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tennis_hellWho: Zaizen Hikaru and Kirihara Akaya
What: Tekken, Dinner, and setting the stage for Akaya's misery
When: Saturday night
Where: Kirihara'sapartment den of sketchiness
Rating: PG
“I hate you so much,” Zaizen muttered at his phone, which unrepentantly read, I never see your face when I’m home -- I want to see how many holes are in it this week.
He didn’t actually have any new piercings in his face from the last time he saw Kirihara, not for lack of desire; his pinterest was cocked and loaded with pictures of brow piercings.
Ultimately, Zaizen got ready to leave his Mikiya Mansion apartment and texted Kirihara back, You’re playing Tekken, aren’t you?
Ya. I got it ready so bring your controller, Akaya texted back. His TV hovered on the game’s menu, Akaya having done some cable wrestling to get the system set back up from his last streaming session. It wasn’t as if he hadn’t seen Zaizen recently, but being home for more than a week after a hectic New Year meant that Akaya was a bit desperate for some human interaction.
Plus, Zaizen had promised him Tekken, so that was what was going to happen. He flicked the stick on his controller a few times experimentally. Sure, his place was a bit of a mess, but it’s not like Zaizen would care once games and food were involved.
Just before Zaizen walked out the door, he plucked a single item from a sultry red bag sitting innocently by his dresser. The contents were a less innocent by-product of his conversation with one Yanagi Renji about the impending furry apocalypse.
Since Zaizen had promised that the product would come to good use, as it should, he had used good air time to advertise, he tucked it into his messenger bag and was off. Want me to pick anything up? he texted.
A quick scan of his fridge had Akaya frowning. Some ice tea or soda would be good if you can. He could have sworn he’d been prepared, but the empty tea bottle sitting on his kitchen counter would suggest otherwise.
Taking the short time before Zaizen arrived to try and reassert some semblance of order to his small living room, Akaya ended up with a decent amount of floor space and most of his clothes actually put away. All that was left was his sports uniform for tomorrow’s practice, tucked halfway into his sports bag just inside from the front door. His sponsor’s image colour for the season was an unfortunate fuschia that Akaya had no real love for, but free clothes were free clothes.
I think I can manage, he typed on the way. There were plenty of convenience stores along the way and, since Kirihara had left him the option, Zaizen selected a large bottle of tea from the one closest to the tennis player’s apartment. The breadcrumbs of memory guided him the rest of the way to Kirihara’s apartment, which looked far more luxurious than his own mansion.
Zaizen pressed the buzzer, “Let down your hair, I have tea.”
Akaya flinched at the harshness of the buzzer - he never liked the thing, which Zaizen obviously knew, but insisted on ringing anyway. As a result, Akaya doesn’t give Zaizen a response other than an audible click of his tongue and the button being pressed to unlock the side gate. The door to his apartment was already slightly ajar, so as soon as Zaizen walked in, Akaya threw a cushion at him.
“Stop doing that,” he whined, but his face wasn’t anywhere near serious.
Zaizen caught the cushion and glared blandly at Kirihara. “Says the one with the creepy self-opening side gate and a open front door. What are you, a bad haunted house?”
Careful not to let his gaze linger too long on the vulnerable gym bag by front door, Zaizen went to the couch and dumped the pillow back on Kirihara’s head.
“It’s a completely normal apartment block?” Akaya replied, letting the pillow fall and gathering into his lap instead as he leaned back.
He made a grabby motion for the tea, a pair of glasses already prepared on his sofa-side table. The TV ran through the menu animations again, as if reminding him that banter was not actually the purpose of his visit.
“What flavour did you get? Better not be lemon.”
“Peach, for your refined palate,” Zaizen said in his sarcastic kansai drawl. The tea found its way from Zaizen’s bag into Kirihara’s wriggling fingertips. “And you can make anything normal seem sketchy, it’s your superpower.”
He set down his bag and helped himself to a seat on the couch, just far enough away so they had some personal space.
Tea, meet glass. Akaya handed one over to Zaizen, downing his own in two shots.
“Sometimes you’re good, and then you go and ruin it in the same sentence. Maybe that’s your superpower,” he said, punctuating the comment with a weak shove at Zaizen’s shoulder. “You wanna get playing, or should I give you a moment to look judgmentally around?”
Zaizen made a vague sound of complaint but moved easily with the shove, as it was less effort to limp puppet and eventually sway his way back. “What am I, a fish that needs to temperature adjust?”
He didn’t deny that ruining everything was his super power.
“Do you want my judgements aloud, or would you prefer I kept my disdain silent?”
Akaya raised an eyebrow at him. “You say that like I have any real choice in whether you voice ‘em or not.”
Prepared to entirely ignore any audible complaints regardless, he picked up his controller and got to setting up practice rounds. Flicking through the character list, he decided to try out Josie first - not a character he had any real experience with. Then again, he was supposed to be learning anyway.
Zaizen reached into his bag for the controller and connected it with the ease of familiarity. “I’ll save them for mid-play, then,” he settled back on the couch in a cross-legged position. “As you’re dying.”
He didn’t say that he would be a nice Tekken coach. Devil Jin was a mean bastard.
Despite being prepared for hell training, Akaya still came out of the first few rounds mildly mortified at Zaizen’s brutality. The beatdowns just kept on coming, despite characters being shuffled around and the occasional piece of actual guidance he was able to incorporate.
Finally he gave up. His thumbs hurt. Quarter circles were officially confirmed to still be bullshit. “I hate you so much,” he muttered, but at least Zaizen was present when he said it.
“It warms my cold dead heart to hear that from you in person,” Zaizen said, lips tilting into a smirk as he stood up to stretch, a lion content on its laurels. “There is some benefit to your company after all.”
Akaya stifled the overwhelming urge to trip Zaizen as he stood. “Hah. You just don’t want to admit you don’t have anything better to do.”
He stood himself, rolling his wrists to get them out of game lock mode. Downing another glass of tea, he turned to Zaizen, leaning down to look him directly in the eyes before smirking and scanning his face.
“You don’t actually have another hole in it? I thought that was where the remains of your heart were leaking out of anyway.”
Zaizen peered up, his victorious smirk tempered into something a little quieter. It was tempting to give him a little kick in the shin, but he would give Kirihara that one. He really didn’t have anything better to do. “And I thought that stuff on the floor was your brain leaking out,” he said flatly, eyes narrowing on Kirihara. “You should know that I don’t have any heart left. It’s all gone to curry.”
And just like that he stepped away and turned his back. To distract Kirihara from the fact that he surreptitiously hooked his bag, he said idly, “Besides. I never said that I pierced my face.”
Having moved to the kitchenette to put the remainder of the tea in the fridge, Akaya snorted derisively. “My brain’s still where it belongs. Nowhere for it to leak out of, anyway.”
Completely oblivious to Zaizen sneaking around his bag, he instead was occupied with fishing a bag of shrimp crackers out of a cupboard (the one that had all his snacks his PT shouldn’t be looking at). Zaizen’s last comment almost made him drop them, though.
“Don’t just say that kind of thing without specifying!”
Zaizen was out of sight; not because he was in the bathroom as the direction he moved in suggested, but because he had taken a swift knee by Kirihara’s bag. By sheer, happy coincidence the ribbon on the end of the tail that Yanagi had gifted him matched perfectly with Kirihara’s outfit.
Maybe he should reconsider god.
“Do you really want to know where it is, Akaya?” After his quick fingers fastened the tail to the rear of Kirihara’s shorts, Zaizen returned the bag to disarray and made a real visit to the bathroom.
“Obviously I want to know. If it’s somewhere gross, I just don’t want you to show me. Did you get your bellybutton done like an American teenage girl?”
Ignorance is bliss. Akaya doesn’t give a second thought to Zaizen’s disappearance, instead upending the bag of crackers into a bowl and flopping himself onto the couch. The whole couch, this time, just to be annoying.
A few moments later had Zaizen peeking back into the main room to answer Kirihara’s question with a dry, “Yes. With a charm for my zodiac animal.”
He had fully intended to stand there and spout of shitty comments, but the snacks pulled him magnetically back toward the couch. As there was no couch available to sit on, he perched right on Kirihara’s thighs and made himself a neat pile of crackers. The sideways look he threw Kirihara all but articulated you shithead, but Zaizen eventually said, “I pierced a nipple. Still saving up for the brow, I want that one to be a pro job.”
It was with every ounce of his self-control that Akaya didn’t try and tip Zaizen off of his legs. He wasn’t all that heavy, and he knew from experience that not reacting often irritated Zaizen further. Akaya threw a cracker at him instead.
“...you did it by yourself?” Akaya asked, a little bit of disgust in his voice. “Gross. That could have gone wrong real easily.”
He took a moment to consider before speaking again. “Brow’ll look good, though. Is it really that expensive?”
With a quick turn of his head, Zaizen dodged the cracker and retaliated with one planted firmly in the middle of Kirihara’s forehead. He held it there for a minute, because he was annoyed that the tennis player had no faith in him to not hurt himself.
“I’ve seen it done before,” he said, releasing Kirihara and taking a small bite of a non-forehead cracker. “And with tutorials and proper sterilization…” he trailed off, letting Kirihara get the gist. A few more small bites emptied his hand of the snack. Leaning back against the cushions, Zaizen answered, “Not that expensive, but I just bought books and rent is coming up. I’ll see what’s left after that.”
As soon as Zaizen relinquished his hold on it, Akaya wiggled his eyebrows and the cracker made a graceful descent from his forehead to his mouth. As Zaizen leaned back his weight shifted enough that Akaya could sweep his legs out from under him without dislodging the other boy.
“Still gross,” he quipped lightly. Needles were awful in any context, but worse near anywhere remotely sensitive. “Did you get a stud or-- actually, forget I asked.”
Zaizen shifted his legs up, letting Kirihara wiggle his own out easily enough. When he settled them back down again, he raised a brow and looked at the squicked Kirihara with amusement. He would for sure remember this needle-phobia.
But for now, Zaizen opted to distract Kirihara, “I told you. It’s a very pretty charm with my star sign.” He helped himself to another cracker. “Nervous about getting mauled at class this semester?” he asked, for the recent growth in the tennis player’s fanbase.
There was a moment of confused silence before Akaya realised what Zaizen meant. “Nah,” he answered, shrugging. “I’m barely gonna be in class. I mostly get assignments online when I’m away.”
Hmm. Out of crackers. Hopping off the couch, Akaya shoved the bowl somewhere vaguely near his sink and scanned the whiteboard menu stuck to his fridge. “I’d say we could get dinner, but I should probably, like, actually follow my food plan tonight.” Several dates were underlined in angry red marker, a sign of a frustrated PT and a forgetful subject.
Now it was Zaizen’s turn to take over the whole couch, which he did shamelessly while craning his neck over the couch arm to see what Akaya was complaining about. “Poor you and your professionally planned meals.”
Since Kirihara probably hadn’t anticipated cooking for two, Zaizen said, “if you don’t want me to witness your apron-clad glory, I can leave? Or pick up more food if needed.”
“What? No, of course you can stay,” Akaya stated plainly. “No apron blackmail for you, though. And you gotta be happy with, uh, pasta. Wholegrain stuff.”
He busied himself unceremoniously dragging all his ingredients out of their places, dumping everything on the counter and almost knocking off a pile of dishes onto the floor. A pot of water is set on the stove, one that Akaya sets a mental reminder to let let boil over this time.
“I have practice early tomorrow and if I show up with udon belly I think my coach might actually kill me.”
“I’m never happy,” Zaizen reminded Kirihara. “But all of my meals this week so far have come from a can, so this will be good for me.”
Just watching Kirihara’s mess had all of Zaizen’s instincts screaming. He got up to save the plates from Kirihara and file them away into one of the less occupied cupboard. “You’re walking devastation, I hope you know that.”
Since he didn’t know too much about the ingredients or how Kirihara intended to prepare them, Zaizen continued to tidy the kitchen and put things away they didn’t need.
Akaya laughed. “That’s actually my legal name, didn’t you know?”
The kitchenette was barely big enough for the two of them, but luckily all the cooking took place on a small area. Akaya let Zaizen do as he pleased, trying to concentrate on the cooking at hand and not make a complete fool of himself. Chicken and vegetables hit a pan with a hiss. The pasta is dumped into the now-bubbling water.
“You better appreciate the effort I’m taking to not burn this,” he said, waving his spatula vaguely in Zaizen’s direction.
“You mean I could have been calling you wad this whole time and you didn’t tell me?”
Zaizen went on his toes to fill some of the higher shelves in his systematic redistribution. Although he understood convenience, it wouldn’t be very convenient at all for overcrowded plates and glasses to tumble out. Things assumed to be lesser used went higher and deeper and higher traffic items went closer to the stove. He worked around Kirihara, fighting off the odd temptation to pick the yummy smelling things out of the pan and give a taste. As he gravitated toward the in-progress meal, he told Kirihara, “Yes, yes, you’ll make a very good housewife someday.”
Akaya craned his neck, a smirk creeping on to his face at the sight of Zaizen having to stand on tiptoes to reach his overhead cupboards. Ha ha, short people.
“I mean you could have called me that anyway. There wasn't anything stopping you,” he reasoned. The chicken in the pan spat an angry drop of oil at him. “And I'm already my own best housewife.”
“Are you saying that you’ll respond to that?” Zaizen stepped away from the pan and behind Kirihara; best to keep the professional in the line of fire, even if professional tennis had nothing to do with oil spitting. He backed away even further to obtain the necessary cutlery and plates from his neatly cultivated stacks, which were now so refreshing to look at.
“You’re not,” Zaizen insisted. “Negative two hundred points for lack of apron. You’re ruining your clothes.”
Zaizen just gets a half-shrug in reply initially. “Well, you can try. Whether or not I end up hitting you with a kitchen utensil as a result is something you gotta risk though.”
Looking down at his now olive oil-specked shirt, Akaya grimaced. It wasn’t the first time it had happened, and he did in fact own an apron - however, the ties had fallen off some months back and Akaya really had no idea how to sew them back on. His washing machine had probably seen more oil over the last few cycles than what was currently in the pan.
“I know how to do my laundry, it’s fine,” he said. The pasta hisses, the cue to remove it from the heat. Akaya lifted it, moving it to the sink where his strainer should have been. “...uh. Where did you put my drainy thingy.”
“In the cabinet nearest the sink, where it belongs,” not sitting in the actual sink, perpetually waiting for pasta. To assist, Zaizen found the instrument in question and set it above the drain for use. “Here is your colander.”
While Akaya made himself useful cooking, Zaizen just continued to scowl at his shirt. “Tragic.”
Akaya muttered a “thank you” before hip-checking Zaizen out of the way of the sink, upending the whole pot into the colander and sending steam everywhere. With a surprised squawk, he recoiled from the vapour cloud, waving his hand in an ineffectual attempt to clear the air.
Plucking at his now damp as well as oily shirt, Akaya looked momentarily lost as to what he was supposed to be doing next. Distracted enough by Zaizen’s judgemental staring, a few seconds passed before he suddenly skidded over to his fridge.
“I fucking forgot my tomatoes, god damn it,” he grumbled, which sounded as stupid out loud as it had in his head.
Zaizen went with the hip check, making a couple of steps on that push and turning to peer down at the material in the pan. Akaya’s complaint came at the same time as his stomach’s anticipatory gurgle.
“Don’t panic, Martha Stewart. We can just cut them now and put them in,” Zaizen poked at the sizzling pan so it wouldn’t burn. “Everything is still hot enough that it won’t be weirdly cold in comparison.”
Willing to be somewhat useful, he brought out one of the cutting boards he had put away.
Akaya grabbed a knife and speed-sliced the tomatoes into quarters, or almost-quarters considering the quality of said slicing. The chicken was looking uncomfortably brown, but some heat was better than none, so the tomatoes were dumped in with the rest. Suspiciously quiet regarding the Martha Stewart comment - Akaya suspected he should probably know who that is, but he didn’t, so.
There was another slightly awkward pause as the ingredients finished cooking. Akaya turned the heat off before anything burned, inspecting his work with some trepidation.
“Uh. I think it’s fine,” he said, nudging one still too-solid tomato with the spatula.
Although not quite instagram ready, the tomato also smelled lovely when it hit the pan, mingling nicely with the scent of cooked chicken in the air.
“Looks good,” Zaizen said, not terribly fussed about the condition of the tomato as he offered the plates for Akaya to spoon the contents. “What other kind of stuff does your trainer have you eat?”
Raising his eyebrows at the honest to god compliment offered by one Zaizen Hikaru, Akaya took the plates, spooned out the pasta, and topped it with the chicken and veg mix. Even he could see it was nowhere near top quality, but at least it smelled good.
“Uhh, like. A lot of pasta and rice. Omelettes. I can get pizza from certain places. And I’m supposed to have red meat once a week,” Akaya recited, eyes flicking briefly to his fridge-mounted menu. “Basically, low sugar and salt and fat and stuff. So kinda limits good food.”
Not bothering with the table like a civilised person, he retreats back to the couch, drawing his legs up and resting his plate between his knees and chest.
If Kirihara was eating like this most of the time, Zaizen didn’t really think it was fair to say that good food was in short supply. He could mostly only afford canned or dried soup, and the occasional discounted prepared food. The freshest thing he ever prepared himself was add cabbage to dried miso.
“Poor Akaya,” Zaizen drawled, following not too far with his own portion and two glasses of water. “What noble sacrifice.”
He set one glass in front of Kirihara before taking a cross-legged seat on the couch. “And what about your horrible beer? What does your trainer have to say about that?”
For all his vitriol, Zaizen put his hands together and said thanks for the meal.
“I mean good food like, I dunno… I mean, you’re right, this isn’t bad,” Akaya reasoned, muttering his own thanks as he trailed off. “But I crave stuff like ramen a lot.”
He shoved a forkful of the meal into his mouth and was surprised at the fact it actually did taste as good as it smelled. Maybe he really should sound a bit more grateful to be able to cook and eat the way that he did.
“What my PT doesn’t know can’t hurt him,” a shrug. “My coach gets pissed but she also drinks it so. Really she can’t get on my case about it.”
“Can you have fresh miso? You could probably do a light ramen, if you wanted. Onsen egg instead of meat,” Zaizen followed up his thanks with a carefully arranged bite of vegetable and chicken, which he blew on twice before eating. As he dug around the plate delicately for another perfectly portioned forkful, he said, “Yes she can -- it’s not like she’s the one playing on the pro stage.”
Being a coach didn’t exactly require the same level of athleticism as a trainer. “Did you pair up because of your shared bad taste in beer?”
Truthfully, he hadn't considered making his own ramen. Akaya was too used to the quality of Jackal’s family restaurant. “It just wouldn't be the same,” he mused, not specifying what he was actually comparing to.
A grimace crossed his face before he wiped it away with more pasta. Last year's US Open hadn't ended well, but it had ended with both he and his coach with vile hangovers, so maybe Zaizen wasn't too far off the mark.
“Yeah, maybe she recognised a kindred spirit in me. Like, aside from tennis too, obviously,” she had been the one to buy the beer for them after all. Her fault.
Pausing mid-blow on another bite, Zaizen said, “I know what your coach looks like -- but thank you for that visual that I didn’t need of you in a ponytail and tennis skirt.”
Although, that would probably be less embarrassing than what Zaizen intended for Kirihara to find tomorrow. Only his perpetual dead-frog face could hold out against giggles while imagining what face the expressive tennis player would make. Pity that he wouldn’t be able to see it, but he did expect some pissy comments thrown his direction tomorrow.
“You could try actually decent beer. More calories, but less processed. Or cider,” he pointed out as he made his way slowly through more of the delicious bowl.
Akaya side-eyed Zaizen flatly, raising his free hand in confusion. “Where does your mind go sometimes, dude…”
If only he knew what was in store for him the next day. Frowning as he tried to replicate Zaizen’s mental image, he made a vague acknowledgement of the alcohol suggestions before giving up on the imagination spot and responding properly.
“Cider’s good but it doesn’t like… hit the same spot, y’know,” he said. “Sometimes you gotta just drink the crap watery stuff.”
Gaze flat and ominous, Zaizen said, “Places too dark and terrible for yours to process.”
Although lite beer sounded like a pretty dark hole to be stuck in. “No, I don’t know. But at least you know that you have bad taste in drinks,” he stirred around the half plate of pasta that remained, and wondered if it would be too weird to save the rest for lunch tomorrow. “This is pretty good, though,” he said, buttering Kirihara up for his incoming request with a compliment.
He did learn something from Shiraishi.
“I can be self-aware,” Akaya replied, looking far prouder than he should have while saying that.
He quirked an eyebrow at the compliment, being far too familiar with the tone of it to be too caught off-guard by this one. Blinking from Zaizen to Zaizen’s food, then back to his own, Akaya suspected what might be coming.
“You moved all my plastic so you may as well go and pack it up yourself,” he said, rolling his eyes. “Make sure it’s microwaveable, I don’t wanna hear that you melted something and ruined it all.”
“Yes, yes, good job. You know that you’re trash,” Zaizen said in deadpan.
And then Akaya spoke the magic words, even if they came with a bit of an insult. Zaizen was a professional when it came to microwaving, excuse you Akaya. “...But I guess you’re also a bit of all right.”
Before he got up to pack away his food, he gave Akaya’s shoulder a jostle with his own in vague thanks. “If you want, I’ll even split a trash beer with you.”
Having half of one wouldn’t be that bad by his coach’s standards, right?
Smirking slighty, Akaya leaned back and polished off his own plateful. “Two years you’ve been living off my food and ‘a bit of all right’ is all I get?”
He got up not long after Zaizen did, taking his own dishes and picking up Zaizen’s now-empty plate to throw into the dishwasher. He crossed his arms, looking pointedly at the fridge, before making up his mind and retrieving one (1) brightly-coloured can of awful alcohol from the bottom shelf.
“It’s amazing that you made it sound like you drinking my beer was somehow doing me a favour,” he muttered, pouring half into a deep glass and taking the remainder of the can for himself.
As Zaizen soaped up the pan, he said, “Think of it as progress from ‘I don’t hate you.’”
Despite all of his mooching and vitriol, Zaizen was pretty happy to do all the cleaning from their dinner. Once he cleaned the pan and the sink, his compulsion traveled over to the stove. The already relatively clean countertops received only a cursory wipe down.
Holding up his glass for a mini-kanpai, he said, “It’s a talent that has gotten me this far in life. You should learn from it.”
“If I thought we were still at that point I wouldn’t still be feeding you,” Akaya pointed out, still smirking. He stood in the corner of the kitchen, content to nurse his beer for the moment as Zaizen cleaned up. Better that he didn’t have to do it, and there was no stopping Zaizen anyway once he got started.
He raised the already half-empty can in response. Downing it quickly, he smacked the timer on the dishwasher into a low cycle and left it to run. “Yeah, yeah. I can employ that tactic when I need to,” he claimed, trying to think of an example and coming up short. “Anyway, you gonna head out soonish? Salaryman traffic starts soon.”
Zaizen drank his beer in small, delicate pulls between his vigorous feat of cleaning; if there was any mess to be found in Akaya’s kitchen, it did not survive the tensai’s onslaught. After he rinsed and wrung the sponge and cloth, Zaizen went about putting away the things that he cleaned.
“Yeah,” he answered, somewhat distracted. “I have some work to do tonight anyway.” Any elaboration that he would have made on said work disappeared when his focus landed on a particular item.
Zaizen emerged, peering slowly over the counter with the most victorious little smirk, “...I thought you said that you didn’t have one, Akaya?” He lifted the apron.
The offending item being raised above the counter made Akaya cough on the very last bit of his beer. It was a perfectly simple apron, but the embarrassment came from the fact that he had shoved it in a cabinet after both ties broke off several months ago and had ignored it ever since.
“I didn’t say that,” he said slowly, thumping his chest to recover from his coughing fit. “I said you don’t get apron blackmail. It’s just broken.”
Striding over to the cabinet, he pulled out the two back ties and held them out as evidence.
The obnoxious to the point of twinkling smirk rather quickly tipped down into an are you serious? You’re serious deadpan.
“So instead of fixing it, you decide to ruin all of your shirts?” Zaizen snatched the poor, defeated strings. “I’ll sew it back on as long as you don’t tell me what the hell you did to accomplish this mess.”
Akaya relinquished the fabric and held his hands up in mock-defeat. “I ain’t gonna argue with that, go ahead.”
Ducking his head into the now-spotless kitchen, he blinked in surprise. He should be used to it by now, but for some reason having his kitchen completely tidy still impressed him. “Also, uh, thanks?”
After Zaizen stuffed the apron in question into his bag, he held up the container of food and gave it a light shake for emphasis, “You cooked.”
And well, it was a decent trade off. He put the food in his bag as well before shouldering it. With a wry, lopsided sort of grin, he said, “See you. If I don’t see improvement in tekken, you’ll be in for punishment all over again.”
Akaya pouted, comedically pressing the gate button by his door overly hard to let Zaizen out. “Whatever, Hikaru, I’ll figure it out.”
He waved a goodbye though, a friendly “see ya” in reply, before closing the door and stretching. It had been a pretty good night, all in all. He felt good. Surely nothing could go wrong tomorrow, right?
What: Tekken, Dinner, and setting the stage for Akaya's misery
When: Saturday night
Where: Kirihara's
Rating: PG
“I hate you so much,” Zaizen muttered at his phone, which unrepentantly read, I never see your face when I’m home -- I want to see how many holes are in it this week.
He didn’t actually have any new piercings in his face from the last time he saw Kirihara, not for lack of desire; his pinterest was cocked and loaded with pictures of brow piercings.
Ultimately, Zaizen got ready to leave his Mikiya Mansion apartment and texted Kirihara back, You’re playing Tekken, aren’t you?
Ya. I got it ready so bring your controller, Akaya texted back. His TV hovered on the game’s menu, Akaya having done some cable wrestling to get the system set back up from his last streaming session. It wasn’t as if he hadn’t seen Zaizen recently, but being home for more than a week after a hectic New Year meant that Akaya was a bit desperate for some human interaction.
Plus, Zaizen had promised him Tekken, so that was what was going to happen. He flicked the stick on his controller a few times experimentally. Sure, his place was a bit of a mess, but it’s not like Zaizen would care once games and food were involved.
Just before Zaizen walked out the door, he plucked a single item from a sultry red bag sitting innocently by his dresser. The contents were a less innocent by-product of his conversation with one Yanagi Renji about the impending furry apocalypse.
Since Zaizen had promised that the product would come to good use, as it should, he had used good air time to advertise, he tucked it into his messenger bag and was off. Want me to pick anything up? he texted.
A quick scan of his fridge had Akaya frowning. Some ice tea or soda would be good if you can. He could have sworn he’d been prepared, but the empty tea bottle sitting on his kitchen counter would suggest otherwise.
Taking the short time before Zaizen arrived to try and reassert some semblance of order to his small living room, Akaya ended up with a decent amount of floor space and most of his clothes actually put away. All that was left was his sports uniform for tomorrow’s practice, tucked halfway into his sports bag just inside from the front door. His sponsor’s image colour for the season was an unfortunate fuschia that Akaya had no real love for, but free clothes were free clothes.
I think I can manage, he typed on the way. There were plenty of convenience stores along the way and, since Kirihara had left him the option, Zaizen selected a large bottle of tea from the one closest to the tennis player’s apartment. The breadcrumbs of memory guided him the rest of the way to Kirihara’s apartment, which looked far more luxurious than his own mansion.
Zaizen pressed the buzzer, “Let down your hair, I have tea.”
Akaya flinched at the harshness of the buzzer - he never liked the thing, which Zaizen obviously knew, but insisted on ringing anyway. As a result, Akaya doesn’t give Zaizen a response other than an audible click of his tongue and the button being pressed to unlock the side gate. The door to his apartment was already slightly ajar, so as soon as Zaizen walked in, Akaya threw a cushion at him.
“Stop doing that,” he whined, but his face wasn’t anywhere near serious.
Zaizen caught the cushion and glared blandly at Kirihara. “Says the one with the creepy self-opening side gate and a open front door. What are you, a bad haunted house?”
Careful not to let his gaze linger too long on the vulnerable gym bag by front door, Zaizen went to the couch and dumped the pillow back on Kirihara’s head.
“It’s a completely normal apartment block?” Akaya replied, letting the pillow fall and gathering into his lap instead as he leaned back.
He made a grabby motion for the tea, a pair of glasses already prepared on his sofa-side table. The TV ran through the menu animations again, as if reminding him that banter was not actually the purpose of his visit.
“What flavour did you get? Better not be lemon.”
“Peach, for your refined palate,” Zaizen said in his sarcastic kansai drawl. The tea found its way from Zaizen’s bag into Kirihara’s wriggling fingertips. “And you can make anything normal seem sketchy, it’s your superpower.”
He set down his bag and helped himself to a seat on the couch, just far enough away so they had some personal space.
Tea, meet glass. Akaya handed one over to Zaizen, downing his own in two shots.
“Sometimes you’re good, and then you go and ruin it in the same sentence. Maybe that’s your superpower,” he said, punctuating the comment with a weak shove at Zaizen’s shoulder. “You wanna get playing, or should I give you a moment to look judgmentally around?”
Zaizen made a vague sound of complaint but moved easily with the shove, as it was less effort to limp puppet and eventually sway his way back. “What am I, a fish that needs to temperature adjust?”
He didn’t deny that ruining everything was his super power.
“Do you want my judgements aloud, or would you prefer I kept my disdain silent?”
Akaya raised an eyebrow at him. “You say that like I have any real choice in whether you voice ‘em or not.”
Prepared to entirely ignore any audible complaints regardless, he picked up his controller and got to setting up practice rounds. Flicking through the character list, he decided to try out Josie first - not a character he had any real experience with. Then again, he was supposed to be learning anyway.
Zaizen reached into his bag for the controller and connected it with the ease of familiarity. “I’ll save them for mid-play, then,” he settled back on the couch in a cross-legged position. “As you’re dying.”
He didn’t say that he would be a nice Tekken coach. Devil Jin was a mean bastard.
Despite being prepared for hell training, Akaya still came out of the first few rounds mildly mortified at Zaizen’s brutality. The beatdowns just kept on coming, despite characters being shuffled around and the occasional piece of actual guidance he was able to incorporate.
Finally he gave up. His thumbs hurt. Quarter circles were officially confirmed to still be bullshit. “I hate you so much,” he muttered, but at least Zaizen was present when he said it.
“It warms my cold dead heart to hear that from you in person,” Zaizen said, lips tilting into a smirk as he stood up to stretch, a lion content on its laurels. “There is some benefit to your company after all.”
Akaya stifled the overwhelming urge to trip Zaizen as he stood. “Hah. You just don’t want to admit you don’t have anything better to do.”
He stood himself, rolling his wrists to get them out of game lock mode. Downing another glass of tea, he turned to Zaizen, leaning down to look him directly in the eyes before smirking and scanning his face.
“You don’t actually have another hole in it? I thought that was where the remains of your heart were leaking out of anyway.”
Zaizen peered up, his victorious smirk tempered into something a little quieter. It was tempting to give him a little kick in the shin, but he would give Kirihara that one. He really didn’t have anything better to do. “And I thought that stuff on the floor was your brain leaking out,” he said flatly, eyes narrowing on Kirihara. “You should know that I don’t have any heart left. It’s all gone to curry.”
And just like that he stepped away and turned his back. To distract Kirihara from the fact that he surreptitiously hooked his bag, he said idly, “Besides. I never said that I pierced my face.”
Having moved to the kitchenette to put the remainder of the tea in the fridge, Akaya snorted derisively. “My brain’s still where it belongs. Nowhere for it to leak out of, anyway.”
Completely oblivious to Zaizen sneaking around his bag, he instead was occupied with fishing a bag of shrimp crackers out of a cupboard (the one that had all his snacks his PT shouldn’t be looking at). Zaizen’s last comment almost made him drop them, though.
“Don’t just say that kind of thing without specifying!”
Zaizen was out of sight; not because he was in the bathroom as the direction he moved in suggested, but because he had taken a swift knee by Kirihara’s bag. By sheer, happy coincidence the ribbon on the end of the tail that Yanagi had gifted him matched perfectly with Kirihara’s outfit.
Maybe he should reconsider god.
“Do you really want to know where it is, Akaya?” After his quick fingers fastened the tail to the rear of Kirihara’s shorts, Zaizen returned the bag to disarray and made a real visit to the bathroom.
“Obviously I want to know. If it’s somewhere gross, I just don’t want you to show me. Did you get your bellybutton done like an American teenage girl?”
Ignorance is bliss. Akaya doesn’t give a second thought to Zaizen’s disappearance, instead upending the bag of crackers into a bowl and flopping himself onto the couch. The whole couch, this time, just to be annoying.
A few moments later had Zaizen peeking back into the main room to answer Kirihara’s question with a dry, “Yes. With a charm for my zodiac animal.”
He had fully intended to stand there and spout of shitty comments, but the snacks pulled him magnetically back toward the couch. As there was no couch available to sit on, he perched right on Kirihara’s thighs and made himself a neat pile of crackers. The sideways look he threw Kirihara all but articulated you shithead, but Zaizen eventually said, “I pierced a nipple. Still saving up for the brow, I want that one to be a pro job.”
It was with every ounce of his self-control that Akaya didn’t try and tip Zaizen off of his legs. He wasn’t all that heavy, and he knew from experience that not reacting often irritated Zaizen further. Akaya threw a cracker at him instead.
“...you did it by yourself?” Akaya asked, a little bit of disgust in his voice. “Gross. That could have gone wrong real easily.”
He took a moment to consider before speaking again. “Brow’ll look good, though. Is it really that expensive?”
With a quick turn of his head, Zaizen dodged the cracker and retaliated with one planted firmly in the middle of Kirihara’s forehead. He held it there for a minute, because he was annoyed that the tennis player had no faith in him to not hurt himself.
“I’ve seen it done before,” he said, releasing Kirihara and taking a small bite of a non-forehead cracker. “And with tutorials and proper sterilization…” he trailed off, letting Kirihara get the gist. A few more small bites emptied his hand of the snack. Leaning back against the cushions, Zaizen answered, “Not that expensive, but I just bought books and rent is coming up. I’ll see what’s left after that.”
As soon as Zaizen relinquished his hold on it, Akaya wiggled his eyebrows and the cracker made a graceful descent from his forehead to his mouth. As Zaizen leaned back his weight shifted enough that Akaya could sweep his legs out from under him without dislodging the other boy.
“Still gross,” he quipped lightly. Needles were awful in any context, but worse near anywhere remotely sensitive. “Did you get a stud or-- actually, forget I asked.”
Zaizen shifted his legs up, letting Kirihara wiggle his own out easily enough. When he settled them back down again, he raised a brow and looked at the squicked Kirihara with amusement. He would for sure remember this needle-phobia.
But for now, Zaizen opted to distract Kirihara, “I told you. It’s a very pretty charm with my star sign.” He helped himself to another cracker. “Nervous about getting mauled at class this semester?” he asked, for the recent growth in the tennis player’s fanbase.
There was a moment of confused silence before Akaya realised what Zaizen meant. “Nah,” he answered, shrugging. “I’m barely gonna be in class. I mostly get assignments online when I’m away.”
Hmm. Out of crackers. Hopping off the couch, Akaya shoved the bowl somewhere vaguely near his sink and scanned the whiteboard menu stuck to his fridge. “I’d say we could get dinner, but I should probably, like, actually follow my food plan tonight.” Several dates were underlined in angry red marker, a sign of a frustrated PT and a forgetful subject.
Now it was Zaizen’s turn to take over the whole couch, which he did shamelessly while craning his neck over the couch arm to see what Akaya was complaining about. “Poor you and your professionally planned meals.”
Since Kirihara probably hadn’t anticipated cooking for two, Zaizen said, “if you don’t want me to witness your apron-clad glory, I can leave? Or pick up more food if needed.”
“What? No, of course you can stay,” Akaya stated plainly. “No apron blackmail for you, though. And you gotta be happy with, uh, pasta. Wholegrain stuff.”
He busied himself unceremoniously dragging all his ingredients out of their places, dumping everything on the counter and almost knocking off a pile of dishes onto the floor. A pot of water is set on the stove, one that Akaya sets a mental reminder to let let boil over this time.
“I have practice early tomorrow and if I show up with udon belly I think my coach might actually kill me.”
“I’m never happy,” Zaizen reminded Kirihara. “But all of my meals this week so far have come from a can, so this will be good for me.”
Just watching Kirihara’s mess had all of Zaizen’s instincts screaming. He got up to save the plates from Kirihara and file them away into one of the less occupied cupboard. “You’re walking devastation, I hope you know that.”
Since he didn’t know too much about the ingredients or how Kirihara intended to prepare them, Zaizen continued to tidy the kitchen and put things away they didn’t need.
Akaya laughed. “That’s actually my legal name, didn’t you know?”
The kitchenette was barely big enough for the two of them, but luckily all the cooking took place on a small area. Akaya let Zaizen do as he pleased, trying to concentrate on the cooking at hand and not make a complete fool of himself. Chicken and vegetables hit a pan with a hiss. The pasta is dumped into the now-bubbling water.
“You better appreciate the effort I’m taking to not burn this,” he said, waving his spatula vaguely in Zaizen’s direction.
“You mean I could have been calling you wad this whole time and you didn’t tell me?”
Zaizen went on his toes to fill some of the higher shelves in his systematic redistribution. Although he understood convenience, it wouldn’t be very convenient at all for overcrowded plates and glasses to tumble out. Things assumed to be lesser used went higher and deeper and higher traffic items went closer to the stove. He worked around Kirihara, fighting off the odd temptation to pick the yummy smelling things out of the pan and give a taste. As he gravitated toward the in-progress meal, he told Kirihara, “Yes, yes, you’ll make a very good housewife someday.”
Akaya craned his neck, a smirk creeping on to his face at the sight of Zaizen having to stand on tiptoes to reach his overhead cupboards. Ha ha, short people.
“I mean you could have called me that anyway. There wasn't anything stopping you,” he reasoned. The chicken in the pan spat an angry drop of oil at him. “And I'm already my own best housewife.”
“Are you saying that you’ll respond to that?” Zaizen stepped away from the pan and behind Kirihara; best to keep the professional in the line of fire, even if professional tennis had nothing to do with oil spitting. He backed away even further to obtain the necessary cutlery and plates from his neatly cultivated stacks, which were now so refreshing to look at.
“You’re not,” Zaizen insisted. “Negative two hundred points for lack of apron. You’re ruining your clothes.”
Zaizen just gets a half-shrug in reply initially. “Well, you can try. Whether or not I end up hitting you with a kitchen utensil as a result is something you gotta risk though.”
Looking down at his now olive oil-specked shirt, Akaya grimaced. It wasn’t the first time it had happened, and he did in fact own an apron - however, the ties had fallen off some months back and Akaya really had no idea how to sew them back on. His washing machine had probably seen more oil over the last few cycles than what was currently in the pan.
“I know how to do my laundry, it’s fine,” he said. The pasta hisses, the cue to remove it from the heat. Akaya lifted it, moving it to the sink where his strainer should have been. “...uh. Where did you put my drainy thingy.”
“In the cabinet nearest the sink, where it belongs,” not sitting in the actual sink, perpetually waiting for pasta. To assist, Zaizen found the instrument in question and set it above the drain for use. “Here is your colander.”
While Akaya made himself useful cooking, Zaizen just continued to scowl at his shirt. “Tragic.”
Akaya muttered a “thank you” before hip-checking Zaizen out of the way of the sink, upending the whole pot into the colander and sending steam everywhere. With a surprised squawk, he recoiled from the vapour cloud, waving his hand in an ineffectual attempt to clear the air.
Plucking at his now damp as well as oily shirt, Akaya looked momentarily lost as to what he was supposed to be doing next. Distracted enough by Zaizen’s judgemental staring, a few seconds passed before he suddenly skidded over to his fridge.
“I fucking forgot my tomatoes, god damn it,” he grumbled, which sounded as stupid out loud as it had in his head.
Zaizen went with the hip check, making a couple of steps on that push and turning to peer down at the material in the pan. Akaya’s complaint came at the same time as his stomach’s anticipatory gurgle.
“Don’t panic, Martha Stewart. We can just cut them now and put them in,” Zaizen poked at the sizzling pan so it wouldn’t burn. “Everything is still hot enough that it won’t be weirdly cold in comparison.”
Willing to be somewhat useful, he brought out one of the cutting boards he had put away.
Akaya grabbed a knife and speed-sliced the tomatoes into quarters, or almost-quarters considering the quality of said slicing. The chicken was looking uncomfortably brown, but some heat was better than none, so the tomatoes were dumped in with the rest. Suspiciously quiet regarding the Martha Stewart comment - Akaya suspected he should probably know who that is, but he didn’t, so.
There was another slightly awkward pause as the ingredients finished cooking. Akaya turned the heat off before anything burned, inspecting his work with some trepidation.
“Uh. I think it’s fine,” he said, nudging one still too-solid tomato with the spatula.
Although not quite instagram ready, the tomato also smelled lovely when it hit the pan, mingling nicely with the scent of cooked chicken in the air.
“Looks good,” Zaizen said, not terribly fussed about the condition of the tomato as he offered the plates for Akaya to spoon the contents. “What other kind of stuff does your trainer have you eat?”
Raising his eyebrows at the honest to god compliment offered by one Zaizen Hikaru, Akaya took the plates, spooned out the pasta, and topped it with the chicken and veg mix. Even he could see it was nowhere near top quality, but at least it smelled good.
“Uhh, like. A lot of pasta and rice. Omelettes. I can get pizza from certain places. And I’m supposed to have red meat once a week,” Akaya recited, eyes flicking briefly to his fridge-mounted menu. “Basically, low sugar and salt and fat and stuff. So kinda limits good food.”
Not bothering with the table like a civilised person, he retreats back to the couch, drawing his legs up and resting his plate between his knees and chest.
If Kirihara was eating like this most of the time, Zaizen didn’t really think it was fair to say that good food was in short supply. He could mostly only afford canned or dried soup, and the occasional discounted prepared food. The freshest thing he ever prepared himself was add cabbage to dried miso.
“Poor Akaya,” Zaizen drawled, following not too far with his own portion and two glasses of water. “What noble sacrifice.”
He set one glass in front of Kirihara before taking a cross-legged seat on the couch. “And what about your horrible beer? What does your trainer have to say about that?”
For all his vitriol, Zaizen put his hands together and said thanks for the meal.
“I mean good food like, I dunno… I mean, you’re right, this isn’t bad,” Akaya reasoned, muttering his own thanks as he trailed off. “But I crave stuff like ramen a lot.”
He shoved a forkful of the meal into his mouth and was surprised at the fact it actually did taste as good as it smelled. Maybe he really should sound a bit more grateful to be able to cook and eat the way that he did.
“What my PT doesn’t know can’t hurt him,” a shrug. “My coach gets pissed but she also drinks it so. Really she can’t get on my case about it.”
“Can you have fresh miso? You could probably do a light ramen, if you wanted. Onsen egg instead of meat,” Zaizen followed up his thanks with a carefully arranged bite of vegetable and chicken, which he blew on twice before eating. As he dug around the plate delicately for another perfectly portioned forkful, he said, “Yes she can -- it’s not like she’s the one playing on the pro stage.”
Being a coach didn’t exactly require the same level of athleticism as a trainer. “Did you pair up because of your shared bad taste in beer?”
Truthfully, he hadn't considered making his own ramen. Akaya was too used to the quality of Jackal’s family restaurant. “It just wouldn't be the same,” he mused, not specifying what he was actually comparing to.
A grimace crossed his face before he wiped it away with more pasta. Last year's US Open hadn't ended well, but it had ended with both he and his coach with vile hangovers, so maybe Zaizen wasn't too far off the mark.
“Yeah, maybe she recognised a kindred spirit in me. Like, aside from tennis too, obviously,” she had been the one to buy the beer for them after all. Her fault.
Pausing mid-blow on another bite, Zaizen said, “I know what your coach looks like -- but thank you for that visual that I didn’t need of you in a ponytail and tennis skirt.”
Although, that would probably be less embarrassing than what Zaizen intended for Kirihara to find tomorrow. Only his perpetual dead-frog face could hold out against giggles while imagining what face the expressive tennis player would make. Pity that he wouldn’t be able to see it, but he did expect some pissy comments thrown his direction tomorrow.
“You could try actually decent beer. More calories, but less processed. Or cider,” he pointed out as he made his way slowly through more of the delicious bowl.
Akaya side-eyed Zaizen flatly, raising his free hand in confusion. “Where does your mind go sometimes, dude…”
If only he knew what was in store for him the next day. Frowning as he tried to replicate Zaizen’s mental image, he made a vague acknowledgement of the alcohol suggestions before giving up on the imagination spot and responding properly.
“Cider’s good but it doesn’t like… hit the same spot, y’know,” he said. “Sometimes you gotta just drink the crap watery stuff.”
Gaze flat and ominous, Zaizen said, “Places too dark and terrible for yours to process.”
Although lite beer sounded like a pretty dark hole to be stuck in. “No, I don’t know. But at least you know that you have bad taste in drinks,” he stirred around the half plate of pasta that remained, and wondered if it would be too weird to save the rest for lunch tomorrow. “This is pretty good, though,” he said, buttering Kirihara up for his incoming request with a compliment.
He did learn something from Shiraishi.
“I can be self-aware,” Akaya replied, looking far prouder than he should have while saying that.
He quirked an eyebrow at the compliment, being far too familiar with the tone of it to be too caught off-guard by this one. Blinking from Zaizen to Zaizen’s food, then back to his own, Akaya suspected what might be coming.
“You moved all my plastic so you may as well go and pack it up yourself,” he said, rolling his eyes. “Make sure it’s microwaveable, I don’t wanna hear that you melted something and ruined it all.”
“Yes, yes, good job. You know that you’re trash,” Zaizen said in deadpan.
And then Akaya spoke the magic words, even if they came with a bit of an insult. Zaizen was a professional when it came to microwaving, excuse you Akaya. “...But I guess you’re also a bit of all right.”
Before he got up to pack away his food, he gave Akaya’s shoulder a jostle with his own in vague thanks. “If you want, I’ll even split a trash beer with you.”
Having half of one wouldn’t be that bad by his coach’s standards, right?
Smirking slighty, Akaya leaned back and polished off his own plateful. “Two years you’ve been living off my food and ‘a bit of all right’ is all I get?”
He got up not long after Zaizen did, taking his own dishes and picking up Zaizen’s now-empty plate to throw into the dishwasher. He crossed his arms, looking pointedly at the fridge, before making up his mind and retrieving one (1) brightly-coloured can of awful alcohol from the bottom shelf.
“It’s amazing that you made it sound like you drinking my beer was somehow doing me a favour,” he muttered, pouring half into a deep glass and taking the remainder of the can for himself.
As Zaizen soaped up the pan, he said, “Think of it as progress from ‘I don’t hate you.’”
Despite all of his mooching and vitriol, Zaizen was pretty happy to do all the cleaning from their dinner. Once he cleaned the pan and the sink, his compulsion traveled over to the stove. The already relatively clean countertops received only a cursory wipe down.
Holding up his glass for a mini-kanpai, he said, “It’s a talent that has gotten me this far in life. You should learn from it.”
“If I thought we were still at that point I wouldn’t still be feeding you,” Akaya pointed out, still smirking. He stood in the corner of the kitchen, content to nurse his beer for the moment as Zaizen cleaned up. Better that he didn’t have to do it, and there was no stopping Zaizen anyway once he got started.
He raised the already half-empty can in response. Downing it quickly, he smacked the timer on the dishwasher into a low cycle and left it to run. “Yeah, yeah. I can employ that tactic when I need to,” he claimed, trying to think of an example and coming up short. “Anyway, you gonna head out soonish? Salaryman traffic starts soon.”
Zaizen drank his beer in small, delicate pulls between his vigorous feat of cleaning; if there was any mess to be found in Akaya’s kitchen, it did not survive the tensai’s onslaught. After he rinsed and wrung the sponge and cloth, Zaizen went about putting away the things that he cleaned.
“Yeah,” he answered, somewhat distracted. “I have some work to do tonight anyway.” Any elaboration that he would have made on said work disappeared when his focus landed on a particular item.
Zaizen emerged, peering slowly over the counter with the most victorious little smirk, “...I thought you said that you didn’t have one, Akaya?” He lifted the apron.
The offending item being raised above the counter made Akaya cough on the very last bit of his beer. It was a perfectly simple apron, but the embarrassment came from the fact that he had shoved it in a cabinet after both ties broke off several months ago and had ignored it ever since.
“I didn’t say that,” he said slowly, thumping his chest to recover from his coughing fit. “I said you don’t get apron blackmail. It’s just broken.”
Striding over to the cabinet, he pulled out the two back ties and held them out as evidence.
The obnoxious to the point of twinkling smirk rather quickly tipped down into an are you serious? You’re serious deadpan.
“So instead of fixing it, you decide to ruin all of your shirts?” Zaizen snatched the poor, defeated strings. “I’ll sew it back on as long as you don’t tell me what the hell you did to accomplish this mess.”
Akaya relinquished the fabric and held his hands up in mock-defeat. “I ain’t gonna argue with that, go ahead.”
Ducking his head into the now-spotless kitchen, he blinked in surprise. He should be used to it by now, but for some reason having his kitchen completely tidy still impressed him. “Also, uh, thanks?”
After Zaizen stuffed the apron in question into his bag, he held up the container of food and gave it a light shake for emphasis, “You cooked.”
And well, it was a decent trade off. He put the food in his bag as well before shouldering it. With a wry, lopsided sort of grin, he said, “See you. If I don’t see improvement in tekken, you’ll be in for punishment all over again.”
Akaya pouted, comedically pressing the gate button by his door overly hard to let Zaizen out. “Whatever, Hikaru, I’ll figure it out.”
He waved a goodbye though, a friendly “see ya” in reply, before closing the door and stretching. It had been a pretty good night, all in all. He felt good. Surely nothing could go wrong tomorrow, right?
no subject
Date: 2018-02-25 06:42 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2018-02-26 09:40 am (UTC)