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Katsuki toes off his boots and hangs his keys on the cat-shaped key holder next to the door, scoffing as he remembers his mum pointing out he's becoming more and more of a cat person the last time his parents had visited.
He'd insisted he was a Shouto person and that just meant he had to accept the various cat-shaped knick-knacks he brought with him. Also, the actual three living cats he’d brought when they'd moved in together.
Katsuki’s gaze wanders from the key holder to the fuzzy paw socks he'd been hiding under his black boots and then to the two bags of cat litter he had just gone to the store for.
Okay. So maybe she’d been somewhat right about that, not that he would ever say it out loud.
As he got older he realized his mother was right more often than he'd like to admit.
“They had cat litter made from peas,” he says loudly into the general direction of the apartment because he doesn't see Shouto, “Was expensive as fuck, though.”
It's not like they wouldn't be able to afford it but the last time Katsuki had wanted to try new cat litter one of the little monsters had decided she didn't like it and just relieved herself right next to the litter box. While holding eye contact with Katsuki.
According to Shouto he’d been supposed to mix the new litter with the old one so they could get used to it. Katsuki is pretty sure the little menace would've peed on the floor anyways because despite Shouto insisting he's wrong, Katsuki knows she hates him. She just acts friendly when Shouto is watching.
“You would've loved how it feels,” he adds as an afterthought because when he'd touched the sample out of curiosity it had been really soft. It would've been impossible to drag Shouto away from it. Maybe it's better they don’t try it after all, he doesn't want to come home one day and find Shouto with his hands buried in cat litter just because it feels nice.
He finds Shouto lying on the couch, one black cat comfortably sleeping on his chest, the other two equally black ones curled up on his legs. Sometimes he wonders how long it'd take him to notice if there was a fourth one.
He's dressed in his stupid Bed Riot pajama that neither of them has any memory of how he got it in the first place一Kaminari, most likely. Katsuki has been wanting to get rid of it ever since he first saw it because the color hurts his eyes but Shouto insists it is comfy despite the pants not even going past his ankles.
For a moment he thinks Shouto might be asleep because he hasn't heard a single word from him since Katsuki entered the apartment but he sees him rub his stomach in a circular motion before he sighs dramatically.
“The fuck happened to you?”
Katsuki hadn't even been gone for an hour and Shouto sure as fuck hadn’t looked this miserable before he'd left otherwise he hadn’t left in the first place.
“I don't know,” Shouto mutters, squinting at Katsuki when he reaches out to feel Shouto's forehead as if there was any point in doing that. ”Stomach hurts,” he adds like Katsuki can't fucking see that.
Katsuki frowns.
In all of these years of knowing Shouto the other never had a random stomachache that wasn't.. self-inflicted.
“Why?”
“I don’t know,” Shouto repeats in a voice that tells Katsuki he must at least have a vague idea where his mysterious stomachache is coming from but doesn't want to tell him.
That's fine, Katsuki will find out one way or another.
He looks at him for a bit longer, thinking.
“I'm making tea,” he says after a moment, walking towards the kitchen to boil some water. “You want a hot water bottle, too?”
Shouto just makes a noise that could be interpreted as both a yes and a no so Katsuki gets the hot water bottle from the bathroom while he waits for the water to be done boiling.
He grabs Shouto his favourite mug一a wonky one he made at a pottery class with his niece.
She’d painted Shouto on it, looking absolutely massive and until she'd explained her, well, art to Katsuki he had been convinced Mug-Shouto was holding a little dog on a leash. Turns out the little dog was supposed to be Katsuki. It’s ugly as fuck but just looking at it right now puts the biggest smile on his face.
He prepares some chamomile tea and uses the rest of the water for the hot water bottle, making sure no water leaks out when he turns it this way and that.
He's about to grab the mug when his gaze lands on the rice cooker.
There's no way.
He didn't.
Nope.
He's not that stupid.
Katsuki opens the lid of the rice cooker and peers inside, taking in the sad handful of tapioca pearls that are left in there.
He'd put them in there to keep them warm after he'd cooked them to absolute perfection, all chewy and syrupy. The plan had been to assemble a boba so fucking good Shouto would never want to spend money at any boba shop ever again after he'd complimented some hot guy for how well he'd prepared Shouto's drink.
He closes the lid again and grabs Shouto's tea, placing it on the coffee table close enough for Shouto to reach it, then lets the hot water bottle drop onto his stomach resulting in Shouto groaning pathetically.
Katsuki crosses his arms and stares down at him.
“You're so fucking stupid, you know that?”
He wants to be mad, he really does, because all his work had been more or less wasted一he assumes Shouto enjoyed the tapioca or else he wouldn't be so miserable right now but Katsuki had planned even better things with them一but he's having difficulties keeping the smile off his face.
He loves this stupid fucking idiot who overindulges not so secretely on tapioca pearls so fucking much.
“You keep telling me,” Shouto says, pouting slightly as he turns his head to look at Katsuki who stares back at him, trying to look unimpressed and not like he wants to kiss the fuck out of him.
What does it say about Katsuki that witnessing Shouto's most idiotic behavior makes his chest feel all stupid and warm? That Shouto stuffing his face with so much tapioca it gave him a stomachache makes him think “Yep. I'm definitely marrying this absolute fool one day”?
“And I will keep reminding you,” he says, squatting next to the couch so he can run his hand through Shouto's soft hair and place a kiss on his forehead. “You want a blanket?”
Shouto shakes his head slightly, eyes fluttering shut as Katsuki cards his fingers through his hair. With his other hand he tries to pet the monster curled up on Shouto's chest but she swats his hand away.
“No boba either?” Katsuki asks, grinning when Shouto opens his eyes to glare at him.
“Don’t be mean,” he says, “I'm suffering.”
Katsuki rolls his eyes.
“You did that to yourself,” he says, shrugging before he tries to pick the cat up from Shouto's chest.
She hisses at him so Katsuki hisses back at her but she looks completely unimpressed as she walks away, tail up high like she doesn't have a care in the world. She probably doesn’t. He hopes she doesn't.
“And now you're taking the love of my life from me,” Shouto whines dramatically, shuffling further onto the couch一as far as the two other cats still sleeping on his legs let him一to make room for Katsuki.
“Thought that was me,” Katsuki mutters as he lies down next to Shouto, trying to get as comfortable as possible with two grown men and two fat cats sharing a couch. He can feel the thirds one stare at them but he's not gonna turn around to confirm.
“You are. The love of my life,” Shouto says and he sounds like he really means it and not at all like they were just joking around before. Like he needs Katsuki to understand that he really is the love of Shouto's life.
As if Katsuki doesn’t fucking know that. He knows, Shouto tells and tells him every chance he gets and although Katsuki had the privilege of growing up surrounded by love he has never felt as loved, as whole as he does when he's with Shouto.
“Stop being sappy,” Katsuki says, kissing his nose lightly, then the corner of his mouth before sealing his lips in an actual kiss that leaves them both breathless in no time. He pulls away long enough to mutter a soft “Love you, too” against Shouto's lips and feels the way they curl up in a smile against his own mouth.