Work Text:
It was with a great deal of gingerness that Keiji slowly lowered himself into his chair in the office. Once he was seated, right on cue, Tenma showed up to bother him. Ignoring how he had his own work to do, and Keiji needed to check his emails and make sure there wasn’t anything really urgent he needed to do.
“Wow, I've never seen you sore like that, anniversary go well?” Tenma asked, a somewhat mischievous grin on his face.
Keiji nailed him with a very unimpressed stare. “We had a lovely anniversary, yes, but it was not at all like what I know you're currently picturing.”
“Yeah, yeah, I know, you guys don't do that. Why are you sore then?”
Keiji sighed deeply, but it was fond. “After we got back from dinner my lovely girlfriend unveiled the activity for the evening. A very pretty 1500 piece puzzle. Unfortunately she forgot that all of us are pathologically incapable of leaving a puzzle unfinished. I'm not sure how she forgot, she's just as bad about it as we are, but she did.”
“You did the entire puzzle last night?” Tenma guessed, now just looking very very amused.
“We did the entire puzzle last night,” Keiji sighed, nodding. “The only surface in our house that we could find that would fit the puzzle ended up being a tall table we only sometimes use for parties, since we don't have any chairs for it. My hips, lower back, and knees are killing me.”
“Explains why you were so slow about sitting down,” Tenma said, snickering. “Have a fun night though?”
Keiji smiled, the soft sappy little thing that tended to make his partners melt a little when they saw it. “We did. We finally watched that movie you recommended two months ago. Apologies that it took so long.”
“How'd you like it?” Tenma asked, clearly attempting to get this conversation to go on as long as possible so he didn’t have to keep doing his work.
He must be at the inking stage, that was his least favorite part usually.
“You really should get back to the inking,” Keiji said instead of answering the question.
He knew he’d guessed right when Tenma wilted dramatically. Well, somewhat dramatically. It wasn’t nearly as dramatic as Bokuto wilting, but it was dramatic for him.
“How do you always guess what I’m working on?” Tenma asked, in a rather whiny tone of voice.
“Because you aren’t subtle,” Keiji replied dryly. “You hate inking, so you always try and engage me in conversation for as long as you can when you have to do inking. If you’re stuck on the story or dialogue you always come bother me about my partners, and if you’re fine, you aren’t bothering me.”
“Maybe you just have a problem or two,” Tenma mused, evidently entirely ignoring him.
Keiji just rolled his eyes and turned his computer on. “I don’t think that’s for you to decide.” If Tenma was going to be dramatic here, he could at least try looking at his emails.
“I mean, don’t you have the whole list of weaknesses for your high school friend? The owl guy who’s with MBSY now?”
Keiji would wonder where he’d heard that one, but it was highly possible one of his partners had told Tenma that, or that he’d just overheard one of them teasing him about it. Tenma had an uncanny ability to recall random information about people months or years down the line. “I am simply observant. Don’t worry, I don’t have a numbered list of your weaknesses. Just a knowledge of your reasons for bothering me when I’m trying to do my work.” If he didn’t give up and go away, Keiji was going to just tell him to leave next. Subtlety only got him so far sometimes.
“I think a numbered list of weaknesses kinda goes past just observant and into stalker behavior.”
Keiji gave Tenma his very best withering stare. “I believe you have work to do. I have work to do. If you would leave so I can do my work. If you’re going to procrastinate, do it somewhere else.”
Tenma heaved a dramatic sigh, but did leave Keiji be, dramatically slouching the whole way to his desk.
He’d survive, Keiji had little to no sympathy for him.
The day had been…longer than usual, due to the lingering soreness from the previous night, but eventually Keiji managed to make it home, setting his shoes on the rack by the door, and shuffling into their living room, where he found Mai face down on the floor, half underneath their kotatsu. It hadn’t been out yesterday, she must have decided the weather was getting cool enough for it at some point today.
“Having fun?” He asked, crouching down next to her head and only slightly regretting it.
“My back and knees hurt,” she mumbled into the floor. “Why does my job make me be on my feet all day?”
“Because you wanted to work at a zoo?” Keiji suggested, gently tugging her pony tail out and starting to run his fingers through her hair, shifting so he was kneeling instead of crouching.
She made a grumpy noise, and he just chuckled, continuing to comb through her hair with his fingers.
“Is our boyfriend home?” Keiji asked a little while later.
“Texted me that he’d get back soon and he was bringing ramen,” Mai mumbled, waving a hand vaguely at where her phone was sitting, also on the floor.
Keiji decided that probably wasn’t the best place for her phone and moved it to the table before resuming combing through her hair.
“Next time I’m picking a puzzle with fewer pieces. Or we’re getting chairs for that table. Or picking a different table.”
“Or we could just not do another puzzle,” Keiji suggested, amused that she was already thinking about doing another one when they were still suffering the consequences of the first one.
“No, no, I forgot how satisfying the puzzles are, I want to do another one. We can just be more prepared this time.”
Keiji snorted, hearing their front door open.
“I’m home,” Chikara called.
“Welcome back,” Keiji called back. “Our girlfriend’s already thinking about doing another puzzle.”
Chikara’s face was incredulous when he came in. He didn’t have any takeout bags with him so he must have dropped them off in the kitchen before coming in. “And get asked if we finally decided to try out sex all day again? Or was that just a me problem.”
“No, Tenma certainly was a bit judgemental when I was too ginger when sitting down, and a couple other coworkers asked if I had a nice anniversary with that same tone. I certainly wasn’t asked as…obviously, but they were clearly thinking it.” It was more than a little embarrassing, honestly Keiji was just glad no one had actually asked in so many words.
“We can solve some of the problems by getting chairs,” Mai said, finally lifting her head. “And doing a smaller puzzle. If we don’t spend five hours on it it shouldn’t be so bad.”
Keiji and Chikara exchanged a fond look, but didn’t protest further. The puzzle had been pretty fun. And satisfying to see finished. Plus they got to catch up on a few movies people had been asking them to watch, but they just hadn’t found the time to.
“Were you asked about it at work?” Chikara asked, setting his computer bag on the table and sitting down on the other side of Mai’s head.
“No, my coworkers learned their lesson after I started giving a sex ed lecture the first time they asked.”
Keiji and Chikara exchanged another fond glance. Of course she’d done that. Keiji was willing to bet it had been a fairly graphic one too, just to make sure they didn’t ask again. Considering her mother, she was very good at giving sex ed lectures. As her old high school teammates had all found out.
That remained one of her favorite stories to tell. How she had to give Kamasaki and Moniwa The Talk after walking in on them getting a little handsy. She was, to this day, a little perturbed by how that had not stopped them from doing it where people could find them though.
You’d think the embarrassment of getting lectured by a girl in the year under you would prevent that, or at least the embarrassment of getting found doing it repeatedly would stop them, but nope.
Truly, Keiji and Chikara had been blessed to not have anyone like that on their highschool teams. They’d certainly heard all of the horror stories.
“Well, ready for dinner or are you going to lay on the floor for a little while longer?” Chikara asked, pushing himself to his feet. “Sushi’s in the kitchen.”
Mai hummed while she considered that, then rolled over. “Can we eat in here? My feet are still cold.”
“You could put on warmer socks,” Keiji suggested, amused.
“Yes, but this is cozier.” Fair point.
“It’s not even that cold outside,” Chikara argued, laughing somewhat incredulously but with great amusement.
“It’s cold for me! I’m a twig, I’m more affected by the changing seasons than you.”
Keiji flopped down next to her, also sticking his feet under the kotatsu and then shuffling over so he was laying half on top of her. “You’re right, how could we forget how tiny and cold our poor girlfriend is. We’re such cruel partners.”
“You’re heavy!” She squawked, lightly shoving at him.
“I’ll just bring the sushi in here then. You do have to sit up though,” Chikara said, still chuckling as he left to go grab the takeout from the kitchen.
“Now I can’t because he’s squishing me!”
“You said you were cold, I’m warming you up,” Keiji said, draping his arm so it’d pin hers to the ground. “Aren’t I so kind?”
“So heavy maybe!”
“Call it payback for all the times she’s fallen asleep on top of you,” Chikara called from the kitchen, probably grabbing plates and stuff.
“Yeah, see? Payback.”
“I thought you were being kind? Did you change your mind so quickly?”
“It can be kindness and revenge,” Keiji said, ignoring her wiggling and settling in a little more.
“Chikara! Come get our boyfriend off of me!”
“Nope, sorry Mai, you were asking for it by saying you were cold. Besides, if I come get him off who would bring out the sushi?” Chikara left their kitchen and came back into the living room, three plates visible out the top of the sushi takeout bag, and three cups probably with water in his hands.
He carefully set them down on the table, before removing the plates and setting those out too, then finally setting out the sushi.
“I can’t believe I’m getting ganged up on,” Mai pouted.
“You’re the one who decided you weren’t settling for just one of us,” Keiji reminded her fondly. “Think you’re warm enough to eat now?”
“If you get off yeah!”
Keiji laughed as he finally rolled off of her, sitting up and scooting over to sit at one of the places Chikara had set out. “I hope I didn’t squish you too much, we’ll need your help to eat this.”
“No you won’t,” Mai accused as she sat up and scooted to the remaining place setting. “I’ve seen you alone eat more sushi than this in one go.”
“Can is not always the same as should,” Chikara said wisely, beginning to unpack the sushi.
“Exactly. And besides, we can’t just leave you to starve, if you’re such a twig then missing even a single meal would cause you to waste away.”
“Your grandmother certainly seems to think so, I can’t escape being offered food every five seconds like she thinks I’ll keel over if I’m not constantly eating.”
Yeah, that was Keiji’s grandmother. She did it to everyone, but she was particularly insistent with Mai. It was sweet. And funny to watch whenever they went over to visit her.
That would be one of the locations that proved they were all pathologically incapable of leaving puzzles unfinished, since Keiji’s cousins had a habit of starting puzzles and then just leaving them there for their grandmother to deal with. So Keiji, Chikara, and Mai would spot the unfinished puzzle, and immediately be locked into an unskippable cutscene of finishing it. His mother and grandmother found it immensely amusing.
Oh well, it wasn’t like Keiji’s cousins would learn any lessons about leaving unfinished puzzles out, and it wasn’t like being a little sore for a few days would do anything to them in the long run, so puzzles were probably going to stay. Even if they were always going to be finished in a single day because of their pathological inability to leave them unfinished.