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Rinne invites himself into Café Cinnamon like he always does—after closing hours, throwing the doors open so they slam against the wall with a bang, and yelling with the most obnoxious inflection he can squeeze out of his vocal cords: “Nikikyun!”
Niki ignores his favorite (and only) VIP customer like he always does—no hello, no smile, not even eye contact. All his attention is on whatever it is he’s working on. At this time of night, it’s usually something that’s sooner or later added to the café’s seasonal menu. That is, after it passed the most important step in the process: Rinne’s taste test.
Rinne strolls over to the counter, rests his elbows on top, and leans casually against it, watching as Niki cuts a banana into thin slices with dizzying speed and expertise. It’s followed by strawberries, then starfruit, then pineapple. Rinne waits patiently until Niki cracks and kicks off their usual bit.
“What do you want.”
“Getting fed by my wife,” Rinne answers dutifully. “What’s on the menu today?”
Niki finally shoots him an annoyed glance before he moves on to chopping up some kind of nuts. It looks dangerous, that sharp and shiny knife in his hand. Rinne likes it.
“I’m not your wife,” comes Niki’s predictable answer. And Rinne almost mouths along the next line, “And why do you think you can always demand free food?”
Rinne props his chin up on his palm. “I fuck with the cook.”
Niki rolls his eyes. “I wish it was just in the sexy way.” He puts all the fruit slices and nut bits in small bowls, sets them aside and turns to open the fridge. “It’s dessert today. No complaining, I have to perfect it. Valentine’s special.” He takes out a carton of eggs and cream and closes the fridge door again with an effortless swing of his hips.
Rinne had hoped for something more substantial but he’d eat anything made by Niki’s magic hands. There was never a single thing that didn’t taste like perfection; Niki may have ruined his taste buds and turned him into a spoiled purist of Niki Shiina Cuisine ever since he took his first bite of that life-changing nikujaga all those years ago.
“Just hurry up, I’m starving,” Rinne says. He pulls out his phone and pretends to be playing some random pachinko simulator, watching Niki out of the corner of his eye.
Niki ignores him again, rolls up his sleeves, first left, then right, tightens his ponytail three times and enters the zone. It’s almost as if he waits for Rinne to really get going. Niki would never admit it. And Rinne would never admit that he likes it, because watching Niki like this might be where his own zone is.
He likes it, watching as Niki buzzes around the kitchen, mumbling to himself, mumbling to the produce, yelling at the appliances, gently petting the appliances by way of apology, eyes shining and face glowing.
He likes it, and not just because Niki is in his true form like this, it’s also because, like this, Niki is completely unresponsive to anything outside the perimeter of his cooking zone. Rinne could dance naked on the table and Niki wouldn’t even notice. Dancing naked only makes sense when he can get a rise out of him though, so he uses the cooking zone times for other things. Like, baring his heart in a way he would never do if Niki was conscious.
“You’re so pretty,” he starts off strong. It’s justified, Niki is especially pretty today. His ponytail flows over his neck and shoulders, soft and silky in the café’s warm light, more stray strands than ones in place. The muscles of his toned-from-dough-kneading arms flex as he stirs a boiling mixture that smells like some kind of berry sauce. He spills a little, catches it with a finger, only to put it in his mouth and moan around it, eyes fluttering shut. “Pretty hot,” Rinne corrects.
Niki’s eyes go wide, he turns sharply, squats down to rummage around in the cupboard for ingredients Rinne will never know the name of, but what’s important is how the position accentuates the fucking perfect curve of his ass.
Rinne imagines what it would look like without the jeans. “Never really sure if you know and drive me crazy on purpose or not.”
Niki finds a jar filled with some deep red mush, holds it up to the light, turns it from side to side, taps it with his fingernail, then brings it to his ear with a concentrated look on his face, nodding a few times.
“You’re so fucking weird and silly and perfect.” Rinne buries his own face in his arms with a sigh and closes his eyes. “Have it bad for ya.”
His ears are burning. Honesty is still unfamiliar territory, especially when Niki’s only an arm’s length away, even if he doesn’t listen. Rinne is listening though, to Niki’s footsteps approaching again, to him humming a mash-up of Crazy:B songs that makes absolutely no sense, to him moving things around on the counter, and Rinne decides to end his session for the day with the same closing line as always, whispered into the crook of his elbow: “I love you.”
CRACK.
The sound echoes through the café like thunder rumbling through a steep valley.
When Rinne dares to look up, Niki is frozen in place. Egg yolk drips from the gaps of his clenched fist.
“What did you say?”
Rinne licks his lips. This isn’t part of the routine. Rinne tells him he loves him all the time when he’s like this, and Niki has never reacted in any kind or form. Rinne opens his mouth, about to play it down with an insult and coerce Niki into some wrestling so he’ll hopefully forget about it but, somehow, he doesn’t feel like it. And now that it’s out there and in the open, now that he weirdly doesn’t feel as exposed as he thought he would, he might as well commit.
He stays half buried in his arms, he’s still allergic to admitting his more vulnerable feelings, especially when his face is on fire. But he repeats, louder this time, “I love you.”
“Oh.” Niki opens his palm to look at the mess of egg goo and cracked shell. “Uh. Okay.”
“That’s all?”
Niki’s eyes flick to him, then back to his hand. “What kind of love are we talking about?”
“The big one,” Rinne says, sitting up. And if he’s honest, he’s a little annoyed by this underwhelming reaction. “You think I remember everyone’s schedule and know where and when they’re crazy cooking in the evening? I make space for you in the bed, I tell you I wanna marry you all the time. I come here even when it’s the opposite direction of my lucky pachinko parlor, just to be ignored, because I’m fucking addicted to seeing your dumb face when you’re doing your thing.”
Niki blushes. Oh, that’s rare. And more than enough proof of how affected he really is. “It’s my bed, you idiot,” Niki says. And then weakly, very weakly, “You come here for free food.”
It’s not a particularly convincing argument. Whenever Rinne doesn’t come over, Niki brings home ‘leftovers’ of dishes Rinne has never seen on the menu before.
“Ugh,” Niki says, as if realizing himself. He cleans up the egg-mess in the sink and cracks open another one, this time with a perfectly executed flick of his wrist.
He doesn’t say anything else. Not that that’s surprising, Niki’s allergy to admitting his more vulnerable feelings might be even worse than Rinne’s. He doesn’t enter the zone again, but he continues working on whatever he did before, whisks up the eggs and one thing or another, pours it into a rectangular mould and puts it in the freezer. It’s slightly irritating when it stays in the freezer, and he moves on to layering and arranging just cream, fruit, what looks like the café’s homemade granola, and at least the berry sauce he made earlier in a tall glass.
He fumbles an awful long time with the syrup though, until he gives up on whatever decoration he’s going for with a frustrated groan and a “doesn’t deserve the full thing anyway” muttered under his breath, and finally slides the finished dessert in front of Rinne, announcing it with a: “Parfait.” Pause. “Valentine’s special. The hurry-up version.”
Rinne stares at it for a moment.
“Shit, Niki,” he huffs, and he tries, he really, really tries to hold back his laughter, but it’s hard. “That’s so freakin’ adorable.”
Niki ignores him, once again, shoving a spoonful into in his own mouth and chews in concentration. “Needs more acidity.”
Rinne takes his own spoon and carefully scoops around the ‘Love u’ and what’s distantly reminding of a ‘2’ written in Niki’s horrible chicken scratch that doesn’t match the poster-worthy look of the rest of it. But it’s made with love and, as always, tastes like perfection.