away when the burning hot pan caught on his wrist. “Motherfucker!”
The pan landed on the floor with a loud crash, though thankfully right-side up. The fire was contained enough that Hibari could get the fire extinguisher and finally put the poor thing out of its misery.
Once the fire was out, he turned to Gokudera, who was leaning against the counter and inspecting his burnt hand. His wrist was an ugly red, evidence of a serious burn.
Hibari came up to him immediately. “You should go to the hospital—”
“No, no, it’s fine.” Gokudera shoved his palm under the sink and turned on the cold water, hissing between clenched teeth as it poured over the burn. “I’ve dealt with worse from my dynamite.”
Irritation pricked under Hibari’s skin, but he knew another fight wouldn’t get them anywhere. If it wasn’t steak, the other thing they commonly argued about was going to the hospital. (Though, admittedly, it was rare for both arguments to happen on the same day.) Gokudera was just as stubborn as he was, especially when it came down to injuries or illnesses that required outside medical attention. He refused to go to the hospital unless he was literally dying, or someone else dragged him there, which Hibari was known to do on occasion.
The situation wasn’t that drastic yet, so Hibari merely clicked his tongue and said, “Then at least let me treat it properly.”
Gokudera gave him a sideways glance. “And how the hell would you know how to treat it properly?”
“I spend a lot of time at the hospital.” As soon as it came out, Hibari realized that used to would’ve been more accurate – it was strange to think that that was a thing of the past. He used to get sick all the time, horrible stomach pain that manifested out of nowhere and often led to some kind of cold. But he’d only been sick once in the entire year since he moved out of his parents’ house.
There was probably a reason for that, but he didn’t want to think about it just then.
Gokudera considered him, and then jerked his head towards the far kitchen cabinet. “Fine. There’s a first aid kit in the cabinet.”
Hibari went over to the cabinet, digging around until he found the first aid kid. He couldn’t quite reach the upper shelf, but his pride refused to let him use any type of stepping stool so he just groped around until his fingers caught on the fabric of the kit.
Gokudera scoffed. “How does that look any better than just using a stool? You always act like being short is a crime.”
Hibari scowled at him. Gokudera was tall, and getting taller the older he got – he didn’t have any right to say that. Hibari chucked the first aid kit at him, catching him on the chin, and then stalked back over.
“Asshole,” Gokudera grumbled fondly as Hibari took his hand and began inspecting the injury. It wasn’t as bad as he’d originally thought, and probably hadn’t warranted a hospital visit after all – not that he would ever tell Gokudera that.
He dug around in the first aid kit for a packet of aloe vera gel, tearing it open with his teeth before massaging it onto Gokudera’s burn. Gokudera hissed, the gel no doubt stinging at first, but then fell quiet. For a moment, there was nothing in the world but the two of them, standing close and breathing the same air. Gokudera’s skin was warm beneath Hibari’s hands, his pulse thumping steadily against his fingers. The burn wasn’t the only mark on his hands – he had scars all along his fingers too, likely due to the burns that he often got from his dynamite. Despite that, and maybe even because of it, he had beautiful hands. Hibari had always admired them, especially when he was sitting next to him, watching him play the piano. Even before they’d started this thing between them, Hibari had noticed his hands as they flung dynamite at their opponent, though he hadn’t known what it meant back then.
As he worked, he could feel Gokudera’s gaze on him too, and he looked up, catching him staring. Gokudera flushed, turning away in a poor attempt to hide his red cheeks, and muttered something mostly incoherent. Hibari smirked, but decided not to tease him today. Instead, he finished treating the burn, wrapping it loosely with gauze.
Once he was done, Hibari released him, and Gokudera inspected his palm. “…Huh. It actually feels pretty good. Thanks.”
“You’ll probably still get a scar,” Hibari said.
“That’s fine – it’ll add to my collection,” Gokudera said, flashing him a grin. Something pleasant and warm twisted in Hibari’s stomach at the sight.
Gokudera always managed to surprise him, in new and thrilling ways. Back when they’d first met, Hibari hadn’t found him at all interesting, and in fact was often annoyed by his blind devotion to Sawada. He’d thought that Gokudera didn’t understand anything about how the world worked, that people he looked up to could hurt him without a second thought, that caring for people would just be a weakness that others could exploit.
He never would’ve thought that Gokudera knew it all too well, that they shared a loneliness and estrangement from their family that Hibari had never experienced with anyone before. He never would’ve thought that caring for another, as Gokudera had when he’d brought him Shamal’s cure for his Sakura-kura disease and gotten him out of the scrap with Mukuro, could be a strength. He never would’ve thought that he would enjoy relying on someone, sharing things with someone, being with someone. He’d never thought that anyone would understand him, not really.
And yet, here Gokudera was, proving him wrong for all of it.
Hibari was pretty sure that he was in love with him.
It had never occurred to him before, and it froze him to the spot. The idea of it was so alarming that he left right after he managed to finish making the curry, desperately trying to pretend that he was just heading out for the night, not running away. Gokudera didn’t seem to think anything of it at least, as he just kissed him and said that he would see him later. Hibari kissed him back and then booked it out the window.
He found himself on Nami Middle’s roof, his old stomping ground. He wasn’t allowed here anymore, but that rarely stopped him when he was feeling this fragile. He pulled his legs up to his chest, crossing his arms over his knees and resting his chin on his forearm as he stared out at the town laid out before him.
He hadn’t seen this coming, somehow. Love. It felt like a fake term, like something that could never apply to him. Granted, it wasn’t something he’d ever really understood. He hadn’t had a model for it growing up, outside of Kusakabe’s parents, but their type of love had always seemed so suffocating. They were always in each other’s orbits, clingy and mushy, to the point where Hibari rarely saw one without the other. Watching them, Hibari hadn’t understood how anyone could stand to be in love.
But being with Gokudera made him feel good, in a way that he’d never experienced before. Most people made him itchy and uncomfortable, like he had ants beneath his skin, and until he met Gokudera, Kusakabe had been the only one who didn’t make him feel that way. It certainly helped that he and Gokudera had found a way to be together but also spend time apart when they needed it. But even then, Hibari found himself thinking about him, looking forward to when they would spend time together again. He’d never felt that way before, about anyone. Ever.
He didn’t know what to do with it. He didn’t know what he should do with it. He didn’t have any problems with their current relationship – in fact, he might even go so far as to say that he was content. But this new realization felt enormous, almost overwhelming. Part of him wanted to flee from it, draw back into the isolation he’d so carefully crafted for himself. Isolation was safe, easy, familiar.
Love was uncharted territory.
But it was also strangely exciting.
He thought of Gokudera’s grin, his banter, and that strange warmth washed over him again. He knew what it was now, as much as it scared him to put a label on it. Making that curry hadn’t brought him any sense of satisfaction, but spending time with Gokudera, well…
Hibari closed his eyes, focused on the cool breeze against his face, and, for once, allowed himself to feel.