Disclaimer: I own very little.
A/N: This is an entry to the 30-dogpile challenge in LiveJournal, the theme being Fields. Threesome.
To Each Their Own
Sometimes, with only two people in a household, sharing the domestic chores may seem almost impossible a task. Therefore, it was somewhat surprising as to how easily they managed to divide up the workload, given that there were three of them.
Cleaning never caused much of an obstacle. They had soon realised that while their standards of cleanliness varied somewhat, they all preferred clean surroundings to unclean ones, and Inui had agreed to do his best to keep the shared space clean with the two others as long as Kaidou and Renji didn't comment on the messiness of his lab. This was an arrangement that worked quite well – at least after Inui had once left a mess in the living room, causing Kaidou to calmly clean up his lab, destroying an experiment he had been working on a week and putting everything in their proper places so he could no more find anything he needed.
Kaidou, it was decided early on, took care of cooking. Neither of the others was about to eat anything Inui had prepared, and Renji would be the first to admit that while his cooking was somewhat edible, it was nowhere as tasty as the youngest man's. Kaidou didn't protest, seemingly rather satisfied of his free reign of the kitchen.
Inui, on the other hand, was responsible for the dishes. This was only logical, as his experiments and drinks caused more dishes than their actual meals. He was always efficient and even good with doing the dishes, too, being enough of a scientist to know not to leave any traces of the previous contents in a dish meant to be used again.
This left Renji with the chore of laundry. He caused no more or less of it than the others, yet felt it fair he'd have a specific chore of his own as well. A data player that he was, he'd developed an almost scientific approach to the laundry, every piece of clothing in the household properly catalogued in his mind. There were no variations from his usual routine.
At least, if there were any, they were hard to notice.
"Ah, Kaoru," Inui said, adjusting his glasses a bit. "May I ask you something?"
"Of course, Sadaharu," the younger man replied. "What is it?"
"Why is it you always use that one shirt?" Inui asked, pointing at the shirt Kaidou was currently wearing. "I can't help but notice you use it more frequently than your other shirts. Is it perhaps your favourite or something?"
"Oh, this?" Kaidou looked down at his shirt. "Renji likes it."
"Really?" Inui raised his eyebrows. He had not been aware of such a detail. "Has he told you so?" Renji was, as a rule, not inclined to disclosing such information about his preferences unless asked.
"No, he hasn't," Kaidou replied. "However, it's always washed faster than any of my other shirts." As Inui gave him an odd gaze – he knew it was an odd gaze even through the shield of the glasses – he frowned. "What is it?"
"Oh, nothing, nothing at all." Inui grinned. "I was just thinking that perhaps we are rubbing off on you..."
Data was not Kaidou's field. With time, though, one could apparently learn almost anything.
Even to love your boyfriend's boyfriend.