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Towa drops the shopping bag on his studio floor with a careless clunk. The glass bottles rattle against one another in protest, but none of them break. He opens the refrigerator door and pauses. The glow of the interior lightbulb paints everything in shades of cool blue as his good eye skims the shelves, seeking a space to cram his cheap booze.
An amused smirk twists up the scars marring Towa's lips. It's... full. The fridge is full.
His fridge used to be barren, save for a drink or two when Towa has the occasional foresight to chill his bottles instead of leaving them all on the floor by the couch. Rei barges in from time to time to stash precooked meals or convenience store sweets in his fridge, hoping to entice Towa into eating whenever he isn't there to nag about it. (It rarely works, but that certainly never stops Rei from trying.) And of course, Taku has been known to shove his lunches in there and forget about them in favor of dozing off on the bed Towa never uses. It's just funny to see the fridge so full of food now. There's even a few vegetables.
It almost makes the space look lived in.
“Come sit with us,” Rei demands loudly from the direction of the couch. “But you better not smoke or I'll make you take another walk!”
“Take your time,” Taku adds with an audible note of fondness. “We're not going anywhere tonight.”
Towa grunts in answer.
Rei and Taku's voices lower into an inane conversation he tunes out. The TV is blaring something other than its usual static. Probably one of Taku's movies. A snippet of a pop song plays as Rei's phone lights up with a text. All the background noise is not altogether unpleasant. Better than silence, anyway.
Towa leaves the bag where it fell, and wanders into the bathroom to piss.
As he stands over the toilet bowl, zoning out, he realizes the bathroom tells the same story as the kitchen. Towa doesn't spend any more time in here than it takes for him to shower off the cigarette smell minutes before starting work, or to take a leak before he blacks out at night. Yet the toilet and sink are scrubbed clean, there's shaving cream and an electric razor charging in the wall outlet, three toothbrushes in that cup by the mirror, and a fuzzy pink bath mat on the floor that Towa has no memory of purchasing.
...Huh. Did Taku and Rei buy a toothbrush for him? Towa's pretty sure he didn't own one before. Dental hygiene isn't exactly high on his list of priorities.
Towa yawns, scratching the back of his neck as he steps into the main living area. Piles of crumpled sketchbook pages and pencil shavings have mysteriously disappeared. Empty takeout containers from Yanagawa's are stacked on the wooden crate that serves as a makeshift table, with one container still closed and set aside for him. They're already done eating, so Towa totally could have lit a cigarette in here without consequence. Figures.
Rei looks Towa over with sharp eyes and scowls. His cheerful yellow aura of Smoke, however, doesn't waver.
“...Did you even wash your hands?”
Towa sighs and returns to the bathroom.
“Honestly! You work at a doctor's clinic,” Rei scolds. “You should care more about cleanliness! At least use the hand sanitizer.”
“I'm off the clock,” Towa grumbles.
Taku slides to the far side of the couch when Towa comes back, obligingly offering him the middle cushion. Towa chooses to flop down in Taku's lap instead, tucking his head underneath Taku's stubbly chin like some oversized cat. That steady orange Smoke of his radiates warmth and comfort. Taku's goofy grin is flustered, like he still can't quite believe they both want him here. He begins rubbing his large palms in circles along the raised scar tissue crossing Towa's knobbly spine. Towa makes a quiet, pleased noise, and burrows deeper into the older man's chest.
Rei huffs through flared nostrils, exaggerating his annoyance at the display of affection in front of him. Towa doesn't stir. If Rei's ever actually upset, Towa would immediately see the emotion in his Smoke. He just likes to be dramatic.
“Takuuuu. You spoil him too much,” Rei complains. “He won't eat unless you make him.”
Taku heaves a knowing sigh. “He'll eat when he's ready to. If you're too pushy, he'll do the opposite just to be stubborn. You know that by now.”
“Well, he's gonna pass out again soon. You might as well prep an IV line.”
Towa raises an eyebrow, listening to them both bicker over him as if he isn't in the room. They make him sound like some sort of stray animal they're trying to domesticate together. He supposes that's not entirely inaccurate.
“...Come on and make me, Rei,” Towa challenges, lips curving into a slow and devious smile. “You wanna hold me down? Force my mouth open? Make me swallow?”
“Don't think I won't,” Rei retorts. His expressive face flushes a deep red at the innuendo, but he doesn't back down, either. He's growing accustomed to Towa's tricks. Rei clambers across the couch to grab both of Towa's wrists and pin them without resistance. “I'm stronger than you because I actually feed my body instead of using it as a glorified ash tray!”
“Oi. Don't start a fist fight on top of me,” Taku mutters in his ear. “I'm still here.”
Towa's shit-eating grin only stretches wider.
“Go on, then,” he presses, arching his back suggestively between Rei's hard-muscled abdomen and Taku's softer bulk. “Bend me. Break me. Have your way with me, if you want to show me how your body is so superior to mine.”
“I know you're just trying to bait me into fucking you so you can get away with skipping another meal,” Rei growls, squeezing Towa's thin wrists. The pain is only a brief flash, gone too soon to linger or leave a mark. A pity. “It's not going to work, you deviant. You need caloric energy to live.”
“It might still work,” Towa shrugs, unbothered. He slides his knee up between Rei's thighs to rub experimentally against his groin. “Halfway there.”
Taku loudly clears his throat. “Don't start having sex on top of me, either. You're too heavy.”
Towa wriggles in place, purposefully grinding his ass against Taku's crotch. “I could make this work,” he remarks, ignoring Taku's choked yelp. “If Rei fucks my mouth, you can both spitroast me.”
“You're a menace,” Rei seethes. He wrenches Towa's arms upward, peeling him bodily off of Taku and into an upright position. “Sit like a normal person and eat a single bite of your damn honey toast before you starve to death. I'm going to make you brush and floss, too. The sugar is bad for your teeth.”
Towa slumps back into the couch, reverting to his typical listless posture now that his interest has waned. He stares dully at the closed container until Rei huffs with impatience and opens it for him.
“That is the most boring dirty talk I've ever heard,” Towa informs him sullenly. “At least promise to make me gag on the toothbrush so I can feel something.”
“Absolutely not. Freak.”
Taku chuckles at their banter, shaking his head. “You sure don't make it easy to take care of you, y'know,” he says, sliding his arm around Towa's bony shoulders and resting it there. Protective.
“No one's making you,” Towa points out with a shrug. “I've survived this long on my own.”
“Barely.” Rei makes a show of rolling his eyes. He still leans over to smooth back Towa's messy hair, and presses a kiss to Towa's forehead. “We're here because we want to be, idiot. We care about you. Shut up and pick up your fork.”
“I don't have an appetite.”
“You haven't for years,” Taku counters, almost apologetically. “Doesn't mean you don't need to eat. It just means your brain isn't receiving the hunger signals from your stomach. Do it for us?”
Towa grunts. The reason why doesn't matter. He's just like this. He prods the toast with the tines of the fork, pushing it around, before giving up.
No one can make Towa do anything he doesn't already want to do. Whatever motives Rei and Taku have for putting up with him all these years don't matter, either, not really. They choose to be here, so Towa accepts them, simple as that. They're all a little fucked up in their own way. Shinkoumi tends to do that to people.
There's a sort of morbid comfort to be found as the one to dig out the deepest, ugliest parts of a person, and reducing them into pigments smeared across a canvas. Feelings are just colors to Towa, after all.
Still, Towa picks up the fork to try again. He doesn't mind being painted in hues of orange and yellow for a while longer.