Title: Ordered From Chicago

Author: Proverbial Pumpkin

Rating: T for the usual language.

Summary: Tohma gives K a patently American gift. PWP, light K/Tohma.

Author's Note: Another easy-on-the-brain one-shot.

"Come on, Tohma. I got you something this year."

My birthday was the next day.

Tohma held up the collared shirt he was working on and looked at it despairingly. It had a giant stain on its side, the triangular shape of the iron plate. I crossed my arms and leaned against the panel of the doorway, watching him swear and glance around himself at the ironing board, like it came with a magical stain-removing solution. He was still in his working suit, because Tohma had this absurd habit of ironing our lounging clothes before we changed into them. Or our "evening" clothes as he called them. Since I suppose Tohma didn't technically "lounge."

"I said, I got you something this-"

"I heard what you said," he snapped. "Can't you see I'm busy?" He wadded up the shirt and threw it in the hamper. As if there were the slightest chance it could be salvaged, which there wasn't. It looked like it was one of mine, too. "And two things, for the record," he added. "I certainly didn't ask you for a birthday gift, much less a neck-tie of all things. On top of that, it was hideous."

"How do you think I knew you'd like it?"

About a year withered off my life at the look I got for that one. "K-san, I think we're past the point of celebrating birthdays," he said, picking up the hamper. I followed him as he hauled it over to the washer, dumping everything in. Most people would condescend to just taking out the dirty clothes by hand and sorting them, but this was Tohma. In it all went. Between my laziness and Tohma's inexperience, laundry wasn't something that got done with much precision in his place.

"I'm not asking for you to call in a clown," I said, extracting my ruined shirt from the bin so it didn't get iron rust and shit on our other things. "Just a little reassurance that you're not totally apathetic to the fact that my mother gave birth to me."

"Apathetic?!" Tohma said, looking up at me sharply, and for a moment I actually thought he was genuinely affronted. "You're the only manager I've had who could possibly capitalize on artists as unruly as Shindou-san and Sakuma-san. I should send your mother part of NG's profits."

"Do you mind, Tohma?"

He rolled his eyes, closing the washer lid. "Alright, alright. How old will you be?"

"Thirty-seven."

"Good heavens."

"What?!"

Tohma's face broke into a smile- a smug, self-satisfied smile, but a real one that made it worth pretending to be more insulted than I was. But Tohma knew as well as I did that he wasn't so many years behind me.

"Alright, come with me," he said, turning the washer on. It lurched into action. I suspected he'd chosen the cycle type arbitrarily, and reminded myself to come back in a couple minutes to try to minimize the damage to this particular load. Then I followed him to his kitchen, where he gestured to a brown paper bag sitting on his kitchen table.

I'd walked by it several times over the past couple days. "What, that's for me?"

"Yes," he said shoving it in my arms. "Happy birthday."

"Weren't you afraid I'd see it?" I demanded.

He shrugged. "Not particularly. I was going to give it to you tomorrow, but I'm starting to think I'll have thrown you out of my house by then."

I assumed he was kidding. The bag was plain brown, and unmarked. If Tohma had gotten me booze for my birthday I was going to make him drink it all right in front of me. I stuck my hand in.

It wasn't booze. Dark brown leather, stiff stitches, white cursive lettering threaded into the outside. A baseball glove, and I could tell by the weight there was a ball to go with it, still in the bottom of the bag. I fished it out. It was a nice set, I guessed.

It was also the most irrelevant gift I'd ever received. Tohma was looking at me patiently to see how he'd done.

"Um, Tohma…." I said, glove, ball, and bag in hand. "What the hell is this?

"What? It's your present," he answered, taking the glove and squishing the material of the fingers together. "The one you demanded, if memory serves. I just figured, since you're American, and you like guns and things… It's made in America, too. I had it specially ordered from Chicago, so it's… authentic."

I felt my face split into a grin, more bemused than anything. I couldn't help it; Tohma's feeble attempts at being thoughtful always had that effect on me. "Tohma, I'm almost thirty-seven years old. Who am I going to play baseball with?"

"I don't know," he said, giving me a why-is-that-my-problem look. "I suppose you could throw it up in the air, and then…"

"Catch it?"

"Yes."

I set the bag back on the table. He made to leave, to head back into the depths of his house and do something more interesting than stand there and have the logistics of team sports explained to him. But I held out a hand to stop him and sidled up to his side, in a classic effort to be endearing when I wanted something.

Tohma rolled his eyes and looked a little excessively irritated. "I'm not playing baseball with you, K-san."

"Mm hmm," I said, snaking an arm across his stomach and pulling his back against me. "I'm not asking you to."

"Good," he said, turning his face away when I tried to plant a kiss on his jawbone. "Then I'll see you at dinn-"

"Just throw with me. After all, you gave me the damn things. And I have a feeling you'd be good at it." I tossed the ball in front of him, so it came down directly in front of his chest. He looked alarmed and fumbled at it in the air, before it fell to the linoleum and rolled about three inches.

We both stared at it for a moment, before he cut his eyes at me. "I suspect you're wrong. And it's just as well," he said. "You've as good as said you don't like it, anyway."

"Not true!" I said, letting him go. "It's great. A totally appropriate gift. Now what do you say? Twenty minutes."

He gave me a look that told me I was pushing it, and shouldered by me towards the hallway. "Tohma?" I said, and he paused in the doorway to give me one last impatient look.

I shrugged and grinned. "It'll make me happy?"

Tohma blinked for a second, as if he hadn't expected an appeal that straightforward. I smiled at him again. Then he turned back around and disappeared out of my sight. "That's not a good reason."

"Oh come on!" I hurried to follow, ready to intercept him again. "It'll only take-"

"I'm coming!" his voice sounded from the hallway, before he appeared in the doorway again looking borderline pissed off. "Do you mind if I change shirts first, K-san? Is that okay with you?" And he was gone again. I grinned to myself, snatched up the ball from the ground and the glove, and went outside.

I only had to wait a couple minutes, and the night was rendered a success when I heard the front door close and looked up to see Tohma in his khaki pants and one of my faded t-shirts. It was a little too big for him. Tohma nearly at his most fuckable- happy birthday to me.

He'd kept on that damn hat, though. "Tohma, take that off."

He deliberately adjusted it as he walked over to me, barefoot. "This is my baseball hat."

I snorted. "Wearing it while you play baseball doesn't make it a baseball hat. That's a bowler hat, and it's for… work and socializing and concerts and all those other non-sports things you do. Take it off." I watched with some satisfaction as he frowned, but tossed it back towards his house steps before looking at me expectantly.

"Alright, here," I said, handing him the glove. "You'll need this more than me." It was too big for him, but the sight of Tohma on his lawn wearing my shirt and an over-sized baseball glove was more than worth all his awkwardness. "Now go over there."

Tohma rolled his eyes at being directed about, and when he strolled across his yard he looked as if he was meeting a business associate. The man literally didn't know how to turn it off. I stood, a bit amused as he made his way about thirty feet from me. "Is this good?"

"Farther."

Tohma backed up a few steps and held up his gloved hand like a target. "Okay, go."

"Farther."

He dropped his arms to his sides and shielded his eyes as he looked at me. "I thought we're just throwing, K-san. Who are you trying to impress?"

I would have thought that would've been obvious. But then, there was no guarantee he'd be able to pitch it back to me from too far away, so I called out "that's good." I tossed the ball in the air once. It felt good- I hadn't held a ball in years. Hadn't even thought about the game, really, although I'd been somewhat of a big deal on my old high school team. Forever ago. These days Michael was too young to teach, and not even the World Series was on syndication in Japan. I tossed it again, and caught it. Call me sentimental, but it reminded me of home. A lifetime ago.

"Before it gets dark, K-san."

I glanced up to see Tohma waiting and grinned. Not necessarily a bad lifetime. I wound up and let it fly. Heard it fly. Baseballs aren't silent. It was a perfect throw, nearly horizontal, and I watched the ball go straight into Tohma's glove-

And drop directly to the grass. He looked startled.

"Tohma, you've got to catch it!" I called, laughing. "You can't just stand there with your glove out."

"I didn't know!" He was irritated, and bent down to pick it up. He took a moment of preparation before sending it back to me.

Apparently 'letting it fly' had a different meaning for Tohma. It wasn't a particularly soft throw, but it went sailing five feet over my head, landing behind me and rolling across the driveway.

"God, Tohma, you act like you've never thrown a baseball in your life."

"I haven't!"

I looked at him, and he scowled back. Four inches shorter than me, slender, holding the glove like it was a dead animal. The man was hopelessly un-American. I retrieved the ball and tossed it again, feeling his eyes on me when I threw it back. Right shoulder back, left leg up. It was straight on target again. I still had it.

Tohma caught it this time and forgot himself for a moment, smiling at me looking genuinely satisfied. I gave him a thumbs up. God, a thumbs up. What am I, twelve? But he didn't notice. He tossed the ball once, and it looked like legitimate concentration went into his next throw. Right shoulder, left leg. He was trying to emulate me.

I couldn't help it- that made my fucking day. I think my smile had stretched across my entire face by the time the ball reached me, and I even forgot to tell him it was a good throw. The man kept accidentally finding new ways to make me care about him. Love him, there.

"What are you laughing at?" Tohma demanded.

"Nothing," I answered, smile still plastered on. "That was good."

And he got better, too. I don't know why I was surprised- it's not like the man was weak, or uncoordinated. I wondered if, had things turned out differently, Tohma could even have been athletic. I started throwing to his side, just to watch him have to reposition himself to catch it. After around twenty minutes (probably exactly twenty minutes, if I knew Tohma), he decided he was done. He gestured to me and pulled my glove off his left hand.

I joined him on his steps as he brushed off his hat, which lay at the bottom. "I hope you're satisfied now, K-san," he said. "That's my physical exertion for the year."

I held the door open and followed him inside, pleased. From right behind him, I could see his hair had been tousled just barely more out-of-place than usual, and my t-shirt, hanging loosely off his shoulders, was wrinkled a little around his waist. There were green smudges where his khakis got caught underneath his heels. "You've got grass and stuff on the hem of your pants," I observed. From the looks of things, it would take some active stain-removing finesse to get rid of it, not Tohma's usual indiscriminate dumping into the machine.

Tohma stopped in the hallway to check, brushing his bangs away from his eyes. "Oh, I saw," he said. "You should probably go ahead and get started on the next load of laundry." Like he simply expected me to follow his instructions. And he stripped out of his khakis right there, ambling down the hallway and tossing the stained pants in front of the washing machine.

I set the ball and glove down and watched him disappear, in his boxers and my t-shirt, into his bedroom. Then I smiled as I grabbed the laundry detergent. Totally worth it.

The End.

Author's Note: First update in months. I'm back, guys!