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Karube wasn’t sure what woke him first — the smell of chocolate or the vague, lingering anxiety that someone was setting his kitchen on fire.
He sat up groggily, hair sticking out in every direction, the dull throb of last night’s whiskey still pulsing behind his eyes. The other side of the bed was empty — Niragi was already up, apparently — and the apartment was filled with a smell that was… oddly pleasant.
Which was suspicious — extremely suspicious — because everything he knew about Niragi revolved around shooting a rifle or fighting people or drinking like the apocalypse had hit twice, not carefully following recipes and using actual measurements, so yeah, Karube figured it might be time to draft his will.
Still half-asleep and fully skeptical, he stumbled out of the bedroom, ready to die and all, only to stop short at the sight waiting for him in the kitchen.
“… Am I still drunk,” he muttered, blinking slowly, “or are you actually baking?”
Niragi didn’t even flinch as he set a cooling tray on the dining table with an ease that was somehow more alarming than if he’d actually dropped it. “If you keep talking, I might as well just poison this.”
“That’s not an answer to my question.”
“I made food, old man.” The younger man waved the rubber spatula in his direction like a threat. “Be grateful.”
Karube only squinted his eyes at that. "Are those… brownies?"
“No, they’re landmines. I’m testing explosive density before using them on you.”
The bartender snorted despite himself, and Niragi, expression blank, stabbed a toothpick into the center of the brownie with violent precision. When it came out clean, the corner of his lips twitched with a flash of satisfaction that looked wildly out of place on him, and Karube genuinely began to question his grip on reality.
“You baked those,” he said slowly, like the question might crack open some hidden logic. “With your own hands, no less.”
“Yes, with these.” Niragi held up both middle fingers for emphasis. “Now shut up and sit down."
Karube, still hungover and deeply confused, obeyed. The younger man then slid him a plate from across the table as he eased himself down on the chair nearby.
“I feel like I should be worried,” the blond warily eyed the serving he had. “There’s no shell casing in this, right?”
“Eat the fucking brownie, asshole.”
So he did.
And to his genuine, bone-deep horror, it was good — not just okay or surprisingly not-burnt, but deliciously good. It was slightly crisp on the outside but soft and rich in the center, and the taste was balanced in a way that made him pause halfway through chewing just to feel it on his tongue.
This brownie wasn’t a snack. It was an actual marriage proposal, and he was dangerously close to saying yes.
“You look shocked that I could pull it off without setting your kitchen on fire.” Niragi leaned back, arms crossed, smug in a way that was equal parts irritating and deserved. “Go on. Say it.”
Karube swallowed, cleared his throat, and said, “… It’s fine.”
“Bitch, please.” The black-haired man rolled his eyes, slouching deeper into his seat. “That brownie’s better than half the shit you’ve fed me since I got stuck in your glorified bachelor cave.”
He snorted at that, wiping the corner of his mouth as if it'd help him regain some semblance of dignity. “Bold words from someone who considers instant ramen a food group.”
“Yeah, well, instant ramen never makes you moan like that.”
“I did not moan.”
“You absolutely did.” Niragi smirked. “Right after the first bite, even. You looked like someone just met God and realized He lives in their kitchen this whole time.”
Karube barked a laugh at that response.
“If that’s the case," he said with a grin, reaching lazily for another brownie square. "Then God definitely has a serious attitude problem.”
“God also has a limp and bakes better than your drunk ass ever will. You’re welcome.”
Karube huffed under his breath — low, fond, and a little resigned — as he watched Niragi from across the table. The younger man winced subtly as he shifted again in discomfort — subtle, but obvious all the same — so he just tore off a piece of brownie on his plate and held it toward him without much thought.
“… What?” Niragi blinked in surprise.
“You’re clearly proud of it, so here.” He hummed, waving the brownie in his hand. “C’mon, be honored. This slice was approved to be a good one.”
“… Fine,” the black-haired man muttered, sharp eyes squinting mischievously, “but you’re gonna regret this.”
Karube didn’t even get the chance to respond before the black-haired man leaned in and bit — slowly, deliberately — into the brownie still balanced in his grip, lips brushing just enough to make it oddly intimate for eight in the morning. As if that weren’t enough, Niragi’s tongue also lingered — warm and moist over his calloused fingertips — before it finally licked a smear of chocolate off his index finger like a fucking threat.
He was pretty sure his brain just stalled itself afterward.
“… What the fuck?”
“You’re welcome,” Niragi shrugged with a smug curl of his lips.
The blonde-haired bartender could only exhale sharply at that, trying his best not to throttle the other man, (or, worse, to kiss him stupid and taste the chocolate on his lips.)
“You flirt like someone raised in a warzone,” Karube muttered eventually. “I’ll give you that.”
“I was raised in a warzone, mind you. That shit is called the Tokyo public school system.”
“Explains a lot, actually.”
The younger man smirked triumphantly, reaching over to snatch another piece of brownie off the tray — like it was his God-given right — and ate it with the confidence of a thief who knew he had excellent taste.
“Shit’s good,” Niragi said around a mouthful, licking chocolate off his thumb. “You should pay me for the effort.”
Karube leaned back in his chair and gave him a long, slow once-over — from the flour-smudged cheek to the sweatpants barely hanging onto one hip and the unmistakable gleam of smug pride in his eye — and let out a slow breath, fond and all.
“I can do it with compliments if you crave it.”
“Bitch, I’d rather starve.”
“Sounds about right with how pathetic your dating life is.”
The younger man just smirked at that, eyes went sharp as a knife. “Says the man whose most stable relationship is with his bar and his alcohol stock.”
“It never argues, unlike some people.”
“And it doesn’t give you good blowjobs either,” Niragi said, deadpan, “but I do, so shut the fuck up.”
Karube snorted and promptly choked on his last bite afterward.
✧ ˚ · .
It wasn’t a date, obviously.
Karube had already made that joke three times — each with the same smirk and raised brow, just to see if he could get Niragi to crack. It never worked. The younger man would just mutter in that closed-off way of his, lips pressed into a thin line and jaw clenched like something inside him was rattling too close to the surface.
Fair enough, really. Reaching the one-year anniversary of Not Dying was a strange thing to celebrate, yet Karube found himself wandering down to the corner store and coming back with a bottle of sake, expecting nothing in return. Maybe a sarcastic toast, if he was lucky. More likely, Niragi would scoff, pretend to hate the drink he bought, then down several shots like a gremlin with surprisingly refined taste.
What he didn’t expect, though, was to walk into the kitchen and find the younger man elbow-deep in flour, dicing apples like they owed him blood money.
“Okay,” Karube stopped cold in the doorway, blinking once. “So what’s the hostage situation this time?”
Niragi didn’t look up. “Will you shut the fuck up?”
“Not when you’re elbow-deep in what looks like a cry for help.” The blonde-haired bartender stepped closer — eyeing the mixing bowl, the rolled-out crust on the counter, the entire goddamn apple pie in mid-assembly — and found himself strangely concerned. “Jesus, man. Are you stress-baking? Is this a grief pie?”
“It’s apple pie,” Niragi said flatly. “Don’t make it weird.”
“You are making it weird,” Karube pointed out, leaning his hip against the counter as the younger man started to toss the apple slices with sugar and cinnamon. “The last time you did this, I caught you staring at me like you were gonna stab me with a spatula the whole time.”
"That was because you were disrupting my fucking baking process!"
"Well, I was surprised that you even enjoyed something that didn't involve alcohol or violence for once. Can't blame me for that."
Niragi rolled his eyes at that comment, though his hands were still steady as he poured the apple filling into the prepared pie shell. He looked calm, almost — focused at his task and didn’t seem tense even without the cane to assist his weight.
Which, judging from how bad his injury had been, was such a strange thing to see.
“So,” Karube tilted his head, looking at the pie that slowly came into shape. “Why apple pie for today?”
Niragi went quiet for a while, lips twitching as if he couldn’t decide whether to answer. His hands kept working the lattice strips over the apple slices with care — like he was borrowing a version of himself he rarely let anyone see.
“… It was the first thing I could smell upon waking up.” The black-haired man mumbled eventually, almost too low to hear. “From the room next to me at the time, I guess.”
Karube blinked. “You remembered that?”
“It was a good scent to wake up to.” Niragi shrugged. “Better than my fucking leg at least.”
That was enough to make the blond speechless, so he settled for a nudge to the lattice top and pretended that his heart didn't twist painfully at those words.
“You missed a spot,” Karube tapped on the edge of the apple pie. “Are we switching to committing pastry crimes now?”
“Touch it again and I’ll chop your hand off.”
“Romantic,” he muttered, unfazed, though he wisely kept his fingers to himself this time. "You always threaten violence when emotions are high, or is this just your kink during special occasions?"
The younger man didn’t say much after that. He simply finished brushing on the egg wash, then reached for the mitts and slid the pie into the oven with the careful precision of someone disarming a bomb. The kitchen was cramped and half-broken, and yet somehow, everything about this moment felt disarmingly domestic — warm and comforting in a way Karube wasn’t used to.
“You done hovering?” Niragi muttered as he shut the oven door with his hip. “You’re making it weird.”
“Oh, I’m making it weird?” The blond crossed his arms in mild annoyance, leaning on the counter. “You went full Betty Crocker and decided not to tell anyone. You’re lucky I didn’t have party hats or candles with me when I got back.”
“You did bring alcohol,” The younger man shot back, arching a brow as he unstrapped the apron — an old thing, possibly stolen, with a faded cartoon fish on the front.
“That’s for me to drink alone while you glared at me from across the room.”
“Asshole.”
“Brat.”
Niragi tossed the apron onto a nearby chair, the cartoon fish flopping face-down like it was done with this conversation too. He limped over to the sink, rinsing his hands without a word, the sleeve of his hoodie shoved up just enough to reveal the faint scar along his forearm — one of many. Karube watched him in silence for a second longer than was polite, then cracked open the sake bottle with a soft pop, filling two mismatched cups because, screw it, this counted as an occasion anyway.
He slid one across the counter. Niragi took it without looking, though they didn’t toast. They never did, not since that first night they met each other again a year ago.
“You could’ve asked me to help, you know?” The bartender said eventually. “I could have done something instead of just wandering around for a bottle of sake.”
"You? Help?” Niragi shot him an unimpressed glance. “You’d eat half the filling before it hit the crust.”
“Rude,” Karube sniffed. “I could’ve at least peeled the apples.”
“You don’t know how to use a peeler.”
“I could’ve learned. For you at least."
Niragi snorted, the sound barely there — but it was real enough to ease some of the tension that had been ghosting under his skin all night.
“For me, huh?” he muttered, drying his hands on a rag that had seen better days. “Sounds like a lie.”
Karube rolled his eyes at that, though he found no need to argue with the younger man about how wrong that was. Instead, he held his cup up in a casual half-gesture, like a toast that wasn’t really one.
“At least we survived the ordeal,” the blond sighed. “That’s what matters most.”
Niragi took a slow drink in response, and neither of them said anything else for the rest of the night.
They didn’t need to, after all.