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Modern AU/Cooking
Inosuke peers out his bedroom window, waiting for the telltale red flame of familiar hair to make its presence known in their little walkway. Tanjiro had been over to his house a million times, of course, but this time was different:
Hisa was on vacation. And not just any vacation, but a long vacation to visit a great aunt of hers. Hisa had said she’d be gone a while, and had stocked the pantry full just for him. Hearing this, Tanjiro had very helpfully offered to come over and show him how to cook something using the massive stockpile of raw ingredients the old woman had left him. And, since it was a weekend, Tanjiro had told him they could turn dinner into a sleepover.
Inosuke isn’t sure what to make of it, but thinking of the two of them being alone in his house for the first time ever, overnight, has his stomach fluttering like when he’d first been brought here to live with Hisa. He knows that it means he is nervous, but he has no idea why he would be that way. Tanjiro was his best friend, and a nice guy who always hung out with him and gave him food and helped him study, even if he often gave Inosuke the wrong answers. Inosuke has no reason to be nervous.
The appearance of a bright flash of red hair peeking over the tops of the bushes in front of the house has the feeling doubling, and he scowls at himself. He was the god of the mountain, there was nothing he should be afraid of! Maybe he was just worried about Tanjiro burning down the house with Hisa out of town, because honestly Inosuke has no idea what to do if that kind of thing happened.
Reassured by his own logic, he nods and makes his way downstairs. That had to be it.
So why was the feeling still nagging at him?
He tries to race Tanjiro to the doorbell by running down the stairs and trips down them instead, rolling his way down the last few steps and into the door, making an impressive crashing noise. It hadn’t hurt, but it was pretty embarrassing.
He shakes it off, and opens the door from his position on the floor. Tanjiro looks down at him, his eyes wide with concern. “Inosuke! Are you ok?” In his hands he holds quite a few bags, suggesting a much longer stay than one night, or maybe he was going to prepare some kind of feast and had brought most of his kitchen with him.
The thought of a feast bolsters Inosuke, and he bolts to standing. “Never better! Come in, put yer stuff in my room then meet me in the kitchen.” He was starving, and the promise of a Tanjiro-cooked meal was very exciting indeed. His friend was a great cook, and Inosuke was sure he could win awards for the bread items he often whipped up. At least Inosuke thought so, anyways.
Tanjiro nods and runs off, his footsteps thumping their way up the stairs. As he ascends, the nervous feeling seems to grow, and Inosuke’s throat gets tight. What was wrong with him?
He tries to think of the promise of food to get it to go away, and it sort of works. Right up until Tanjiro comes into the kitchen, face bright, with no bags in sight. Then just what the hell had he brought over? “Alright, sorry for making you wait!”
Inosuke shakes his head, lobbing a thumb over his shoulder at the pantry behind him. “‘S fine. Take a look at what the hag left, can you make anything good with any of it?”
Tanjiro shoots him a bit of a stern look, walking over and opening the pantry door with an appraising eye. “You shouldn’t call her a hag. And let’s see, she left you a lot of the basics…is there anything you’ve been craving?” Tanjiro looks over, his eyes flicking downward for just a second, and Inosuke feels a brush of something over his bottom lip.
He’d always been sensitive to touch, so much that he could feel where someone was looking at him. The more intense the desire to touch him, whether good or bad, the more he could feel through their gaze what kind of touch the person wanted to do to him. When Tanjiro had looked at him, he’d felt the distinct feeling of a finger gently brushing over his bottom lip, pulling it down ever so slightly. He shivers, not sure why Tanjiro would be thinking about doing that, and wondering if he was misinterpreting. Maybe he had food on his lips, and Tanjiro wanted to brush it away.
Wiping at his lips with the back of his arm, he shrugs in the same motion. “Iunno…”
Tanjiro jumps at the motion, which is odd, because it was like he was tense or something. Inosuke has no idea what’s going on.
Feeling somehow irritated with himself, he barks out “Just- make somethin’ tasty, somethin’ you like.”
Tanjiro’s eyes widen a fraction before a small smile breaks out over his face. “Really? Thanks!”
Inosuke doesn’t answer, not wanting to give away how much this very simple conversation was bothering him. He isn’t even sure why, and it’s not an unpleasant feeling, but the unfamiliarity of everything has his nerves set on edge. He sits and watches as Tanjiro grabs this or that, laying out vegetables and sauces on the counter before pausing, looking around like he can’t find something. “Ah, Inosuke, do you have an apron?”
Wordlessly, Inosuke wanders over to the low cupboard under the kitchen island, reaching in and pulling out a worn and stained apron that Inosuke usually wore if he was helping Hisa in the kitchen. Hisa’s were too small, made for the size of a small child, and wouldn’t cover anything on Tanjiro.
As Tanjiro ties it on, Inosuke earns a small nod. “You too.” Inosuke’s brows pinch. “I’ll need help with this, if you don’t mind.” A gentle demand to help, the kind that Hisa was all too good at.
Inosuke reaches for one of Hisa’s aprons, seeing as it was the only option left. “Fine, but all I’m good at is cutting and taste-testing.” In the ten years or so since Hisa had started fostering him, she’d tried teaching him cooking techniques, but he was usually either too distracted or too impatient to really absorb what she’d been trying to teach him. The apron is way too small to cover most of him, but he doesn’t care. He’s assuming Tanjiro will be the one doing most of the work.
Tanjiro nods at him, pulling out a wooden cutting board and placing it on the kitchen island. “That’s ok! Can you chop some onions and carrots? I’ll start rice and press the tofu. Do you know if you guys have a tofu press?”
If they did, Inosuke has no idea what it looks like, though he knows Hisa has made tofu for them before. He shrugs, eyeing the cupboards. “Might be up there, Iunno.”
Tanjiro turns to look at where his eyes are pointed, quickly reaching for the cupboard handles and pulling them open. He must not find what he needs though, because a moment later he turns to Inosuke with a disappointed look on his face. “Well, that’s ok, we can do it a different way.” He walks over to where the cupboard with the plates is, having helped Hisa set the table more than a few times, and he pulls out two large plates. He then grabs two paper towels, and places a drippy block of tofu in between the sets of plates and paper towels. Once that’s done, he looks around the kitchen. “Do you have something heavy we could sit on this?”
Inosuke startles, smiling widely. “Do I!” And bolts out of the room.
He comes back bearing a hand weight, one of Hisa’s little 1 kilo hand weights she used to do her exercises. Tanjiro beams at him, and Inosuke feels warm all over. “Thank you, that’s perfect!” Taking the weight gently from Inosuke, Tanjiro places it on the top plate, and nods at the setup. “You can press tofu this way in a pinch. We could also boil it, but you guys only have two burners, and I need at least one for sauce and one for the stir fry, and I know you’re hungry.”
Inosuke nods vigorously. “Starved!” Oh, tofu stir fry? Hell yeah.
He practically dances at the idea, excited that he’s going to be eating yummy stir fry made by his friend, and Tanjiro laughs. “You must really like stir fry.”
Inosuke nods. “It’s great! You can slop sauce and veggies and meat and all kinds of things in it and it’s always tasty!” Tanjiro’s closed-eyed laugh does interesting things to Inosuke’s stomach again, and he wonders just what was happening to him. Maybe he was just super hungry.
Tanjiro pulls a wok from the drawer under the stove. “We’ll use this to get a nice fry on the veggies first. I think we’ll bake the tofu, since we’ll have all the burners occupied.” Tanjiro looks over at him expectantly, and Inosuke jumps, realizing he’s forgotten he has a job to do.
“Right!” Pulling a jagged blade from the knife block, Inosuke starts chopping. He was good at this, and could chop veggies in about half the time it took Hisa to do them, even with the knife he told her she couldn’t throw away. It was the first knife she’d let him use as a little kid, a little paring knife with a tiny blade that he’d used so much that even with sharpening, the edge was extremely rough and jagged.
He’s about halfway through peeling a carrot when Tanjiro makes a noise of dismay. “What is that knife you’re using? It looks so scary! It’s actually easier to cut things with a sharper knife, if you’re worried about cutting yourself.”
The statement pisses Inosuke off. “I’m not scared of a sharper knife!” But explaining why he was so attached to this little blade would be nothing short of embarrassing. Instead, he grabs for the biggest, sharpest knife in the block, making even faster work of undressing all the vegetables and cutting them to pieces. He’s kind of mad at himself for not using this knife sooner, actually, internally marveling at how quick it is to chop with it.
But being used to a duller blade means that when the knife slips on a carrot and heads toward his finger, he does not dodge, expecting it to glance off toughened skin just like his little knife usually did. Instead it slices through the skin, and he immediately hisses as the cut starts to sting, pulling it up to his face to look at the damage.
It’s just a little cut, but his sloppiness is frustrating. “Dammit!”
Tanjiro looks over from where he’d been stirring, and his face turns to shock as he realizes what must’ve happened. “Oh no! Did you cut yourself? How bad is it?” He immediately abandons the sauce, running over and grabbing Inosuke’s hand, bringing it to his own face. He frowns at it, peering at the tiny blood droplet that had welled up at the site of the cut. “Oh geez, I’ll grab a bandage.”
Inosuke, instead, sticks it in his mouth, laving the cut with his tongue. Around his finger he mumbles “Don’t need it” and tries not to be embarrassed by the way Tanjiro’s expression had fallen in dismay and disgust.
“You should really put a bandage on that, now you have to wash your hands since we’re cooking…here, I’ll grab one, could you stir the sauce for me?” Inosuke frowns at Tanjiro. He’d never been so precious with cooking, and Hisa had never bothered to tell him he had to wash his hands during cooking, just before. It seemed so unnecessary.
But Inosuke makes a noise and does it anyways, wandering over to the sink to rinse his hands, using the barest amount of soap before shaking them off, fighting hard not to wince at the sting of it in his cut. He then wanders over to the sauce to stir a little dejectedly, not knowing why he felt so…chastised? “Fine, happy?”
The smile on Tanjiro’s face does soothe the feeling, somehow. “Yes! I’ll be right back.” And then Tanjiro tromps off to presumably grab the first aid kit under the sink in the downstairs bathroom.
Inosuke stirs and watches the cut on his finger, blood welling up again. He was happy, really, that Tanjiro was helping him. It felt familiar, comfortable.
He’s so lost in thought that he doesn’t notice Tanjiro’s arms reaching around him until they’re right in front of his face, and he jumps. A hand clamps onto his lightning-quick, and he hears a voice say “Woah, careful! You don’t want to get this sauce you when it’s hot!”
Tanjiro. He’d returned from the bathroom with a bandage and some ointment, setting them on the counter next to the stove. But instead of moving around to Inosuke’s side, Tanjiro stands behind him, reaching around him for his hand. It makes butterflies erupt in Inosuke’s stomach when his hand is grabbed gently, his finger isolated and dabbed with a tissue. He has no clue why he’s feeling that, but he is, and it isn’t totally unpleasant.
Tanjiro tuts as he dabs. “It’s not too deep, luckily, we can just use a small bandage.” Ointment follows, Tanjiro squeezing out a dab from the tube and almost so gently Inosuke doesn’t feel it, rubs the ointment over the cut. Next the bandage goes on, Tanjiro smoothing it out slowly and tenderly, and Inosuke does not expect his hand to be raised to Tanjiro’s mouth for a small kiss over the fabric.
Time stands still for a moment, with neither one of them moving a muscle, Tanjiro’s lips still puckered and hovering over the bandage. And then-
“Oh my god!” Tanjiro flinches backwards. “I’m sorry! It’s just a habit, my little brothers and sisters, when they get hurt, I-”
Inosuke quickly shakes his head, feeling a warmth bubble up in him from somewhere deep in his chest, his face hot from more than standing over the stove. “No, it’s fine.” He turns back to the sauce, his head dipping towards it, hoping to hide his own embarrassment.
Instead of moving away like Inosuke is expecting, Tanjiro stays behind him, standing there quietly. Wasn’t he going to step back and away to go do more cooking stuff? Inosuke isn’t used to anyone standing this close to him; not many people wanted to, either from his demeanor or the fact that he often smelled like a wild animal.
A few heartbeats later, Tanjiro instead steps closer to him, his chest nearly against Inosuke’s back. Inosuke doesn’t think they’ve ever been this close before, outside of gym activities and helping one another scale walls they shouldn’t have been climbing. It’s unfamiliar, but it is exciting in a way Inosuke can’t put his finger on. He’s scared to say anything for fear of ruining this moment, of having Tanjiro move away, of breaking the spell that had seemed to come over his friend that had made him so eager and willing to be close to him. He has no idea what’s happening, but he doesn’t want it to end.
And then, even more inexplicably, Tanjiro reaches for his hand around the spoon stirring the sauce. It wraps around his hand, gently, and then Tanjiro is moving the both of them together. “Like this. You’ll hurt your wrist doing it the other way.” His voice is low, almost a whisper, the tone something Inosuke had never heard before but understands nonetheless.
Inosuke feels like his entire body is on fire. His face especially, but he feels like Tanjiro had ignited something in him with those simple actions. Then there is a chin on his shoulder, and he tilts his head just far enough to see what he can of his friend’s expression.
It is an easy one, Tanjiro’s eyelids lowered and his mouth relaxed. It was like he was on the verge of a nap, looking so at home and comfortable where he was. Inosuke turns back to the sauce.
They stir together until Inosuke starts to feel resistance from it, some several minutes later as the sauce thickens, and then Tanjiro reaches up with his free hand to turn the stove off. Instead of returning to wherever it had been resting before this, it comes to rest gently, tenderly on Inosuke’s hip.
Something flips in Inosuke’s stomach, and he bites at his lip to keep from gasping. He doesn’t know why such a simple gesture would feel so weirdly good, but he grips it tight. Stomach still doing its weird flip-flopping, he slowly raises his own hand to rest it on the one on his hip.
They stand there like that for what feels like forever. Inosuke swallows, wondering what on earth could be next.
Then, the barest touch of something soft against his neck, and there are words being breathed into the skin: “Are you ok to finish chopping? I’ll start rice.”
Inosuke’s head feels full of fuzz as he nods, missing the contact of his friend the second he steps away. Although, that seemed like something a friend would definitely not do, and Inosuke stares at Tanjiro’s back, wondering if they were something more than that. He’d never seen Tanjiro do that sort of thing to anyone before, so maybe it was something special, just for him?
Dazed, he wanders back over to the abandoned cutting board full of veggies, staring at the pieces and trying to puzzle out where he’d left off. He’s having a hard time thinking of anything, really, the act of forming thoughts like struggling through a river of peanut butter. Finally, he picks up the sharp knife he’d cut himself with, starting back on the carrot his knife had slipped off of.
He is much more careful this time, eyes honed in on where the knife goes in, trying to bring his thoughts back to himself. He is mildly terrified to look at Tanjiro, not sure if he would glance over and see his friend looking back, and scared of what expression he might find. If it was something soft, something to back up the actions of his friend being more than a friend, Inosuke isn’t sure what he might do. Freak out and cannonball through a window and run down the street, probably.
He hears the beep of the rice cooker signal its start, and he glances over. From what he can see of Tanjiro’s expression from here, it is content, and softly happy. It makes Inosuke happy too, and he turns back to finish cutting the last carrot. He cuts the tofu into small blocks as well, laying them out on a sheet pan and mixing them with oil and katakuriko. He puts them in the oven, setting a timer on his phone; one of the only apps he knew how to use, for this explicit purpose. Granny didn’t own a smartphone, and the timer on the oven was temperamental at best.
Once they’re in, he steps out of the way and watches Tanjiro oil the wok, a lineup of ingredients on the counter next to the stove. Inosuke is actually curious to watch him; Granny only ever did stir fry when he was little, or when she came back feeling rejuvenated from a trip. Sometimes she would have him stir until the very end, when she would finish it, knowing exactly when everything was perfectly stir fried. The way Tanjiro oils the wok with a practiced ease makes Inosuke mildly excited to see how it’s done. He loved Hisa, but she wasn’t very strong, and she had to have him do a lot of the cooking stuff like that. Inosuke tended to burn things on accident.
Inosuke is concerned when Tanjiro leaves the oil to heat up with nothing in it, squirming when it starts to bubble a little. “Aren’t you gonna…” He normally put the garlic and onion in when the oil was cold, because then he would know exactly when it was hot and he could put the veggies and meat in.
Tanjiro looks at him in confusion, and it makes Inosuke feel stupid and small. But then Tanjiro smiles at him, and spins the oil in the pan again. “If you put everything in the pan when the oil is still warming up, it won’t sear it. You get a nice flavor from doing that, and it also cooks faster.” Oh. Faster was definitely better. Inosuke watches as Tanjiro lifts the pan from the heat when the air above the oil starts to waver, just a touch, then asks “Can you put the garlic in? And then watch out!”
Inosuke scrambles, reaching for the jar or garlic and scooping out a spoonful, tossing it in and jumping at the sudden burst of sound and action from the oil meeting the garlic. Tanjiro just smiles though, stirring it expertly with a wooden spoon. “Thanks! I’ll ask you to add the onion in just a few seconds.” Inosuke realizes the onion is not next to the stove, nearly running over to where the cutting board is and scooping the chopped onion into his hands. He gathers as much as he can, then practically runs back over to where Tanjiro was stirring, small pieces falling from his fingers all over the kitchen. He waits for Tanjiro to nod, which he does, and then Inosuke is tossing the onion in at an angle away from the both of them.
It still spatters something fierce, the onion meeting the oil in the pan and hissing loudly. Tanjiro stirs this too, seeming unbothered by the little droplets of oil getting onto the hand holding the pan handle. Inosuke figures he must’ve made this a lot if he wasn’t bothered. “Are you ok?”
“Hm? Oh! Yeah, don’t worry about me, I make this all the time! It’s one of Hanako’s favorite foods. She likes hers with shrimp though.”
Shrimp. The thought of it makes Inosuke’s mouth start to water. “Can you make shrimp stir fry for me? Later, I mean.”
Tanjiro blink at him, then smiles a second later. “Of course! I would’ve made some tonight, but I don’t think you have any shrimp. We can go get some at the store tomorrow if you’d like.” Tomorrow. Tomorrow was Saturday. And Tanjiro was sleeping over, so did that mean Tanjiro wanted to stay the weekend? He had seemed to be carrying an awful lot for just a one night stay when he’d arrived…
The thought excited Inosuke again, and he nods almost fretfully. The thought of waking up with Tanjiro and then going to do errands with him sounded really fun for some reason. “Yeah! Let’s make shrimp stir fry tomorrow!”
Tanjiro nods. “Well, since we’ll probably have leftovers, we can do something else with the shrimp tomorrow. How about tempura?”
Inosuke thinks he knows what the feeling flopping around in his belly was all this time. It was the same feeling he got whenever he knew tempura was the prize at the end of a school day, or when it was a surprise, or whenever Hisa would make it for his birthday. It was love, and the certainty of it shocks him. He’s not sure how this sort of thing could’ve happened. How did he fall in love with Tanjiro of all people?
The realization makes his head feel full of fuzz again. So much so that the cotton in his ears keeps him from hearing Tanjiro ask him to add the veggies. He only realizes after Tanjiro calls his name a couple times, and the cotton is forced out at the hand waving at him. “Inosuke? Could you please add the rest of the veggies?”
Feeling embarrassment and love all bundled up like this has his face feeling like a fire pit again, and he turns and grabs the entire cutting board. He really wishes he’d worn his mask downstairs, wishing for the security of the boar hide to conceal his expressions. He spins in place and dumps them all in, pieces flying both into and out of the wok. Tanjiro startles with a “Woah!” and tries to grab a few pieces that had landed on the stovetop, adding them quickly. “Can you grab the ones I didn’t pick up? I don’t want them to burn.”
Inosuke does, moving anything that had landed near the burner away with a wooden spatula, then crouches down next to his friend to start picking up the multitude of veggies that had escaped the wok. In his haste to add them, they really had gotten everywhere. At least Granny was used to this sort of mess when he cooked.
Tanjiro makes a choked noise at one point, and Inosuke is worried he’d actually burned himself, so he looks up. But Tanjiro just looks down at him, his expression one of shock, a slowly burgeoning blush on his face. Inosuke doesn’t quite understand why, maybe their proximity? He stands, his hand full of veggie pieces, and realizes he’s extremely close to Tanjiro. That must’ve been it, because Tanjiro swallows and looks back at the wok, concentrating on cooking.
Inosuke’s timer goes off then, startling him, and he bumps Tanjiro’s arm with his chest. “Oops, my bad Gonpachiro.”
There is an unmistakable shake to Tanjiro’s voice when he shakes his head and says “Ah, no, it’s ok. I’ll move out of the way…” He steps to the side so Inosuke can open the oven, the tofu being removed and placed on the countertop where a woven trivet lived.
The sizzle of veggies plays as a backdrop to the sound of Inosuke stirring the tofu on the pan, and the hiss of steam from the rice cooker. It feels so cozy, somehow. Once satisfied with the tofu, he turns to Tanjiro. “When you want me to add these?”
Tanjiro flips the contents of the wok expertly, and then says “Now is fine.” Inosuke scrapes the tofu into the wok carefully as Tanjiro stirs it in, and then grabs for the sauce next to Tanjiro. He’d helped Hisa enough that he knows how this goes. “You can add the sauce…now.” Inosuke pours quickly, marveling at the way they move together to finish the dish, his body flowing easily into the spaces that Tanjiro’s moves out of. It felt so natural to Inosuke. It was like this was their hundredth time cooking this way together, not their first.
Tanjiro stirs a few more times, the scent of fried veggies and tofu and sauce melding together into something so mouth-watering Inosuke isn’t sure he can wait. And then Tanjiro reaches and turns the stove off, setting the wok on the now-cool sauce burner. He beams at Inosuke, clapping his hands together just as the rice cooker starts singing its ‘done’ tune at them. “Awesome! Thank you for helping me cook tonight!”
Inosuke feels somehow bashful then, turning his eyes away and shaking his head. “Well, yeah. I‘d be a shithead if I had you cook everything for me without helping.” Inosuke had at least learned that guests were exempt from chores, and should only help if they wanted to. Tanjiro doing most of the work was already a lot of help.
Then Tanjiro does something unexpected. Instead of heading to the cabinet with the bowls to grab some out for them, or digging for the rice spatula in the messy utensil drawer, or even grabbing for some chopsticks from the cup on the counter, Tanjiro steps towards him. Inosuke looks up just as Tanjiro leans into his space, his friend’s lips making the most minute connection with Inosuke’s forehead.
Inosuke can’t move. He can’t even breathe. He’d never quite understood kissing, but he knew what it meant. He feels like someone must’ve knocked his ass out, because this can’t be real. He was dreaming, he had to be. But then Tanjiro is lowering himself back down from his tiptoes, the smile on his face warm as hearth fire, and Inosuke knows he could never have imagined something like this even in his wildest dreams. Hell, he had just started to think of them as a little more than friends, maybe, possibly, one day…but not today.
He must’ve stayed still for too long, because Tanjiro looks like he’s starting to worry. “Oh um, I’m sorry, was that…” and then a sort of sadness creeps into the corners of his eyes. And Inosuke knows what he must be thinking: that this was a rejection.
Inosuke assuages his fears the only way he knows how. He leans forward, his lips a millimeter from Tanjiro’s cheek. His nose touches soft skin, and it gives him the courage to close the distance, his lips brushing softly against a tanned cheek. Tanjiro is softer than he’d imagined, and smelled so nice. Like freshly baked bread and stir fry, and Inosuke gets no further before his stomach growls loudly.
He pulls away as if struck, feeling like he’d been set on fire again. “Sorry.”
Only Tanjiro looks like he feels, almost as red as his hair, his voice cracking as he nearly shouts “No-...!” He coughs, and then at a lower volume, “No, it’s ok.” He grabs for one of Inosuke’s hands, nearly laughing. “Maybe we should eat, huh? Before we um…” Inosuke doesn’t know exactly what Tanjiro was planning on doing, but his stomach nearly flips around on itself. Before…
The possibilities are endless, and he nods fitfully. They had all night to do whatever it was, the next day too…and even the next day. Hisa likely wouldn’t come home until Sunday night.
Inosuke wiggles in place. He can’t wait to see where they would go from here. He’s sure wherever it is, it will stretch out into the far distance, with this night as the first in a long line of nights, just as comfortable and brilliant as this one.