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April first started, for Ilya, with silence and an opportunity.
Shane was already gone when he woke up, the bed cool on the other side, the house unusually still without the quiet, methodical sounds of Shane moving through his morning routine. No cupboard doors opening in the same order they always did, no kettle clicking on at exactly the same time. Just quiet.
Then Ilya checked his phone.
Out with Anya. Back in an hour.
And just above that, the date. April 1st.
The idea came quickly, settling into place with the kind of confidence that should have been a warning sign. Instead, it made him grin. Shane liked things a certain way. No, not just liked. Needed. Everything had a place, a logic, a system that made the world easier to move through. Ilya knew that. He’d learned it slowly over time, through observation and the occasional correction.
Which meant, of course, that the funniest possible harmless joke would be to disrupt that system just a little.
“Just a little,” Ilya said out loud, already halfway to the kitchen. He lasted about five seconds before deciding to commit fully.
Cupboards swung open one after the other as he worked, humming under his breath, thoroughly pleased with himself. Mugs were relocated into the bowl cupboard. Bowls into the plate cupboard. Plates stacked where the frying pans should be. The cutlery tray was lifted out and carefully placed into a different drawer entirely, swapped with utensils that absolutely did not belong there.
“Perfect,” he murmured, adjusting a wooden spoon so it sat neatly beside a spatula.
He moved on. Measuring cups disappeared into the spice drawer. The spices themselves were redistributed to a cabinet above the fridge that Shane barely used. Tea bags and coffee pods were switched. Even the sugar ended up somewhere new. By the time he was done, the kitchen looked normal at a glance. Clean, tidy, nothing obviously wrong.
Until you tried to use it.
Ilya leaned back against the counter, arms crossed, admiring his work. It was harmless. Shane would open a cupboard, pause, give him that look, and then laugh. Maybe call him an idiot. Definitely call him an idiot.
It would be funny.
It would be fine.
—
The front door opened just under an hour later.
“Hey,” Shane called, voice slightly breathless as he stepped inside, Anya’s nails clicking across the floor behind him. “I’m starving.”
“Hi,” Ilya called back, biting down on a smile as he stayed where he was.
Shane dropped his keys into the dish on the table in the hallway, already heading straight for the kitchen. Routine. Predictable.
“I’m making something quick,” Shane added. “You want anythi-”
The sentence cut off. Ilya waited.
“…what?”
There it was.
He pushed off the counter, strolling in with practiced casualness. “What?”
Shane was standing in front of the cupboards, one open, mugs sitting disorderly where the bowls should have been. He didn’t move for a second, just stared at it like the bowls would appear if he waited long enough.
Then he opened the next cupboard. Closed it. Opened another. Closed. Open. Closed.
“Ilya,” he said.
Ilya leaned against the doorway. “Yes?”
“Why are the mugs in here?”
“Oh,” Ilya said lightly, glancing over. “Huh. That’s weird.”
Shane turned to look at him, and something in his expression made Ilya hesitate, just slightly. “Ilya.”
“April Fools!” Ilya offered with a wide grin.
Shane blinked once, like he was processing that, then turned back to the cupboards. He opened a drawer this time and stopped again, shoulders going stiff.
“The cutlery is wrong.”
“I mean,” Ilya said, trying for teasing, his smile faltering slightly, “wrong is a strong word—”
“I can’t find anything.”
The edge in Shane’s voice cut straight through the joke. Ilya’s smile disappeared completely. Shane moved faster now, opening and closing drawers, cupboards, each one confirming the same thing. Nothing was where it should be.
“This isn’t where things go,” Shane muttered. “Why would you move—why would you—”
“I thought it would be funny,” Ilya said, but it came out weaker than he intended.
Shane pressed his hands flat against the counter, head dipping slightly. “I’m trying to make lunch.”
“I’ll help,” Ilya said quickly, stepping forward. “I can just tell you where everything is—”
“No.” Shane shook his head sharply. “I just need it to be normal.”
That landed. Hard.
Ilya stopped moving.
Shane’s breathing had changed, shallow and uneven, his shoulders tense in a way that had nothing to do with annoyance and everything to do with being overwhelmed. He opened another cupboard, saw the plates stacked wrong, and whimpered a small, strained sound.
“I can’t,” he said quietly. “Everything’s wrong.” Shane’s eyes began to water, flitting over every cupboard and drawer in the kitchen, as if he couldn’t decide where the safest place to settle was.
Guilt hit Ilya all at once, heavy and immediate.
“Hey. Hey,” he said, softer now, careful as he stepped closer. “Okay. I’m sorry. I didn’t think, I just thought it was a stupid joke, I didn’t think it would—”
“I don’t like it.” Shane said.
“I know,” Ilya said quickly. “I know. I see that. I’m sorry.”
Shane didn’t look at him, just stared past him, like focusing on anything else might help.
“Can you fix it please?” he asked after a moment.
“Yes,” Ilya said immediately. “Yeah. I’ll fix it right now.”
—
He started with the mugs. It felt like the easiest place to begin, the most obvious wrong to be able to put right.
“I’m sorry,” Ilya said as he moved them back, one by one into their proper cupboard. Behind him, Shane sat down at the table without a word.
“I really didn’t think,” Ilya tried again, quieter. “I just saw the date and thought it would be funny. I didn’t think about how it would feel for you.”
“Ilya.”
“Yeah?”
“The small mugs go on the left.”
Ilya paused, then shifted them. “Right. No, not right as in right, I mean left. Got it.”
“And the blue one goes at the back.”
“Okay.”
“And Ilya?”
“Yeah?”
“You’re apologizing too much.”
A small, humorless laugh slipped out of Ilya. “I don’t think I am. There could not be too much apologising.”
Shane didn’t respond to that, but some of the tension had eased out of his posture. Not gone, but less sharp, his shoulders dropping an inch lower.
“I really am sorry,” Ilya said again anyway, softer this time. “I didn’t mean to make things harder.”
Shane watched him for a moment. “You didn’t think about it.”
“No,” Ilya said, honest. “I didn’t.”
Shane nodded once. “Okay.”
—
It took time. More time than Ilya expected, because he didn’t just want it back to normal, he wanted it back exactly how it was before he messed it all up. He checked with Shane when he wasn’t sure, even when Shane rolled his eyes at him for it.
“You’re hovering,” Ilya said at one point, carefully returning the cutlery tray to its rightful drawer.
“I’m supervising,” Shane replied.
“You’re judging.”
“Yes.”
Ilya glanced over and caught the faintest hint of a smile, and something in his chest loosened.
“Understandable. Are you okay?” he asked.
Shane considered it. “Better.”
“Because I’m fixing it?”
“Yes.”
“Or because I’m suffering?”
Shane’s mouth twitched, a glint in his eyes. “Both.”
“Wow,” Ilya said. “That’s cold, solnyshko.”
“You deserve it.”
“That’s fair.”
They fell into an easier rhythm after that. Shane pointing things out, Ilya following instructions with exaggerated seriousness. Paprika back between cumin and chili flakes. Measuring cups returned to their hook. Tea and coffee restored to their rightful places. By the time he finished, the kitchen looked exactly the way it had that morning.
Ilya leaned back against the counter, arms crossed. “There. Perfect.”
Shane stood, walking over to check, opening cupboards, sliding drawers, verifying.
“It’s right,” he said finally.
“Of course it is,” Ilya said. “I am a professional at everything that is Shane Hollander.”
—
Later that evening, when the kitchen had long since settled back into its careful normality and Ilya had declared April Fools Day as the Worst Day Ever™, Shane struck in silence.
While Ilya was in the shower, Shane had gone straight to the snack cupboard and quietly swapped everything out, replacing Ilya’s usual stash of unhealthy favourites with neatly arranged “healthy alternatives” he absolutely hated. The familiar chips were gone, replaced with grainy protein snacks made out of lentils. The chocolate bars had been exchanged for dark, bitter versions Ilya refused to touch. Even the cookies had been substituted with something aggressively wholemeal and dry, all lined up with infuriating precision as if that made it better.
When Ilya finally opened the cupboard later that evening, expecting copious amounts of sugar and processed food, he just stood there for a long moment in complete silence before slowly turning his head toward Shane with pure betrayal.