Chapter Text
“You run away a lot, Makino.”
“I—”
Domyoji shoves past her and lets himself inside. He surveys the lowly apartment before slipping off his handmade Italian shoes.
“Where’s your brother?”
“With my parents.”
“Good.” He sits by the small table in the center of the room, his long legs stretched out beside it, feet nearly touching the opposite wall. “I’d like some tea,” he says, shedding his suit jacket and tie. Does he think this is an izakaya?
“You’d like—?”
“Makino.”
He stares at her, and Tsukushi stares back. A part of her wants to start yelling at his rudeness and audacity, at the way he acts like he owns the place (which he could in a heartbeat should the inclination take him). Another part is nervous because this man is the most unpredictable person she knows. And the most foolish and also the most brutally honest.
“You look cute in that apron,” he says.
“What?!”
(Definitely the most unpredictable.)
He smiles at her blushing reaction, and so Tsukushi retreats into the kitchen, which still only leaves them a few feet apart.
“I was preparing tomorrow’s bento,” she tries by way of explanation, wiping her clammy hands on the garishly patterned and decidedly not cute apron. (What terrible taste he has.) “Ha!”
“Hey! Why are you laughing?”
She ignores his flare of temper as she sets the kettle on the stove. This side of Domyoji she can deal with. It is easier to be slapped in the face by his palm than by his sentimental words.
“Are you planning to go home?”
He has rolled out her futon and made himself comfortable, or as comfortable as it is possible for his tall and pampered frame to be. (Why must it also require him being shirtless?) Turned on his side, he props his head up in one hand.
“I am home,” he declares.
“What?!”
“Don’t feel like going back.” He pats the miniscule space next to him. “Stop pacing around and come sleep. I’m getting cold.”
This isn’t an isolated cabin in the Canadian wilderness. She is not delirious from hypothermia. They are not at risk of dying if they stay apart (not literally, at least).
“Did you bang your head?”
“What are you so worried about? I’m too tired to try anything.”
“Like I’d let you!”
“Tsukushi.”
She puts off the inevitable (there is no physical way for her to evict him, and her resistance is waning); there are teacups to wash and a floor to sweep. She is yet to finish her assignment. It takes a quarter of an hour for her to brush her hair and teeth.
She changes in the darkness, ending up in one of his t-shirts that he left on a previous visit. It is huge and expensive, and it still smells like him. (Why can’t she bring herself to return it?)
“Oi, hurry up.”
“Why aren’t you asleep yet?” she hisses, crawling towards the futon as best as she can see.
Slithers of moonlight and streetlight stripe their way across the tatami floor.
Tsukasa is an anomaly amongst her existence, the fat cuckoo chick in her pauper’s nest. He is impatient and greedy, latching onto her arm before she can take the chance to examine him.
“Why are you so cold?” he says. She is dragged kicking and quietly screaming into bed (still a considerate neighbor given the walls are paper-thin), his giant octopus limbs securing her against the molten heat of him.
Tsukushi feels warm and safe in a way she can never admit.
“You better behave,” she says.
No burglar would survive if they dared to break in.
“You better get over yourself,” he bites back.
No storm could harm her right now where she is.
“You better shut up and go to sleep.”
He presses a kiss to the top of her head. “Great dreams, you insufferable woman.”
It’s sweet dreams, idiot, she thinks.