Junjou Romantica is the rightful property of Nakamura Shungiku. This is a fanwork written purely for both your entertainment and mine.

"Welcome home."

Miyagi jumped at the sound of Shinobu's voice, looked over his shoulder towards the front door and grinned sheepishly.

"I didn't hear you come in, Shinobu-chin."

"That was obvious from the way you reacted just now. I do have my own key, you know," Shinobu said curtly, dumping his bag of study books at the doorstep. He headed straight for the kitchen after that, bending over to dig around in the cupboards for Miyagi's one good frying pan.

"Should I make dinner?"

"Why not?" Miyagi asked, looking back to the massive amount of research papers he has tossed haphazardly onto his coffee table.

It had been a long two weeks week; the start of a new semester had crept up on him (and by crept up, he meant he'd been ignoring it in favour of his new thesis paper and his young lover until it was breathing down his neck), and in the middle of it all, he'd been invited to a week-long conference in Kyoto with esteemed Japanese Literature professors from other countries to discuss his finding on Bashou.

Shinobu had been unhappy about it, to say the least. Miyagi wasn't sure if it was because the conference was scheduled on his last free week before he went back to university (the conference hadn't been called on that specific week to upset Shinobu or anything), or because he'd been left alone for those seven days (even though Miyagi would never admit it, he'd hated being alone too), because Miyagi hadn't invited him along (how could he?), or a combination of the three (which was likely, because Shinobu tried so hard to be grown up and take on more problems than he could handle).

It was easily the longest time they'd been parted since they'd started their relationship, and while it didn't seem at that long in retrospect, Miyagi had found his mind constantly wandering to the subject of Shinobu during that week. He'd wondered if Shinobu was still mad at him, whether Shinobu had gone into his apartment to get food when he needed it do he ate right, if Shinobu had missed him as badly as he'd missed Shinobu.

He could never admit it out loud.

His young lover didn't seem to be bothered by any of that now, at least. Miyagi allowed himself a sigh of relief and thought, albeit briefly, that Shinobu seemed to be getting more mature now that he was out trying to make it on his own (or, as on his own as they could be together).

Miyagi heard the crackle of the hotplate being turned on, heard Shinobu mumbling to himself as he sliced the cabbage and carrot for the stir-fry. He'd finally managed to master the art of cooking with cabbage about six months ago, at which point he'd added carrots to the menu; after his first attempt at cooking both together, Shinobu had simply scowled at the blackened lump in Miyagi's frying pan, scraped it into the bin with a spatula and started again from the beginning.

"Which oil should I use?"

"Sesame."

"Sauce?"

"No preference."

"Soy, then."

Miyagi nodded, stacking his papers into a pile at the corner of the table.

"Do you need help?"

"Not really."

"I'll help, then," Miyagi grinned, and Shinobu pouted and concentrated on slicing the carrots.

"You're busy. I can do it."

"No, just organizing papers. I can do it after dinner," Miyagi responded, grabbing a spare knife and a sizeable chunk of cabbage from the refrigerator. Shinobu didn't reply, and Miyagi knew that that was his way of accepting the help he'd been offered.

"Did you do anything exciting while I was away?" Miyagi asked, noticing the awkward expression on Shinobu's face.

"Not really," Shinobu replied, dumping the sliced carrot into the frying pan and adding the sauce, "A few of my classmates asked me if I wanted to go out, but I said no."

"Why would you do that?"

Shinobu stared at him blankly.

"They asked me to go to a match-up party again."

"Oh," Miyagi responded, and left it at that. It was amazing, really, how stupid Shinobu could make him feel even if he was asking an honest question. And he'd never admit to himself that he found it cute, not in a million years.

"What did you?" Shinobu asked, prodding at the sizzling carrot with a wooden spoon.

"Talked about old books," Miyagi said, scraping the cabbage he'd been cutting off the cutting board and into the frying pan, "Same thing that I do every day at work."

"Sounds exciting," Shinobu said, an edge of sarcasm in his voice that made Miyagi laugh and ruffle his lover's hair.

"You'll understand once you've studied literature more. You alright to cook from here?"

"Yeah. Why?"

"Thought I could get these papers out of the way so we could spend the night catching up," Miyagi replied. Shinobu stared at him for a good minute, apparently torn on how to respond to his lover before Miyagi looked away, once again feeling like an idiot.

They were both silent for a while after that. Shinobu kept a watchful eye on the stir-fry while he cooked the rice, and Miyagi packed the last of his papers away into his briefcase. When their food was done cooking, Shinobu brought Miyagi's bowl to him and sat down on the couch next to him.

"Miyagi?"

"Hmm?" Miyagi said, not looking up from the seminar notes in his hand.

He felt Shinobu shift next to him, and looked around just in time for his lips to meet Shinobu's as the younger man leaned in.

"I missed you," Shinobu said, before kissing Miyagi again.

"That's all?" Miyagi laughed, running his hand along the small of Shinobu's back.

"That's all," Shinobu said defiantly, removing himself from Miyagi's lap and retrieving his dinner from the coffee table, "Don't start fishing for compliments."

"Not at all, Shinobu-chin," Miyagi replied, picking up his bowl of surprisingly edible-looking stir-fry and smiling when he felt Shinobu edge closer to him.

It felt incredibly good to be home.

END