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Arisu had been conducting an experiment to make his boyfriend fluster for approximately three months, two weeks, and four days since that idea first occurred to him.
The results so far were, frankly, abysmal.
“You're staring again,” Chishiya said without looking up from his medical journal, sprawling on the couch in that deceptively casual way of his. “Plotting something against me?”
“No,” Arisu lied, tearing his gaze away and pretending to focus on his laptop where lines of code had started to blur into meaningless symbols — mostly because he had been staring at his boyfriend for a solid seven minutes straight, which he knew thanks to the timer still glaring back at him. Scientific rigor demanded accurate data collection, after all.
“Mm.” Chishiya hummed and turned a page, looking calm as always. “Your tells are getting worse.”
And that was the problem of his challenge, because while he could blush at the mere sight of his boyfriend emerging from the shower with damp hair and that stupid oversized hoodie that somehow made the man look unfairly attractive, Chishiya could receive a full PowerPoint presentation of compliments — which he had actually made once, complete with citations and supporting evidence — and simply respond with “I see you have too much free time.”
The PowerPoint incident had been Week Four of his experiment. It was one of his darkest moments in life so far.
“I'm working,” Arisu insisted, typing random letters to sell the illusion. His screen now read aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa in an endless stream, which accurately represented his mental state whenever Chishiya did… well, anything.
“On what? A seizure?” Chishiya finally looked up, one eyebrow raised in that particular way that meant he was approximately three seconds away from being insufferable about something. “That's not even syntactically valid.”
Arisu deleted the gibberish with perhaps more force than necessary. “… I'm brainstorming.”
“I'd hate to see what your brain produces during a drought.”
“You're in a mood today.”
“I'm in my usual mood. You're just being strange.” Chishiya closed his journal and sat up slightly, head tilting in that analytical way that made Arisu feel like a particularly interesting case study. “Or, well, stranger than usual, I should specify. What's wrong?”
“Nothing's wrong.” Everything was wrong. Arisu had tried everything. He had cooked his boyfriend's favorite meals — “Adequate” was the review he got in return. He had left strategic love notes around the apartment — “Your handwriting is deteriorating,” Chishiya had observed before putting every single one away in his desk drawer. He had even attempted the classic wearing the boyfriend's clothes gambit, which had resulted in the older man taking a photo “for posterity” and then calmly explaining why that specific hoodie fit him better anyway, citing shoulder-width ratios.
This insufferable man was unflappable. It was starting to feel personal to him now.
“You've been on that same line for ten minutes,” Chishiya remarked lightly. “Even brute force would've been enough to create something at this point.”
“I told you,” Arisu shot back, his words a little sharper than he intended, “I'm thinking.”
“Mmm.” His boyfriend hummed and stretched on the couch. “If that was thinking, I'd recommend a system reboot. Have you tried turning yourself off and on again?”
That did it for him, and before he could talk himself out of doing whatever it was, he just grabbed the nearest pillow in his reach and hurled it with all the pent-up frustration of three months, two weeks, and four days of failed experimental attempts.
The pillow hit Chishiya square in the face with a satisfying thwump.
For exactly 2.3 seconds, Arisu felt vindicated, then horror crashed over him like a wave because oh god, he had just thrown a pillow at his boyfriend's face like some kind of tantrum-throwing toddler, and he bolted toward their bedroom after that, leaving his laptop and his dignity behind as he slammed the door shut and dived straight into the pile of blankets he had forgotten to fold this morning.
This was stupid. He was stupid. No adults should throw pillows at their partners and then hide under the blankets like they were five years old sulking over some trivial toys they couldn't get — yet here he was, face-down in their unmade bed, trying very hard not to think about how Chishiya was probably out there cataloging this entire incident for future reference. It made him feel so incredibly embarrassed he wished he could either disappear or develop selective amnesia about the last five minutes of his life. Neither seemed to be happening, which was just par for the course in this absolutely stellar day he was having.
The bedroom door creaked open approximately four minutes after he had face-planted into the blankets — not that he was counting, because that would require him to acknowledge the passage of time and therefore the existence of the universe outside his current cocoon of shame.
“Ryō.”
Arisu burrowed deeper into the blankets. Maybe if he created enough layers between himself and reality, he could simply phase out of this dimension entirely. It was worth a shot.
“I know you're under there. The blanket-mountain formation is distinctive.”
“Go away,” he mumbled into what he was pretty sure was a pillowcase but could've been his own arm for all he could tell through the fabric and mortification. “I don't want you here.”
“That's geometrically and logistically improbable.” The mattress dipped as Chishiya sat down with a soft sigh. “This is also my bedroom too, Ryō. Where else would you prefer I go if not here?”
“I don't know. Maybe back to your medical journal and being annoyingly perfect like you always are.” Arisu was aware he sounded petulant. He was also aware he was a grown adult and hiding under blankets after failing miserably to flirt with his boyfriend. Self-awareness was not particularly helpful at this juncture.
The mattress shifted again. A warm hand settled on his shoulder, squeezing gently, and despite himself, Arisu leaned into it, chasing the comfort that he was looking for.
“I'm fairly certain,” Chishiya commented idly, “that launching soft projectiles at one's partner typically suggests unresolved emotions.”
“Please stop talking like you're writing a case report,” he groaned and buried himself deeper into the blanket cocoon. “Just… yell at me or something. Would make it easier for both of us to move on.”
“Hmm, I'd rather not.” His boyfriend hummed softly, thumb brushing a slow, absent circle against his shoulder. “Especially since I'd like to still have a boyfriend once this is resolved, after all.”
Arisu felt something crack in his chest at that, something that had been wound tight for weeks now, and to his absolute horror, he felt his eyes start to burn. No. No, no, no. He was not going to cry over this. He was not going to cry because his experiment failed and he had thrown a tantrum about it and his boyfriend was still here despite his emotions going completely haywire—
“Ryō,” Chishiya murmured, voice softer in a way that made everything worse because of course he knew. He always knew. “Hey. Come on, let me see you.”
“No,” Arisu refused stubbornly. “I'm fine. Just—just give me a minute.”
“You're crying.”
“I'm not. You're just imagining it.”
His boyfriend let out a sigh at his retort. “Ryō, please? Can I see you?”
The please did it, and Arisu reluctantly pulled the blankets down to look at Chishiya with red, teary eyes.
“There you go.” The older man gave him a small smile, hands moving to cup his cheeks. “That's better, isn't it?”
Arisu wanted to argue that no, actually, this was objectively worse because now Chishiya could see the tears he had been trying to hold back and probably think about how pathetic he looked — but his boyfriend's thumb had now started to trace those gentle circles on his cheeks, and he suddenly found himself not having the energy to maintain his blanket fortress anymore.
“I'm sorry,” he mumbled, looking away. “That pillow attack was childish of me.”
“It wasn't childish,” Chishiya said quietly, his thumbs still moving in those gentle circles. “It was human. There's a difference.”
Arisu let out a watery laugh that came out more like a hiccup. “Pretty sure most humans don't throw pillows and then hide under blankets.”
“Most humans aren't dating me.” Chishiya's lips quirked slightly. “I'm told I can be… difficult.”
“You're not difficult,” Arisu protested automatically, then paused. ”Okay, you're a little difficult, but that's not—” He scrubbed at his eyes with the heel of his palm, frustrated with himself. “That's not why I'm upset.”
“That's not the cause?” His boyfriend's voice was patient as always. “Then why?”
“… You'll laugh at me and find me incredibly stupid.”
“If it's bothering you this much,” Chishiya murmured, taking his hands, “then I don't think it's stupid at all.” He squeezed them lightly. “Now tell me.”
Arisu took a shaky breath, feeling ridiculous but also too exhausted to keep it in any longer. “I've been trying to make you flustered for three months.”
Silence then draped over them like a heavy blanket as his words settled in.
“Three months,” Chishiya repeated slowly, expression unreadable.
“Three months, two weeks, and four days,” he corrected miserably, because his commitment to accurate data collection extended even to his most humiliating confessions. “I've been trying everything. The cooking, the notes, wearing your clothes, the PowerPoint—”
“… The PowerPoint was an attempt to fluster me?”
“Yes!” Arisu's voice pitched higher than before. “And you just brushed it off! Do you know how long that took to make? I cited sources, Shun. I made graphs about your positive attributes with a rising trend line!”
Chishiya blinked, seemingly being taken by surprise. “I… see…”
“And that's exactly the reason why I've been so agitated!” His frustration finally cracked through, words tumbling out before Arisu could stop them. “You always just ‘see’ things. You're always so calm and collected and nothing I do will ever get a reaction out of you, and I just—” He gestured helplessly. “I wanted to make you blush once, just once. I wanted to see you get flustered the way I do every single time you exist near me, and I couldn't do that no matter how hard I tried, and I know it's stupid and childish but it made me feel like maybe I'm not—”
Arisu cut himself off at that, but it was too late — his boyfriend had noticed that sudden halt and was now zoning in on that change.
“Like maybe you're not what?” Chishiya asked carefully, the teasing edge in his voice completely gone.
Arisu looked away, feeling the wave of sadness pressing down against his ribcage. “Like maybe I'm not… enough for you.”
Chishiya was quiet for a long moment after that — not in a thoughtful, vaguely amused way the man usually was, but more still and attentive and almost solemn. It made his anxiety spike, his muscles tensing as he braced himself for the inevitable dry remark, the deflection, the usual sidestep into logic and probability that his boyfriend so often defaulted to when things got too close to the bone.
But instead, the older man just let out a slow breath and held his hands a bit tighter than before.
“Ryō,” Chishiya said softly, “look at me.”
“I'd rather not,” Arisu muttered. “I know I'm being irrational about this, so you don't have to—”
“Ryō.” Firmer this time, but still gentle nonetheless. “Please.”
Against his better judgment, Arisu looked up and immediately regretted it when he saw the gentleness in Chishiya's eyes — open and unguarded in that rare way they only ever were behind closed doors, when it was just the two of them and the rest of the world had fallen away.
“If that's what I've made you feel all this time,” his boyfriend began slowly, leaning in to press their foreheads together, “then I owe you an apology. A genuine one, to be specific.”
Arisu blinked at him, taken off-guard. “You… what?”
“I'm sorry,” Chishiya repeated, quieter now, like saying those words any louder might shatter the fragile space between them. “That was really careless of me.”
“That's—” He shook his head quickly. “You don't have to— I'll be fine, really.”
The older man sighed at that and shifted back against the headboard, pulling Arisu along until he was thoroughly wrapped up like an agitated burrito. The sudden change startled him, making him wriggle in protest before giving up and settling down more comfortably.
“I object to this method of containment,” he muttered, turning away with lingering petulance. “And I'm okay now, so just… let me go.”
“Objection noted,” Chishiya hummed, hugging him a bit tighter than before. “However, it's been overrruled in favor of continued physical reassurance.”
Arisu huffed out a laugh despite himself, the sound catching somewhere between his ribs. “You make it sound like a legal proceeding.”
“Considering that the Court of Boyfriend Affairs frequently convenes here,” his boyfriend replied smoothly, nuzzling deeper into his hair, “then yes, it is.”
“Sounds biased.”
“Indeed.”
They stayed like that for a while — Arisu tucked against Chishiya's chest, wrapped up in what he had mentally dubbed the Burrito of Shame, while his boyfriend's fingers traced idle patterns along his spine. It was unfairly soothing, and he resented how quickly his residual sniffles were subsiding into something closer to contentment.
“Now,” Chishiya murmured against his hair, “what made you think you weren't enough for me just because I don't fluster easily? Was it something I did that accidentally hurt you, or…?”
“No, not that.” Arisu shook his head quickly, heat creeping up his neck. “You've always been nice to me. It's just…” He hesitated, then admitted, softer, “It's because you smiled at me.”
Chishiya stilled. “… I smile at you often.”
“No, you smirk whenever you're in the mood. That doesn't count.” He shifted just enough to gesture without escaping the burrito configuration. “But there was this one time you actually smiled when I brought you coffee at the hospital, which caught one of the kids' attention, and they asked if something fun happened because you ‘never look that happy before,’ so I thought—” He buried his face back into Chishiya's shirt. “I thought I could make you smile again, on purpose this time.”
The fingers on his spine stilled for a moment, then resumed their gentle path. “I see.”
“Don't ‘I see’ me…” Arisu mumbled into the fabric of his boyfriend's shirt. “I'm being vulnerable and emotionally transparent. The least you could do is pretend to be affected.”
“Who says I feel otherwise?”
That made him pause. “You're using your calm voice right now, which means you're completely unphased and just want this to be dealt with.”
“Or,” his boyfriend countered, meeting his gaze with something that looked almost fond, “I'm just being careful because this matters to you. They sound similar, I'll admit. Easy to confuse.”
“That's…” Arisu opened his mouth to argue, then thought better of it and snapped it shut. “That's… sweet. I hate that.”
“You hate when I'm sweet?”
“I hate that you can just say things like that and sound completely reasonable about it.” He huffed and shifted in the burrito prison, trying to free at least one arm. “Meanwhile, I spent three months making PowerPoints and strategizing meal plans like some kind of rom-com protagonist having a breakdown.”
Chishiya's lips twitched. “For the record, I appreciated the meals you've tried to cook for me, especially the curry.”
“Not the curry…” Arisu groaned and covered his face in shame. “I don't need to be reminded about how I tried to make it special by accidentally using sugar instead of salt.”
“Well, you did call it a deconstructed dessert curry. I agreed that it was very innovative.”
“I was trying to save face! You ate three bites before I stopped you!”
“I was being supportive,” Chishiya retorted, and there was definitely amusement in his voice now. “You were really stressed about it. It seemed unkind to waste your efforts entirely.”
“You're terrible.” Arisu moved his hand just enough to glare at him properly. “This is exactly what I'm talking about. How am I supposed to fluster you when you just… handle everything with that insufferable calm?”
His boyfriend hummed thoughtfully. “Would you like the honest answer or the comforting one?”
“Are they different?”
“Potentially.”
Arisu sighed. “Honest, probably. I've already humiliated myself thoroughly so far, so… might as well commit to the bit.”
“The honest answer,” Chishiya said, fingers resuming their slow path, “is that you fluster me all the time. I'm just very good at not showing it.”
Arisu blinked, dumbfounded. “… I'm sorry, what?”
“You heard me.”
“No, I definitely didn't, because I clearly heard you say that I did successfully fluster you, which contradicts the three months of evidence I've accumulated so far.”
Chishiya's expression shifted into something that might have been sheepish if it were on anyone else's face. On him, it looked more like mild chagrin wrapped in careful consideration. “The PowerPoint, for instance.”
“The one you said I must've too much free time to make it?”
“Yes, that one.” His boyfriend's fingers found a particularly tense spot between his shoulder blades and applied gentle pressure. “I said that because I opened it during a break between patients, saw the section titled ‘Instances of Chishiya Being Objectively Perfect’ with all your notations about me, and had to close my laptop before anyone noticed I was smiling at it like an idiot.”
Arisu felt his brain short-circuit completely. “You're lying.”
“I'm not.”
“You smiled at the PowerPoint?”
“I may have also saved it to a private folder,” Chishiya admitted, and there was the faintest hint of pink creeping up his neck and spreading to the tip of his ears. “The formatting was impressive. Very thorough and… colorful.”
“… Oh my god, you're blushing!” Arisu stared at him, feeling something between vindication and disbelief bubbling up in his chest. “I actually manage to make you blush this time!”
“I am not.”
“You absolutely are. Your ears are turning red. I can see them.” He wriggled free of the blankets entirely now, energized. “This is incredible. This is— Wait.” He narrowed his eyes suspiciously. “Are you just saying this to make me feel better?”
Chishiya reached up and cupped his face, expression serious. “Ryō, when have I ever lied to spare your feelings?”
“Fair point.” Arisu conceded when he didn't see any sign of deception when he looked at his boyfriend's face. “So you're telling me that all those times I thought you were unbothered by my attempts, you were actually…?”
“Internally compromised, yes.”
“But you never showed it.”
“I did show it, just not in ways you were looking for.” His boyfriend's thumbs traced gentle lines across his cheekbones. “I carried that photo of you wearing my hoodie in my wallet. I read your notes every day before work. I let you experiment with my kitchen despite your concerning relationship with basic seasoning.”
“That's just… normal relationship things.”
“Before you, I don't do that with anyone else.” Chishiya shook his head. “My kitchen was barely used in the past. Now, though, I have a drawer full of specialty gaming snacks and that atrocious hazelnut vanilla creamer you always like.”
“Hey, it's a comfort flavor!”
“More like diabetes in a bottle for me.”
“Yet you always buy more when I ask,” he shot back with a grin. “That negates every other argument you have.”
“Hmm, guess so.”
They looked at each other for a long moment after that, then Arisu couldn't help but burst out laughing, and his boyfriend chuckled as well, the sound warm against his ear as they snuggled back against each other.
His experiment, it turned out, had been a success all along.