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Since Karamatsu had moved in with him, Chibita had walked in on a number of very disturbing things. He’d found Karamatsu struggling to wiggle out of a giant salmon costume once, for instance, and he’d come home to Karamatsu with his hands on his dick more times than he really cared to count. So when he opened the door and heard soft, wet, mildly indecent noises coming from the far corner of his apartment, he was prepared for the worst.
In retrospect, it probably would have been less weird if Karamatsu had been masturbating.
“What the fuck are you doing?”
In answer, Karamatsu yelped and dropped the bowl he’d been huddled around. It hit the tatami, bounced, then rolled to a stop at Chibita’s feet, leaving a trail of carrots, mixed greens, and what looked like lemon cream.
Chibita looked down at the bowl, then looked up at Karamatsu. “…the hell?”
“A--ah, Chibita!” Karamatsu said, pulling a pair of sunglasses from--God, wherever the hell he kept the things. “Welcome home! You’re, uh, earlier than I expected.”
“Tadaima,” Chibita answered automatically, then he scowled. “No, don’t give me that! What the hell, Karamatsu?”
Karamatsu very slowly, very deliberately put down the fork he was still holding. “What? Can’t a man enjoy a salad in the privacy of his own home?”
“Of course! That’s totally normal!” Chibita snapped. “Which is why it was so weird that you were eating it in secret!”
“In secret? I don’t know what you mean,” Karamatsu said, like his cheeks weren’t dusted with a blush and he hadn’t been eating a salad alone in the dark in the corner furthest from all their windows.
Chibita gaped at him. “What the hell? Don’t pretend like you don’t know, idjit!”
“Well,” Karamatsu said, adjusting the collar of his jacket in what he continuously insisted was not a nervous gesture, Chibita, “It doesn’t exactly suit my image, does it?”
“Doesn’t--” What the hell did that even mean? Did Karamatsu think real men didn’t eat vegetables or something? Did he think scurvy was the in thing that season? Or…
It clicked.
“You don’t know how to eat a salad without looking awkward, do you?” Chibita asked accusingly, and Karamatsu’s shoulders immediately hunched up. There it was.
“It’s--It’s hard, okay?! There are so many little pieces, and sometimes it’s hard to get them with your first stab, or they roll off your plate, or they fall off your fork, or--stop laughing, Chibita!”
But no, no, there was no way that something so stupid, so ridiculous, so endearingly Karamatsu was going to go away so easily. Chibita laughed until he could feel tears starting to form at the corners of his eyes, and every time he looked up to see Karamatsu’s pout, the peals of laughter just started up again.
Several minutes later, Karamatsu was sitting there, arms folded petulantly, and Chibita’s stomach was starting to hurt with each lingering giggle. “Okay,” he said, wiping away a stray tear with the heel of his palm, “Okay.”
“Okay?” Karamatsu asked, and he still sounded disgruntled.
Chibita only barely managed to fend off another laugh attack. “Okay,” he repeated. “First, let’s clean this up. Then we can go to the store and get some more vegetables.”
Karamatsu perked up at that, and it was as if he’d never been put out in the first place. “We can?”
Chibita nodded and took a deep breath. “Yeah. And we’ll get better ones. Honestly, Karamatsu, did no one ever teach you how to make a proper salad? Jeez.”
For a second, Karamatsu’s face slid back into that suave mask that he still defaulted to when he didn’t know what face to show. But then, evidently having decided on being embarrassed rather than offended, he ducked his head. “No?”
Chibita sighed again and then shook his head. “Then I guess I’ll just have to do it. Lucky you! I trained in making salads before I made my transition to oden!”
(And really, what reason did Karamatsu have to look so wary?)