Work Text:
Kaidoh awoke to the sound of the fire alarm blaring through the apartment. He considered rolling over and putting a pillow over his head in the hope Inui would somehow be able to sort it out by himself, but as the seconds ticked by and the alarm sounded no closer to shutting up than before, he heaved himself out of the comforting warmth of the futon and into the chilly kitchen.
As expected, Inui was hopeless; balancing precariously on a chair and wafting the fire alarm with a tea towel at the same time as attempting to remove what looked suspiciously like spinach from the ceiling. He was failing miserably at both, Kaidoh noted in despair.
He swatted at Inui’s leg with a discarded newspaper. “Get down here,” he growled. “You’ll damage the floor if you fall onto it.”
Inui peered down at him over the top of his glasses. “You know, my head would be more damaged than the floor, given that the combination of concrete and linoleum is approximately five times the-” Kaidoh interrupted him.
“Let me do it, or you’ll wake the rest of the damn block up.” Inui eventually acquiesced to Kaidoh’s superior fire alarm silencing talents and sat on the edge of the table, using the tea towel to clean his glasses.
When the damn thing was eventually silenced, Kaidoh tossed the now-mangled newspaper in the direction of the bins and sat cross-legged on the table top next toInui. “What were you even doing, anyway?” He asked, taking the glasses out of Inui’s hands and rubbing the lenses with the hem of his t shirt.
Inui leaned back on his palms. “I was attempting to see if wilting the spinach beforehand would make my Midori juice more palatable to my co workers.” He sighed, accepting his glasses back when Kaidoh handed them to him, lenses free of smears. “Unfortunately, it seems my talent with a juicer does not extend to any other culinary areas.”
“I thought we discovered this when you set the cooker on fire on our first night in this flat?” Kaidoh asked, dropping his head on Inui’s shoulder. It was far too early for Inui-related culinary disasters. “Blackened tofu doesn’t mean you need to use a blowtorch on it.” Inui snaked an arm around his shoulders.
“In this case, I defer to your judgement. Which is why in future, I’ll leave the cooking to you.” Kaidoh rolled his eyes, good-naturedly of course. “Of course you will, which is why I’ll come home next week to find you’ve scalded milk to the bottom of our only saucepan again.” He poked Inui in the side and slid off the table, flicking the kettle on and rummaging through the cupboards to find the instant coffee.
He shivered; the kitchen floor was cold, even through his socks and he absently rubbed his arms as he waited for the kettle to boil. As if sensing his discomfort, Inui shuffled up behind him, opening his cardigan and wrapping it around both of them. Kaidoh leaned back into him, turning his face into Inui’s neck because he’s cold, okay?
Inui chuckled. “Your nose is cold, Kaoru.” Kaidoh retorted by turning around within the cardigan cocoon, leaning in and-
sticking his ice-cold hands up Inui’s shirt.
Inui yelped and jumped backwards. He went down, taking one of the kitchen chairs and Kaidoh with him, who landed across Inui’s hips, hands planted on either side of Inui’s head. They stared at each other, wide-eyed, for a few seconds, the kettle whistling innocently. Then Inui’s glasses flashed and he grinned, running his hands up the backs of Kaidoh’s bare thighs. Kaidoh shuddered, dropping his forehead to Inui’s chest.
“I need to…m-make the coffee.” He jumped as Inui’s fingers slid underneath the legs of the shorts he wore to bed. “You’ll be late for work.” Inui dropped his head back to the kitchen floor with a sigh.
“Indeed.” He slid his hands out from Kaidoh’s shorts, but left them cupped around the back of his thighs. “Gone are the days when we’d have time before university.” Kaidoh sat up and folded his arms. Then he glared, grabbed Inui’s tie and yanked him into a sitting position.
“Please stop talking.” He growled against Inui’s mouth. Inui shut up.
Half an hour after Inui’d rushed out of the door, hurriedly doing up his jacket and a piece of toast unceremoniously stuffed into his mouth, Kaidoh deigned to get out of bed for the second time that morning. He flicked the kotatsu on, yawning as he opened the fridge to inspect what little it had to offer.
By the time he’d fished the half-empty bottle of orange juice from behind Inui’s five bags of spinach, the kotatsu was ready and waiting for him. He shifted the pile of sports magazines to the floor and reluctantly pulled his Sports Science textbook towards him, flicking through until he spotted reams of highlighter. Stretching his legs out under the table and tugging the duvet from the futon a little tighter around his shoulders, he set to work.
The apartment was quiet when Inui opened the door at a quarter to five, a bag of takeaway sushi in one hand, his satchel in the other. He toed off his shoes, taking a second to nudge them against the step in the entrance hall and continued into the kitchen. He set the bag down on the table, and poured himself a glass of water, leafing through the post Kaidoh had left on the kitchen counter.
One from Fuji, one from Oshitari (his fellow medical-school graduate) and two utility bills. He left the bills for later, absently tearing open the letter from Fuji as he walked into their tiny living room. Kaidoh lifted his head from the open textbook he’d been using as a pillow. “Welcome back.” He mumbled, capping his yellow highlighter before it dried out even more.
Inui smiled, kneeling down next to Kaidoh and picking up one of his fallen pens. “I bough sushi for dinner.” Kaidoh looked up from dog-earing the page of his textbook.
“Kawamura’s?” He asked, snapping the book shut and rolling his shoulders with a grimace.
“Of course.” Inui replied, moving behind Kaidoh to knead at his shoulders. “You really need to find a better position to work in, Kaoru. You know how stiff your neck gets if you sit like this.” He dug his thumb into the curve of Kaidoh’s neck who stifled a groan and flapped a hand at him.
“Yes, mother.” He sighed, going boneless under Inui’s hands. “If it keeps you doing this…” He trailed off when Inui hit a particularly sore spot. “M’mm, did you get the spicy tuna?”
Inui moved his hands away and stood up, brushing the knees of his jeans. “Yes, Kawamura gave us extra rolls, Fuji convinced him.” Kaidoh followed him into the kitchen and sat on one of the chairs, its legs screeching along the floor. “Their shop seems to be doing extremely well these days.” He continued, pulling out various plastic containers filled with a myriad of sushi. Kaidoh nodded absently, drawing his legs up onto the chair and picking at a scar on his shin.
“Fuji-senpai always did have visions for that place.” He commented, snagging the container of spicy tuna rolls and leaning over to ransack one of the kitchen drawers for two pairs of chopsticks. “Oh, they’re mismatched, sorry.” He handed over one red and one yellow. Inui accepted them without complaint. “Is he still looking to expand? That Saeki guy was always going on about how Chiba was too far away from Tokyo’s best sushi restaurant.” He popped a roll into his mouth.
Inui, who had a mouthful of uni, nodded sagely, pouring Kaidoh more soy sauce. “As much as Fuji has Kawamura wrapped around his little finger, I can’t see him agreeing to branching out just yet.” Kaidoh glanced up at him, then leaned over to snatch one of the uni nigiri. Inui made a half-hearted grab for it.
“I could suggest the same for your ‘branching out’.” He snarked, waving his chopsticks. Inui raised an eyebrow.
“What are you referring to?” He popped open the lid to another container, this time containing seaweed salad.
“Your juice, obviously.” Kaidoh replied, starting on the salmon rolls. “You can’t really use the excuse that it’s punishment now, can you, senpai.” He enunciated carefully, dipping a roll into the dregs of his soy sauce. Inui dropped one of his chopsticks.
He cleared his throat, bending down to retrieve his fallen chopstick at the same time as willing his blush to die down. Kaidoh saying senpai really should not do the things that it did to him, it was beyond embarrassing. “Yes, well. Nutrition is very important for recovering patients. Perhaps you’d like to help me, Kaoru. It should stop me, I quote, ‘destroying our shitty kitchen even more’, unquote.” Kaidoh swallowed and glanced nervously left and right, as if assessing a means of escape.
“Did I ever tell you about my terrible allergy to spinach?” He blurted out.
Inui grinned, lacing his fingers together and resting his chin on them. “I don’t believe you did, no. Please tell me, I’d hate for you to inadvertently consume something that would make you ill.”
What’s with this sudden insincerity!? Kaidoh coughed nervously. “Oh yes, it’s very bad. My throat swells up and, and I get a rash and, uh. M-my legs go all weak and I can hardly walk for days after.” He reached for another salmon roll but hesitated. “And that’s any kind of spinach. At all. Frozen, fresh. Blended.” He finished with a decisive bite of sushi. “Any kind.” Inui’s glasses flashed in the yellowy kitchen light.
“I suppose an alternative must be found.” He conceded. “What’s your favourite vegetable?” He was all innocent smiles, but Kaidoh knew better than to trust a smiling Inui.
“Um.” He panicked. What vegetable can’t you blend? “Uh. Po…tato?” He ventured.
Inui nodded. “I see. Well seeing as you can’t consume raw potato.” He tapped his chin with the clean end of one of his chopsticks. Kaidoh watched him, warily. “Ah hah! How about boiled?” Kaidoh flinched. Oh no. “I wonder if boiled potatoes would make an acceptable substitution for bananas.” Inui whipped out his notebook.
Kaidoh sat and considered his options carefully. He could act like a grown man about the situation and simply accept his fate. Or he could take a leaf out of middle-schooler Kaidoh’s book and flee. There wasn’t much of a decision to make.
Kaidoh bolted for the bathroom.
It took Inui well over an hour and a half to coax Kaidoh out of their tiny bathroom. Kaidoh marched out, mobile clutched tightly in one hand and threw himself on the futon, promptly stealing all of the duvet and refusing to give it back. Inui tugged at it for a while, then, realising a hopeless cause when he saw one, lay down on the bare futon.
“I decided that potato would be a poor substitute for banana. It may have some thickening qualities, but it also would give a grainy texture to the juice, and that’s very undesirable.” He announced to the lump of angry duvet beside him. Kaidoh didn’t reply. Inui continued. “Of course, I could use potato starch as a thickener, although I feel that would turn the juice to something of a stew, and even to me, Midori stew doesn’t sound particularly appealing.
The lump grunted. Inui glanced at it out of the corner of his eye. Slowly, almost reluctantly, the lump unravelled. Kaidoh glared balefully up at him, but there was no real heat behind it. “If you can’t stomach it, then what hope do the rest of us have?” He pointed out, rolling over and slinging an arm across Inui’s stomach. Inui carefully eased the bunched up futon out from under Kaidoh’s shoulder and edged under it, out of the chill of the room.
“Well I can’t expect you all to have as refined a palate as me.” He said, loftily, sliding his glasses off and setting them next to the alarm clock. Kaidoh laughed quietly into his shoulder. “Nor indeed for you to put up with me blending boiled potatoes.”
“You got that right.” Kaidoh half-yawned, half-spoke, his voice thick. “Not after the natto incident; you’re not going anywhere near my kitchen again.” Inui laughed.
“Yes dear, whatever you say.”
“Stop calling me that. Fuji-senpai always brings it up whenever we see him.”
“You don’t complain when we-”
“Shut up, I’m not having this conversation, no, no, it’s not happening, I’m trying to sleep. I have a test tomorrow.”
“Alright, alright. I’ll buy you melonpan on the way to the station tomorrow to make up for my misdemeanours.”
“…Fine. Make sure it’s the nice one. Not that cheap one with the green label.”
“Yes, yes. Goodnight, Kaoru.”
“’Night, Sadaharu. I’m holding you to that promise, you’d better not forget it!”