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The house is all wrong for them.
It is big and empty and it echoes. The ceilings are too high. The walls are a depressing off-white, like the grey slush outside during the winters, masquerading as snow. There are too many rooms, but at the same time not enough―
Enough what?
Ryunosuke sighs and leans his hands on the island in the kitchen. The countertops are linoleum, though they have a printed pattern pretending to be stone. Ugly stone. They couldn’t even put pretty fake-stone in the kitchen, could they?
A touch against his lower back, warm and sure, and he immediately feels a little better.
“You don’t like it?” asks Kazuma, his hand slipping around his waist as he comes to stand next to him.
“Why would you think that?” Ryunosuke asks, lifting his face to meet his partner’s.
“Because that is your ‘I’m hiding my real feelings to not hurt yours’ smile,” Kazuma says, before booping him on the nose. “You really think I don’t know better by now? How long have we been together?”
“5 years, 3 months, and 15 days,” Ryunosuke says. Kazuma’s eyes widen.
“You just… you just knew that, huh? To the day.”
Ryunosuke grins.
“I just pulled it out of my arse, honestly,” he admits. “But I don’t think it was too far off.” He thinks for a second. “24 days. Or 19, depending on when you start counting.”
The laughter that bubbles from Kazuma’s chest is enough to cure all his ails, he is sure of it.
“You are ridiculous , Naruhodo Ryunosuke,” Kazuma says, but nothing more because Ryunosuke grabs his face between his palms and pulls him into a kiss.
He lets out a contented sigh as they pull apart.
“So,” Kazuma says, dipping in for another quick peck, “you don’t like the house.”
“I don’t know if that’s…” Ryunosuke starts, but Kazuma silences him the way he usually does.
“You don’t need to lie to me,” he says against Ryunosuke’s lips, and Ryunosuke draws in a shaky breath. “Come on, we’ll start the tour over and you’ll tell me everything you don’t like.”
And what can he do, but be pulled along by Kazuma.
He brings him all the way to the front door and then out of it, giving him a grin and the instruction to knock, before pulling it closed between them. Ryunosuke rolls his eyes ― mostly fond ― and waits for three seconds before bringing his hand up for three sharp knocks.
Three more seconds and the door swings open. “Mr Naruhodo!” exclaims Kazuma, making a grand show of bowing. Ryunosuke tries to stifle his laugh. “So glad you could make it, come on in, and we can start the tour!”
“Why, thank you, Mr Asogi,” Ryunosuke says and steps in when Kazuma moves out of the way.
“And first we have here the lovely foyer,” Kazuma says with another large sweep of his arm. “How do you like it?”
“Ah, well,” says Ryunosuke, his eyes rounding the narrow space. “It’s… a foyer. Very nice.”
“And how do you actually feel?”
Ryunosuke blinks and turns his gaze to Kazuma, whose smile is understanding, just like his words.
“I told you to tell me everything you don’t like.”
He draws in a deep breath, holds it in until his lungs ache, and then blows it slowly out.
“Fine then,” he says, and maybe it’s Kazuma’s smile or his switch to their native language, but his gripes come out of his mouth much easier than he thought they would. Even if they sound a lot less… significant than they do in his head.
Still, Kazuma nods along to his rambling like it’s the most interesting thing he’s heard all day, before whisking him off to the next room once he’s done. They repeat the process in the hallway, in the laundry room, the bathroom, and in each one Ryunosuke lists at least four things he hates, and Kazuma hums and frowns and ― Ryunosuke is sure ― commits each to memory.
Then they step into the living room, and his heart does a little pitter-patter.
Barok stands, tall and regal, in the middle of the room, talking with the realtor in a low, serious tone. Upon their entry he looks up, and upon seeing them his eyes soften at the corners, his lips tug up almost imperceptibly, and Ryunosuke’s breath catches in his throat.
“Is everything alright?” he asks.
Ryunosuke opens his mouth to say something, but a wave of guilt washes over him, when the realtor looks over too. She’s doing her best to sell them a house, and he’s pretending to like it only to turn around and shit all over it behind her back.
“Peachy,” says Kazuma and pats him on the shoulder. He switches back to Japanese when he asks, “And what horrible atrocities has this room committed against your sensibilities?”
Barok frowns, and Ryunosuke throws him a sheepish smile before turning to Kazuma and launching into a rant about the size of the windows. Barok frowns harder, glancing at Kazuma, but whatever look the two share seems to be enough to settle him, and he turns back to continue his discussion with the realtor.
Eventually they have toured the entire house once again and find themselves back in the kitchen. Ryunosuke leans his hands against the kitchen island again, the god-awful linoleum cold underneath his fingers. He takes a deep breath and hangs his head, not knowing what to expect now. Kazuma had seemed to really like the house, and now he’s spent the past 20 minutes or so bashing everything about the place.
Kazuma hums and taps his finger against his jaw.
“Alright,” he says finally, clapping his hands together. Ryunosuke flinches and hates that he flinches. “First thing we do is renovate the kitchen.”
He blinks. And looks up.
“Huh?” he says. Kazuma grins at him.
“To get rid of this god-awful linoleum,” he says. “We need proper counters.”
Ryunosuke blinks again.
“Then we’ll paint the walls,” Kazuma continues. “I don’t really like this landlord white either, if you’re gonna use a natural colour at least make it pleasing, you know.” He nods. “And the living room could use an accent wall. Something bold, like… red!”
“Absolutely not red,” Ryunosuke cuts him off before his ideas get too bold. “I’ll give you burgundy if you can find furniture that goes well with that first, but I think something like a muted green or a blue would be better.”
“Right,” says Kazuma, his lips pulled up into a sly smile, and Ryunosuke realises he’s been played. “And then we’ll switch out the tiles in the bathroom, and set up a new curtain rod in the living room, and buy a new washing machine because that thing was ancient anyway.”
“I… I guess,” Ryunosuke mutters, averting his gaze. “But still, I don’t know if…”
Fingers brush against his cheek, and gently Kazuma turns his head to catch his eyes. “It’s not about the house, is it?” he asks, his voice soothing. “Is it, Ryunosuke? What’s really bothering you?”
“No, that’s―” Ryunosuke says, but the look on Kazuma’s face makes him fall silent. It is open, and understanding, and he knows, he knows , he can tell him anything. “I… don’t know.”
“That’s very unlike you,” Kazuma says. “You’re usually the one who knows what’s bothering any one of us. You certainly seem to understand my problems better than I understand them myself!”
“Well that’s easy,” Ryunosuke huffs. “Your problems are as simple as they come, and your solution to all of them is always sex.”
Kazuma laughs, and once again the sound of it lifts years of worries off Ryunosuke’s heart.
“I’m scared.”
It tumbles out without permission, but that’s just as well.
“You’re always scared,” Kazuma laughs, teasing but kind. “You are the most anxious person I know.”
“Not like this,” Ryunosuke says, and Kazuma’s other hand comes to cup his face too. “I’ve never been scared about… us.”
He pauses, breathes in deep, tries to gather his thoughts. Kazuma waits, patiently, for him to continue.
“It hit me last night, I guess,” he finally says. “That we’re buying a house. Buying one, all three of us. It became so real to me all at once, in a way it hadn’t been before. I mean, not that it hasn’t been real, I didn’t mean that, my love for you is one of the realest things in my life, but…”
He sighs and tries to shake his head, but Kazuma’s hands keep him still.
“It’s okay,” he says, and Ryunosuke believes him.
“I’ve never really worried about being gay,” he says. “My mother clocked me at three or something, so I’ve essentially been out my entire life, I know I am loved and supported for who I am, but…” He takes a shuddering breath, which does nothing to quell the whirlwind of emotions picking up in his chest. “It’s a scary world out there. A lot of blind hatred. And, like, not only are we gay but we’re also a throuple.” He lets out a laugh, painful and hollow. “A throuple, Kazuma! I mean, pick a battle!”
He’s choking on air he cannot breathe.
“And you know, I was hit with the legality of it all,” he continues, the words tripping over each other as they tumble out of his mouth, tossed about by the storm inside. “We’re buying a house! Whose name is the lease going to be in? Or the mortgage? They won’t let all three of us sign, will they? And we can’t get married either, without leaving someone out of it. And, and what if we want kids? I want kids! Can all three of us be their legal guardians? Whose family name will we give them?! And what about―”
“Ryunosuke.”
He stops, the words stop, time itself stops.
His ears buzz like an angered wasp’s nest, and he gulps on air like a fish out of water, and his vision is nothing but a dark blur. There’s a pressure on his jaw, warm, steady, and he focuses on that, the familiar touch, and slowly his lungs begin to work again. The buzzing subsides. Focus returns to his vision.
Kazuma looks at him, concerned and understanding and so, so, so loving, and even more of the panic settles, calms from the typhoon into a breeze, still brisk but no longer destructive.
“One day at a time, Ryunosuke,” he says, and Ryunosuke takes a deep breath, blows the wind out of him into the world. “We’ll figure it all out. Together. All three of us.”
“Right.” He takes another breath. “Yes, of course.”
Kazuma kisses him, soft and sweet and full of promises for the future. One day at a time.
“But if you actually don’t like the house,” Kazuma says after pulling back, swiping his thumbs along Ryunosuke’s cheeks, “we will look for another one.”
Ryunosuke shakes his head and brings his own hands to cover Kazuma’s.
“The house is fine,” he says and smiles. “As long as you two are in it.”
Perhaps the house is all right for them after all.