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Claws scrabbling for purchase on the hardwood floors, ears flattened against her head like she was on a mission, Mon raced across the apartment within seconds— surely setting a new record for highest speed reached by a corgi when running to see who was at the front door.
Tenko set his phone down on the couch and got up, padding over on socked feet to where Mon was pawing at the door, tail wagging up a storm. "Who is it, Mon-chan? Who's at the door?" he cooed, nudging the over-excited corgi out of the way with his foot. Mon barked excitedly and he chuckled. "Yeah, yeah. I know."
He unlocked the door and pushed it open. Touya stood in the hall, one hand in the pocket of his bomber jacket and the other holding his phone. He looked up from the screen and gave Tenko a smile. "Hey."
"Hey," Tenko replied, returning the smile. "Come on in."
It had been a month and a half since Tenko had moved into his new apartment, and there were still cardboard boxes of stuff he never bothered to unpack throughout the house. He justified this laziness with the tried and true reasoning of if I really needed it, it wouldn't still be in the box.
Touya was his first visitor— besides Shuichi, who came around so often that he was more roommate than guest— and for the first time since moving in, Tenko found himself in the predicament of needing the second Nintendo controller. Shuichi always brought his own. Touya, as he should have expected, did not. Touya didn't even own a gaming console.
"I wanna play Pokemon," Touya had announced shortly after losing to Tenko and an NPC for the fifth time in Super Smash Bros. He threw his controller to the floor and flopped down on the couch with a huff, arms crossed over his chest as he sunk back against the couch cushions. "This is boring."
"You're… uh, you're doing pretty well… for your first time…" Tenko tried, not sure how to tell Touya that he didn't really want to watch him play Pokemon, given it was a one-player game. "You sure you don't wanna go another round? I can set the NPC level (even) lower…"
Touya scoffed and Tenko looked down at his controller awkwardly, scratching at his neck. "I guess we could," he said, navigating back to the home menu and pulling up the list of games. "Which game do you—"
"Pokemon," Touya repeated impatiently.
"Which Pokemon game do you want to play?!" Tenko snapped, fed up with Touya's attitude. "There are multiple games, so which one do you want?"
He wasn't even trying to hide his irritation, and didn't realize his grip on the controller had tightened until the plastic creaked under his hold. He set the controller down, taking a deep breath through his nose like his therapist had taught him, and turned around to fix Touya with his most threatening glower. He'd expected hostility in return, but when their eyes met, Tenko's were the only ones still holding anger.
Touya's hands were raised in a placating gesture, his eyebrows furrowed slightly as he took in his friend's expression, which had faded to one of uncertain scrutiny. "I'm sorry, alright? I didn't know there were multiple."
"You don't know a lot of things," Tenko muttered, turning away and pointedly ignoring Touya as he picked the controller back up and went to make Touya a profile to play Pokemon under. Goddamn it all. He often wondered how they were still on good terms with each other, and then Touya went and acted like this and he knew damn well why. Goddamn Touya and his stupidly likeable personality.
To his credit, Touya stayed silent as Tenko created a profile for him, holding in whatever comments he had until they were back in the home screen. "What one do you like to play? Of the Pokemon games, I mean."
"I like Legends: Arceus. But if you're asking for you, Legends: ZA or Sword and Shield," Tenko answered, already feeling his irritation with Touya fading. He hated how easily conflict dissolved when Touya was around, he couldn't stay mad for long… "You might like Arceus too, I guess. D'you have a favorite Pokemon?"
Touya shrugged. "Chandelure? Oh, or Zor–zoror— Zororark? Is that the red and white one?"
"Zoroark. But it's usually a dark grey… you could be thinking of the variant from Hisui."
"Gesundheit," Touya said. Tenko stared at him before sighing and getting up to put the game card for Legends: Arceus into the Nintendo.
It was (a) quarter past one when Touya finally set down the controller and flopped onto his back on the living room carpet, spreading himself out like a starfish. Tenko looked up from where he'd been playing games on his phone, and when he saw Touya he couldn't help but laugh.
"Whatchu laughing at?" Touya said loudly, looking up at Tenko and giving him an upside down, half-hearted glare.
"Nothing," Tenko lied. "You're just being dramatic again, it's pretty entertaining. What's got you looking so exhausted?"
Touya sighed dramatically, as if the fact his friend couldn't immediately tell what he was overreacting about was a cause for national alarm. "Sigh. If only the guy who invited me over for lunch had lunch for me to have! Here I am, weak with hunger, starving my—"
"You want instant ramen? I have beef, chicken, shrimps…"
"Ew. I'm never speaking to you again. And the plural of shrimp isn't shrimps."
Ten minutes later Touya was in the kitchen, making lunch for the both of them completely unprompted.
"It's hot as high hell in here, open a window or something," Touya said with a groan, pulling up his shirt to wipe the fine sheen of sweat from his temples, exposing his abdomen as he did so. Tenko felt his own face warm at the sight, but tore his eyes away before Touya could notice. "Y'know what, I'm opening a window. Gonna die of heat exhaustion— you cook in here?"
Tenko looked back over, eyebrows furrowed. "Yeah? Hey— don't open the window, I have allergies—"
"Fuck your allergies," was Touya's reply, already opening the kitchen window to let some fresh air in. "You can't be cooking with the damn window closed, you need ventilation in here or your lungs'll be completely shot by the time you're thirty. You wanna have cooking spray coating the inside of your nasal cavity?" Tenko opened his mouth to reply, but Touya answered for him. "No you don't! Christ, man. This is just sad."
Tenko had no idea how to respond to that, and by the time he'd come up with his answer Touya had his back to him again. Since when was he so concerned about the state of anyone's lungs? And this was coming from Touya of all people, the epitome of carelessness when it came to health. Did the guy even hear himself half the time?
His nose was doing that thing again. Felt like he was gonna sneeze.
Whatever Touya was making smelled good, but Tenko's allergies were flaring up and he shuffled back into the living room, rubbing at his nose and hoping that Touya would sense his misery and feel guilty about it.
He ended up sitting at the dinner table so Touya would know that he did want the food after all.
"Lunch," Touya announced, dumping a handful of silverware onto the table and setting down a bowl of steaming-hot ramen in front of Tenko. "I made noodles. Not whatever instant bullshit you have in your cupboards, real noodles. Kiss the fucking chef."
Fork already halfway to his mouth, Tenko looked across the table to see that "the chef" was now shirtless. If he'd gotten as far as having food in his mouth, he would've choked on it and most likely died.
Touya rolled his eyes as if disappointed by Tenko's reaction— lack of reaction? what reaction was he even looking for? —and picked up his half of the hard-boiled egg from his ramen, putting the whole thing in his mouth and swallowing it whole. All while maintaining direct eye contact with Tenko.
"What the fuck."
Touya was sitting on the couch with Mon when Tenko finished cleaning up after him and joined them in the living room. Apparently, Touya had expected him to clear the table, load the dishwasher, and wipe down the kitchen countertops… and he'd expected right, because somehow Tenko ended up doing it all for him.
He'd closed the window upon going into the kitchen, but the damage was already done to his sinuses. Tenko sniffled, rubbing at his nose with narrowed eyes. He felt awful, and it was all Touya's fault. After trying to will the snot back into… wherever it had come from, he eventually gave up and went to get a box of tissues
Upon returning with his tissues, he was met with… well, he wasn't sure what was happening, but it was definitely not something he'd expected to see. Ever.
"Your fuck-ass dog just licked my nipple!" Touya yelled, now standing on the couch cushions and covering his chest with his arms as if Mon was going to go through the trouble of doing it again.
Tenko stared at him for a solid minute, trying to comprehend the words that had just come out of his friend's mouth. He looked from Touya to Mon, and then back to Touya. "Come again?"
"Your fuck-ass dog," Touya repeated slowly, as if Tenko was an idiot, "just licked my nipple."
There was another stretch of silence.
"I'm sure she didn't mean it," Tenko deadpanned. "It's probably because… uh… because you're sweaty. Dogs like the smell of sweat—" Touya chose that moment to interrupt Tenko's explanation with a loud retch. "...You done? Oookay… so, as I was trying to say, dogs like the smell of sweat because it gives them a lot of information about someone, and when they lick it it's often cause they're trying to get to know you better. Y'know, like bonding. I guess they like the taste, too."
"That's disgusting." Touya said flatly, getting down from the couch and getting his shirt from the floor, refusing to acknowledge Tenko or the dog.
"I'm sorry, okay? She's not gonna do it again… she was trying to be friendly, and you probably scared her off anyway. You're really making this a bad experience for her, you know?" Tenko muttered, picking up Mon and holding her close to his chest, giving her a kiss on the head. He didn't want this to become any more of a big deal, but god, he was feeling more than a little bit irritated with Touya right now.
Touya scoffed, pulling his shirt over his head and tugging it down to cover his abdomen. "Yeah, and having your tit molested by a dog ain't the best experience, either! Doesn't matter why she did it, get your fucking dog under control or I swear to god I'm leaving."
"Fine!" Tenko snapped. "If you're gonna be such a— a jerk, then leave already! I don't care, I don't even want you here anymore!"
"Fine," Touya replied, his voice suddenly icy cold. "I don't hang out with losers, anyway."
Tenko watched his friend storm off, grabbing his jacket from where he'd thrown it over the back of a chair and shoving his combat boots on without even unlacing them. Touya's hand closed over the door handle, the hinges starting to creak as the door was pushed open… and suddenly, Tenko didn't want him to leave. Maybe he hadn't really wanted it in the first place, but he was just… so frustrated. Part of him had hoped that Touya would be the one to cave, like he had before… but the other part of him knew that by now, he'd had enough.
"Touya— wait. I'm sorry." The words felt almost foreign on his tongue.
He couldn't bring himself to look at Touya, but he heard the door shut with a quiet click and a shuffling of footsteps in the hall. Tenko felt Touya's heat before he felt his touch— warmth radiating from his body, and then warm hands cupped around his face, smushing his cheeks and tilting his head up to meet the bright blue of his friend's gaze. His mouth was dry, his cheeks were burning, and yet Tenko was unable to look away.
Touya's expression softened and he sighed, gently caressing Tenko's cheek with his thumb. "You know I can't resist you," he muttered. "I'll forgive you and your dumbass dog… but you gotta make it up to me."
"I— I can do that," Tenko agreed, relief blooming in his chest. He leaned into Touya's touch, eyes fluttering shut, accepting the other boy's unspoken apology and letting himself be comforted. Make it up to him… he could do that. Anything that could take away the sting of his earlier words, he would do it without a second thought. Anything for Touya.
Tenko swallowed thickly, opening his eyes and meeting Touya's gaze once more, trying not to show how excited he was getting at the thought of what he was about to propose. He felt dirty the second the first word came from his mouth, but that was exciting too. "How would you feel if I were the one sucking on your tits?"
Touya grinned, all sharp teeth and desire. "That would feel wonderful."