tallulahgs (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
tallulahgs) wrote2013-01-03 05:56 pm
tallulahgs) wrote2013-01-03 05:56 pm
Entry tags:
On the seventh day of Christmas (or thereabouts)
my true love sent to me
seven beloved partners
In which I go for a "seven pairings who wouldn't call themselves beloved partners, or who otherwise feel they undercut the traditional idea of romance, wake up together" vibe.
[Title] The Third Man
[Fandom] Battle Royale
[Rating] PG
[Pairing] Hirono Shimizu/Shinji Mimura
A groan, and then Hirono is sitting up, scowling round the room and then fixing him with a death glare. Her eyes are crusted with black make-up and her mouth is blurred with half-rubbed off lipstick. Shinji remembers the taste of it and almost rubs his own mouth in sympathy.
"Mimura. Why am I in your bedroom again?"
"You say that like I slipped something in your drink and brought you here under false pretenses. As I remember, you were happy to come back here last night."
Hirono flops back down onto her stomach, and pretty much on top of him 'cause this bed was not built for more than one person. She's warm and bony and he can feel the interesting bits of her against him as she prods his forehead and says, "Yeah, that's because it was dark. In the dark I kid myself you're actually cool. Then when the sun comes up I see you and your basketball obsession and your pretentious posters -"
"It's Orson Welles, Shimizu, it's pretty mainstream -"
"Bet you've never even seen the film. Bet you just got the poster 'cause it had your nickname on it. Oh, and because you got to feel all cool and pro-capitalist, of course." She's grinning, and she's shifting about like she's realised just lying on top of him isn't going to make him go away.
"Please. I am cool and pro-capitalist. That's why you're here, after all."
"No, Mimura, I'm here because you're a good lay. But I was meant to be meeting Mitsuko. We had people to do -"
"Wallets to steal? Lives to ruin? I'm saving you from yourself." He goes to ruffle her hair, but she dodges, sits straight up, the duvet falling off of her and revealing her to the morning sunlight. Shinji wonders why he does keep ending up in bed with her. She's hot, sure she is, but other girls are even better, and she constantly insults him. On the other hand, though, it saves on flowers and flirting. He relaxes into her, these days, even if she does constantly mock his taste in music. And films. And everything, really.
[Title] Nest
[Fandom] Death Note
[Rating] PG
[Pairing] Kanzo Mogi/Misa Amane
It's the making-tea part when Misa feels funny about it all.
Mochi is a gentleman, so he always offers to go and make it. Sometimes she lets him and then she sits huddled in bed and she looks around at the little apartment bedroom, the one she decorated herself, with her clothes hanging over the wardrobe door and her jewellery scattered across the dressing table and nothing of Raito at all, and she thinks, she asks herself what on earth she is doing. Raito is - was (it hurts, like breathing in cold air) - Raito was her true love. This - Mochi in her bed, this should feel much worse than it does. And then she sees herself as both of them must, a stupid girl curled up in a tangle of sheets and beads who's so broken by now, had so much love she couldn't cling on to, and she thinks, is he just doing it because he feels sorry? And then she thinks of Raito, and she asks the same thing -
Sometimes she can't face looking at herself like that so she scurries out of bed herself, no, no, Misa will do it! There is not much of Raito in the kitchen either but there's not much of her, either, and in her memories it's always her on her own, here. Or her and Mochi or Matsu or one of the other task force people awkwardly making themselves a cup of tea. As if this is how it always was, as if sleeping with a police officer is normal for her. And you can distract yourself by the actual making of the tea, the clatter of spoons, the bubble of the kettle. But when she's standing, waiting for the water to boil, she sees herself again, this time pretending that making tea will make everything better, that it ever did. And Mochi is much better at making tea than her anyway. Mochi is much better than her at a lot of things. Raito was, too.
She finds tears in her eyes and she bites her lip to stop it trembling. Mochi is better than her at a lot of things but he doesn't seem to realise that. Mochi seems to think that he is the lucky one, and while she chatters about nothing to stop herself thinking, he falls silent and blushes and always knocks before he comes into her bedroom. Perhaps he feels funny about all of this too.
Anyway, it doesn't matter. Because when she takes the tea back to them and they sit side by side, she stops seeing herself and sees both of them instead, and that's okay.
[Title] Simple Questions
[Fandom] Death Note
[Rating] PG
[Pairing] Hideki Ide/Touta Matsuda
Matsuda's apartment is small enough that from the bed Ide can see him making coffee, hear the water boiling and the clink of spoon on china. And now he's looking round: "It's only instant stuff. Hey, are you one of those coffee drinkers who get really snobby about instant? Because, I mean, I think this is quite nice, it wasn't the cheapest one there or anything, but you know..."
Ide stares at him and wonders why he's surprised. Matsuda stays Matsuda, no wonder what's going on - murder via mysterious notebook, millions of dollars falling from the sky in Los Angeles, their leader at death's door, or, of course, intimate relations with a colleague he'd always claimed didn't have a romantic bone in his body.
"You've seen me drink instant coffee a hundred times," he says. "Hell, the stuff from the machine at the NPA building I don't think anyone even calls coffee and you've seen me drink it."
Matsuda grins, shrugs. "Yeah, but you're a guest here, right? And sometimes it's different when you're at home."
"This isn't my home." And I'm not really a guest, he nearly adds, but stops himself.
"Fair enough." Matsuda pours the hot water into the two mugs. "I think Mogi has, like, proper coffee when he's on his own. I know he drinks the department stuff too but he always looks sad when he does it."
Ide can feel the usual Matsuda-induced bafflement creeping over him. How can the man stand there, wearing only a dressing-gown, and chat about coffee as if they're both at work? Isn't he the slightest bit taken aback by - by this? Doesn't he wonder why it happened, considering all his talk about romance and pretty girls?
Matsuda brings a mug of coffee over to him, and he takes it and watches as the other man clambers back into bed, sprawls against him and takes a wary sip of his drink. Where their skin touches it's warm.
Matsuda stays Matsuda, and part of being him is not asking the questions you don't need an answer to. Ide would roll his eyes at such behaviour if it wasn't for the fact he knows he's taking exactly the same approach. It happened and it is driving him mad that he doesn't know why, but - he can admit it to himself, at least - he likes it enough that he doesn't need to question it, yet.
[Title] Sunrise
[Fandom] Akira (movie)
[Rating] PG
[Pairing] Kaori/Tetsuo, for![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
herrdeath
Kaori is awake very early, watching the sun rise and make Tetsuo's grubby blind glow with pale light. But not because she's upset. Because she's...
She feels like she's glowing, too. Which is a completely dorky thing to even think and all the other girls would laugh at her, but it's true anyway. Tetsuo is asleep next to her, tangled up in most of the blankets, his T-shirt ridden up so that she can see the softer, paler skin of his back. Someone touching your back, that's such a weird thing to notice, to even care about. But he'd put his arm round her at some point - trying really hard to do it casually, but his fingers had been tensed - and she'd thought, he's walking with me like he's my boyfriend - and then, later, his hands on her back, and the other things, and she can feel she's blushing now, blushing and hot and it's lucky there's no one to see.
It could all go wrong, of course. He could - he could be one of those guys who decide now they've, you know, that they don't need you any more. She doesn't think he will, she doesn't think he wants to, but he might do it because he thinks that's what Kaneda would do.
Or she might do something wrong. She might not act the way she's meant to when you've done stuff and he might think she didn't like it and yell at her. She's pretty stupid, she knows that, but she's not so silly she thinks that doing this will fix everything.
But for now, the building around them is silent because everyone else is still asleep, and outside there's the faint hoot of traffic and radios and the usual clatters and smashes as bottles and glass are kicked into the gutters. The air is cool on Kaori's face and arms but her feet and legs and all of her under the blankets is warm. Tetsuo is asleep next to her, snuffling quietly, and the sun is up now, sprawling across the battered school books and empty Coke cans and bits of bike tool and old clothes. And Kaori doesn't care that things might never be fixed or that this has actually only made things worse. At the moment, it's right, and it's all right.
[Title] Pull the Tab
[Fandom] Jet Set Radio
[Rating] PG
[Pairing] Tab/Gum
"Why is it that trying to play footsie always turns into a war?" Tab said, after Gum landed a particularly vicious kick on his ankle. "I'm trying to be romantic here."
Gum shrugged and rolled over onto her stomach, wrapping their cocoon of unzipped sleeping bags and ragged duvets around herself a little more. "I didn't promise romance, Tabster. I promised... actually, I'm not sure what I promised. Apart from amazing sex, of course. Someone who'll buy you ramen on Valentine's Day?"
Tab reflected on this for a moment before nodding. "And occasionally lets me embarrass them with dorky proclamations of romantic love on top of tall buildings."
"And embarrassing song requests to Professor K," Gum said, prodding him in the side and making him yelp. "I mean, The Backstreet Boys? Really?"
"Hey, when you heard it playing, you knew it was for you. Isn't that what romance is meant to be all about?"
"God knows," Gum said. "I think there's meant to be more flowers and chocolates involved."
"I can probably manage chocolate. Hell, I could manage flowers if I knew you actually wanted 'em. Dunno where we'd put them, though. Probably in empty paint cans, and then the remains of the paint would kill them, and that would be kind of a depressing symbol. But you know, if my girlfriend wants reminders that we are all mortal..."
"You're thinking of Cube. Don't think of other girls when you're with me, I'm told that's a very bad sign."
Tab did a mock headslap, sent himself sprawling back onto the bed. "Oh, that's where I've been going wrong."
"Dork," Gum said, patting him on the head.
"I try." Tab grinned for a moment, before it faded into a frown. "You know... if you ever want flowers, I will buy 'em, really. I mean... this having-a-girlfriend thing is actually really kind of awesome. If occasionally terrifying. So, you know, ask for flowers or whatever. I figure I'm onto a good thing."
Gum smiled at him, and for a moment she looked genuinely touched, before she prodded him again. "Dork times a million."
[Title] Perfection
[Fandom] Death Note
[Rating] PG
[Pairing] Raito Yagami/Touta Matsuda
When Matsuda wakes up, everything closes in on him, pinning him to the bed - all the stuff he's trying not to think about, all the people who he thinks are probably dead by now. He's getting better at ignoring all that stuff - like, what's the point of thinking about it? It's not like he's smart enough to change anything, or really figure out what's going on - but it floats to the surface in his dreams and he wakes feeling like he's been running.
Raito is always awake first. Matsuda wonders how he does it. He even asked once, but Raito just smiled and said, Oh, I suppose I'm just a light sleeper, which, like most of the things Raito says, is an answer and yet not.
Raito is awake first and usually reading, or drinking coffee, but when Matsuda stirs Raito always leans over to kiss him and ask him how did you sleep? Matsuda never answers the question truthfully. The room is warm and the bed is comfortable and the world is perfect so there's no reason for insomnia and Matsuda knows Raito dislikes people being irrational, being stupid. (So it makes no sense him being with Matsuda, letting Matsuda touch him. But Matsuda doesn't think about that, either.)
Raito is always awake first and Matsuda is waking earlier and earlier these days and so there's never any rush in the mornings, not like before when Matsuda lived on his own and often ended up scrambling into his clothes while brushing his hair and wolfing down buttered toast. There's a lot of stillness, a lot of silence. Raito dislikes lots of noise, too, but Matsuda's getting better about that, resisting the urge to cheer or laugh loudly at bad TV. Actually he doesn't watch TV so much these days either - partly because he knows most of the stuff he likes watching is dumb and Raito doesn't need reminding of what an idiot he is, but partly because after the silly stuff it's the news, and he likes to avoid the news. Which you'd think would make him look even stupider, but Raito says it's okay: I'll worry about what's going on in the world. You don't need to think about it. You just keep your ears open for what people at work are saying.
They trust you, don't they? They talk in front of you.
Which is true, and like his father Raito is very good at recognising the skills you have and encouraging you to use them. Matsuda wishes he could feel happier about it. He wishes he could feel happier about a lot of things. But Raito seems to know that, is patient when Matsuda isn't quite joyful enough about some of the stuff that's changed. Like they both know he'll get it eventually.
[Title] Refugee Valentines
[Fandom] Battle Royale (manga)
[Rating] G
[Pairing] Shuuya Nanahara/Noriko Nakagawa
Noriko wakes up and Shuuya's not there, and for a second her heart lurches and the panic rises up her throat before she can stop it. But then she hears the clattering in the kitchen and the faint humming of Smoke on the Water and she manages to call out, "Shu?"
There's even more clattering and a despairing cry of, "Hang on!" Noriko giggles - it's okay, this is normal-boyfriend stuff, she's back in reality - and watches as he scurries into the bedroom a few moments later, clutching a tray.
"I was going to come in all smooth," he says, sighing. "And wake you gently and maybe even throw a serenade in."
"We can do a second take," she says, trying to hide her grin.
"Nope, I'm here now. Happy Valentine's Day, Nakagawa-san!" He hurries over to sit next to her, lays the tray down across her lap. There's a cup of milky coffee, and then, laid out on various mismatched plates, there's rice porridge, tamagoyaki, pickles, miso soup. Traditional Japanese breakfast like she hardly ever has now and didn't even really have much back home (still calling it home) except on special days - long weekends, birthdays. To celebrate her finishing junior high.
"I know," he says, seeing her face. "I know. I should've gone out for doughnuts instead but you said you missed it. And I wanted to cook for you."
She is crying - of course she's crying, sometimes it feels like she can't do anything else - but she is smiling through the tears and saying, "Oh? Were the American guys saying that's what you need to do?" Because it's always like this. They laugh and make jokes and talk to each other like they're a normal boyfriend and girlfriend and if all that they've lost is there too, well, that's just something they have to deal with.
"American guys complain about doing anything for today, as far as I can tell," he says, leaning over and swiping one of the pickles. "I just... I don't know, Nori. It seemed rough that this kind of breakfast was going to be something you only remembered. Like, we've left a lot behind, you know? I figured we didn't have to leave stuff like this too."
She nods. She doesn't need to say out loud the next bit. And maybe one day we won't feel like we've lost stuff. Maybe we'll have enough here instead.
"Thank you," is all she says, and picks up her chopsticks. Shuuya grins: "Mind, I can't promise it's all totally edible. But... but I figure I'll practise. Call this a trial run." And she smiles back at him, and says, "Of course."
seven beloved partners
In which I go for a "seven pairings who wouldn't call themselves beloved partners, or who otherwise feel they undercut the traditional idea of romance, wake up together" vibe.
[Title] The Third Man
[Fandom] Battle Royale
[Rating] PG
[Pairing] Hirono Shimizu/Shinji Mimura
A groan, and then Hirono is sitting up, scowling round the room and then fixing him with a death glare. Her eyes are crusted with black make-up and her mouth is blurred with half-rubbed off lipstick. Shinji remembers the taste of it and almost rubs his own mouth in sympathy.
"Mimura. Why am I in your bedroom again?"
"You say that like I slipped something in your drink and brought you here under false pretenses. As I remember, you were happy to come back here last night."
Hirono flops back down onto her stomach, and pretty much on top of him 'cause this bed was not built for more than one person. She's warm and bony and he can feel the interesting bits of her against him as she prods his forehead and says, "Yeah, that's because it was dark. In the dark I kid myself you're actually cool. Then when the sun comes up I see you and your basketball obsession and your pretentious posters -"
"It's Orson Welles, Shimizu, it's pretty mainstream -"
"Bet you've never even seen the film. Bet you just got the poster 'cause it had your nickname on it. Oh, and because you got to feel all cool and pro-capitalist, of course." She's grinning, and she's shifting about like she's realised just lying on top of him isn't going to make him go away.
"Please. I am cool and pro-capitalist. That's why you're here, after all."
"No, Mimura, I'm here because you're a good lay. But I was meant to be meeting Mitsuko. We had people to do -"
"Wallets to steal? Lives to ruin? I'm saving you from yourself." He goes to ruffle her hair, but she dodges, sits straight up, the duvet falling off of her and revealing her to the morning sunlight. Shinji wonders why he does keep ending up in bed with her. She's hot, sure she is, but other girls are even better, and she constantly insults him. On the other hand, though, it saves on flowers and flirting. He relaxes into her, these days, even if she does constantly mock his taste in music. And films. And everything, really.
[Title] Nest
[Fandom] Death Note
[Rating] PG
[Pairing] Kanzo Mogi/Misa Amane
It's the making-tea part when Misa feels funny about it all.
Mochi is a gentleman, so he always offers to go and make it. Sometimes she lets him and then she sits huddled in bed and she looks around at the little apartment bedroom, the one she decorated herself, with her clothes hanging over the wardrobe door and her jewellery scattered across the dressing table and nothing of Raito at all, and she thinks, she asks herself what on earth she is doing. Raito is - was (it hurts, like breathing in cold air) - Raito was her true love. This - Mochi in her bed, this should feel much worse than it does. And then she sees herself as both of them must, a stupid girl curled up in a tangle of sheets and beads who's so broken by now, had so much love she couldn't cling on to, and she thinks, is he just doing it because he feels sorry? And then she thinks of Raito, and she asks the same thing -
Sometimes she can't face looking at herself like that so she scurries out of bed herself, no, no, Misa will do it! There is not much of Raito in the kitchen either but there's not much of her, either, and in her memories it's always her on her own, here. Or her and Mochi or Matsu or one of the other task force people awkwardly making themselves a cup of tea. As if this is how it always was, as if sleeping with a police officer is normal for her. And you can distract yourself by the actual making of the tea, the clatter of spoons, the bubble of the kettle. But when she's standing, waiting for the water to boil, she sees herself again, this time pretending that making tea will make everything better, that it ever did. And Mochi is much better at making tea than her anyway. Mochi is much better than her at a lot of things. Raito was, too.
She finds tears in her eyes and she bites her lip to stop it trembling. Mochi is better than her at a lot of things but he doesn't seem to realise that. Mochi seems to think that he is the lucky one, and while she chatters about nothing to stop herself thinking, he falls silent and blushes and always knocks before he comes into her bedroom. Perhaps he feels funny about all of this too.
Anyway, it doesn't matter. Because when she takes the tea back to them and they sit side by side, she stops seeing herself and sees both of them instead, and that's okay.
[Title] Simple Questions
[Fandom] Death Note
[Rating] PG
[Pairing] Hideki Ide/Touta Matsuda
Matsuda's apartment is small enough that from the bed Ide can see him making coffee, hear the water boiling and the clink of spoon on china. And now he's looking round: "It's only instant stuff. Hey, are you one of those coffee drinkers who get really snobby about instant? Because, I mean, I think this is quite nice, it wasn't the cheapest one there or anything, but you know..."
Ide stares at him and wonders why he's surprised. Matsuda stays Matsuda, no wonder what's going on - murder via mysterious notebook, millions of dollars falling from the sky in Los Angeles, their leader at death's door, or, of course, intimate relations with a colleague he'd always claimed didn't have a romantic bone in his body.
"You've seen me drink instant coffee a hundred times," he says. "Hell, the stuff from the machine at the NPA building I don't think anyone even calls coffee and you've seen me drink it."
Matsuda grins, shrugs. "Yeah, but you're a guest here, right? And sometimes it's different when you're at home."
"This isn't my home." And I'm not really a guest, he nearly adds, but stops himself.
"Fair enough." Matsuda pours the hot water into the two mugs. "I think Mogi has, like, proper coffee when he's on his own. I know he drinks the department stuff too but he always looks sad when he does it."
Ide can feel the usual Matsuda-induced bafflement creeping over him. How can the man stand there, wearing only a dressing-gown, and chat about coffee as if they're both at work? Isn't he the slightest bit taken aback by - by this? Doesn't he wonder why it happened, considering all his talk about romance and pretty girls?
Matsuda brings a mug of coffee over to him, and he takes it and watches as the other man clambers back into bed, sprawls against him and takes a wary sip of his drink. Where their skin touches it's warm.
Matsuda stays Matsuda, and part of being him is not asking the questions you don't need an answer to. Ide would roll his eyes at such behaviour if it wasn't for the fact he knows he's taking exactly the same approach. It happened and it is driving him mad that he doesn't know why, but - he can admit it to himself, at least - he likes it enough that he doesn't need to question it, yet.
[Title] Sunrise
[Fandom] Akira (movie)
[Rating] PG
[Pairing] Kaori/Tetsuo, for
herrdeathKaori is awake very early, watching the sun rise and make Tetsuo's grubby blind glow with pale light. But not because she's upset. Because she's...
She feels like she's glowing, too. Which is a completely dorky thing to even think and all the other girls would laugh at her, but it's true anyway. Tetsuo is asleep next to her, tangled up in most of the blankets, his T-shirt ridden up so that she can see the softer, paler skin of his back. Someone touching your back, that's such a weird thing to notice, to even care about. But he'd put his arm round her at some point - trying really hard to do it casually, but his fingers had been tensed - and she'd thought, he's walking with me like he's my boyfriend - and then, later, his hands on her back, and the other things, and she can feel she's blushing now, blushing and hot and it's lucky there's no one to see.
It could all go wrong, of course. He could - he could be one of those guys who decide now they've, you know, that they don't need you any more. She doesn't think he will, she doesn't think he wants to, but he might do it because he thinks that's what Kaneda would do.
Or she might do something wrong. She might not act the way she's meant to when you've done stuff and he might think she didn't like it and yell at her. She's pretty stupid, she knows that, but she's not so silly she thinks that doing this will fix everything.
But for now, the building around them is silent because everyone else is still asleep, and outside there's the faint hoot of traffic and radios and the usual clatters and smashes as bottles and glass are kicked into the gutters. The air is cool on Kaori's face and arms but her feet and legs and all of her under the blankets is warm. Tetsuo is asleep next to her, snuffling quietly, and the sun is up now, sprawling across the battered school books and empty Coke cans and bits of bike tool and old clothes. And Kaori doesn't care that things might never be fixed or that this has actually only made things worse. At the moment, it's right, and it's all right.
[Title] Pull the Tab
[Fandom] Jet Set Radio
[Rating] PG
[Pairing] Tab/Gum
"Why is it that trying to play footsie always turns into a war?" Tab said, after Gum landed a particularly vicious kick on his ankle. "I'm trying to be romantic here."
Gum shrugged and rolled over onto her stomach, wrapping their cocoon of unzipped sleeping bags and ragged duvets around herself a little more. "I didn't promise romance, Tabster. I promised... actually, I'm not sure what I promised. Apart from amazing sex, of course. Someone who'll buy you ramen on Valentine's Day?"
Tab reflected on this for a moment before nodding. "And occasionally lets me embarrass them with dorky proclamations of romantic love on top of tall buildings."
"And embarrassing song requests to Professor K," Gum said, prodding him in the side and making him yelp. "I mean, The Backstreet Boys? Really?"
"Hey, when you heard it playing, you knew it was for you. Isn't that what romance is meant to be all about?"
"God knows," Gum said. "I think there's meant to be more flowers and chocolates involved."
"I can probably manage chocolate. Hell, I could manage flowers if I knew you actually wanted 'em. Dunno where we'd put them, though. Probably in empty paint cans, and then the remains of the paint would kill them, and that would be kind of a depressing symbol. But you know, if my girlfriend wants reminders that we are all mortal..."
"You're thinking of Cube. Don't think of other girls when you're with me, I'm told that's a very bad sign."
Tab did a mock headslap, sent himself sprawling back onto the bed. "Oh, that's where I've been going wrong."
"Dork," Gum said, patting him on the head.
"I try." Tab grinned for a moment, before it faded into a frown. "You know... if you ever want flowers, I will buy 'em, really. I mean... this having-a-girlfriend thing is actually really kind of awesome. If occasionally terrifying. So, you know, ask for flowers or whatever. I figure I'm onto a good thing."
Gum smiled at him, and for a moment she looked genuinely touched, before she prodded him again. "Dork times a million."
[Title] Perfection
[Fandom] Death Note
[Rating] PG
[Pairing] Raito Yagami/Touta Matsuda
When Matsuda wakes up, everything closes in on him, pinning him to the bed - all the stuff he's trying not to think about, all the people who he thinks are probably dead by now. He's getting better at ignoring all that stuff - like, what's the point of thinking about it? It's not like he's smart enough to change anything, or really figure out what's going on - but it floats to the surface in his dreams and he wakes feeling like he's been running.
Raito is always awake first. Matsuda wonders how he does it. He even asked once, but Raito just smiled and said, Oh, I suppose I'm just a light sleeper, which, like most of the things Raito says, is an answer and yet not.
Raito is awake first and usually reading, or drinking coffee, but when Matsuda stirs Raito always leans over to kiss him and ask him how did you sleep? Matsuda never answers the question truthfully. The room is warm and the bed is comfortable and the world is perfect so there's no reason for insomnia and Matsuda knows Raito dislikes people being irrational, being stupid. (So it makes no sense him being with Matsuda, letting Matsuda touch him. But Matsuda doesn't think about that, either.)
Raito is always awake first and Matsuda is waking earlier and earlier these days and so there's never any rush in the mornings, not like before when Matsuda lived on his own and often ended up scrambling into his clothes while brushing his hair and wolfing down buttered toast. There's a lot of stillness, a lot of silence. Raito dislikes lots of noise, too, but Matsuda's getting better about that, resisting the urge to cheer or laugh loudly at bad TV. Actually he doesn't watch TV so much these days either - partly because he knows most of the stuff he likes watching is dumb and Raito doesn't need reminding of what an idiot he is, but partly because after the silly stuff it's the news, and he likes to avoid the news. Which you'd think would make him look even stupider, but Raito says it's okay: I'll worry about what's going on in the world. You don't need to think about it. You just keep your ears open for what people at work are saying.
They trust you, don't they? They talk in front of you.
Which is true, and like his father Raito is very good at recognising the skills you have and encouraging you to use them. Matsuda wishes he could feel happier about it. He wishes he could feel happier about a lot of things. But Raito seems to know that, is patient when Matsuda isn't quite joyful enough about some of the stuff that's changed. Like they both know he'll get it eventually.
[Title] Refugee Valentines
[Fandom] Battle Royale (manga)
[Rating] G
[Pairing] Shuuya Nanahara/Noriko Nakagawa
Noriko wakes up and Shuuya's not there, and for a second her heart lurches and the panic rises up her throat before she can stop it. But then she hears the clattering in the kitchen and the faint humming of Smoke on the Water and she manages to call out, "Shu?"
There's even more clattering and a despairing cry of, "Hang on!" Noriko giggles - it's okay, this is normal-boyfriend stuff, she's back in reality - and watches as he scurries into the bedroom a few moments later, clutching a tray.
"I was going to come in all smooth," he says, sighing. "And wake you gently and maybe even throw a serenade in."
"We can do a second take," she says, trying to hide her grin.
"Nope, I'm here now. Happy Valentine's Day, Nakagawa-san!" He hurries over to sit next to her, lays the tray down across her lap. There's a cup of milky coffee, and then, laid out on various mismatched plates, there's rice porridge, tamagoyaki, pickles, miso soup. Traditional Japanese breakfast like she hardly ever has now and didn't even really have much back home (still calling it home) except on special days - long weekends, birthdays. To celebrate her finishing junior high.
"I know," he says, seeing her face. "I know. I should've gone out for doughnuts instead but you said you missed it. And I wanted to cook for you."
She is crying - of course she's crying, sometimes it feels like she can't do anything else - but she is smiling through the tears and saying, "Oh? Were the American guys saying that's what you need to do?" Because it's always like this. They laugh and make jokes and talk to each other like they're a normal boyfriend and girlfriend and if all that they've lost is there too, well, that's just something they have to deal with.
"American guys complain about doing anything for today, as far as I can tell," he says, leaning over and swiping one of the pickles. "I just... I don't know, Nori. It seemed rough that this kind of breakfast was going to be something you only remembered. Like, we've left a lot behind, you know? I figured we didn't have to leave stuff like this too."
She nods. She doesn't need to say out loud the next bit. And maybe one day we won't feel like we've lost stuff. Maybe we'll have enough here instead.
"Thank you," is all she says, and picks up her chopsticks. Shuuya grins: "Mind, I can't promise it's all totally edible. But... but I figure I'll practise. Call this a trial run." And she smiles back at him, and says, "Of course."