Disclaimer: Nope, don't own 'em. I'm only borrowing Murakami-san's darlings for a li'l bit.
Author's Notes: Ya know how Yuki, whenever his pink-haired baka manages to piss him off pretty bad, likes to banish Shuichi to sleeping on the couch? Well, I started thinking about that and this ficcy was the result….
A Wife's Privileges
"Yuuuukiiii…!"
Eiri's right eye twitched.
"Yuki… please open the door!"
His left eye twitched.
"I'm sorry! Really, I am!"
The writer scowled as excessive knocking soon followed his lover's high-pitched whining. The blank screen of his laptop blinked mockingly up at him, reminding the disgruntled blond of all the files that had been deleted due to a certain pink-haired idiot. The laptop had only been left alone momentarily (when the urge for alcohol called Eiri to the kitchen), but it only took those few precious moments for Shuichi to leave his mark.
"I have a freakin' safety hazard walking around my house…" Eiri muttered, an exasperated smirk crawling its way onto his lips.
Needless to say, Shuichi had been condemned to the couch for the night and for as many nights until the novelist recovered from his lover's most recent folly. However, now Eiri was beginning to regret his actions for the pink-haired brat simply wouldn't shut up in his attempts to apologize. The determined idiot had been mewling out "I'm sorry", "Please open the door', and the infamous "Yuuukiiii!" for going on an hour already and the older man's eardrums were screaming bloody murder.
"Say something, Yuuuukiiii…!" Shuichi's tenor voice piped up, the whine-like quality now more apparent to his tone.
"Shut the hell up and go to sleep!"
There was no reply.
Eiri perked up a bit and lifted his tired eyes from the blank screen. Had the brat really listened to him and shut up? Judging from the sudden silence, it seemed that the answer was yes. After a few minutes, however, the stifling silence had begun to… well… quite frankly creep the writer out. It was a still, dead hush that, in Eiri's opinion, was unnatural for Shuichi to emit.
The blonde sighed, defeated. It seemed he simply couldn't win either way.
"Hey… Yuki?" A hesitant whisper broke the silence.
Eiri ran a hand through his nest of golden locks. Well, at least there was an end to the creepy silence.
"What…?"
"I was thinking (here, Eiri snorted) and now this "me sleeping on the couch" thing seems a bit unfair."
"And how did you come to that conclusion?" The older man asked dryly, rolling his eyes at the childishness of it all.
"Well…" Shuichi trailed off, as though he was pondering over how to explain. "… don't the wives usually order the husbands to sleep on the couch…?"
Eiri could practically hear the singer smirking. "What the hell are you getting at, brat?" he asked, his tone wary.
"Wives get special privileges like that, don't they?" Shuichi answered in an awed tone, ignoring his lover's question.
Eiri didn't like where this was heading…
The younger man continued thoughtfully, "So I felt like I wasn't receiving the privileges I ought to… After all, I am the wife."
"You're a guy! How can you be a wife?" The writer snapped, actually attempting to follow his "safety hazard's" logic.
"Nee… Yuki! I mean symbolically…" Shuichi chided, giggling slightly. "Besides, I do sorta fit the description of a wife…"
Eiri couldn't believe he was having this conversation. He knew the brat liked to crossdress but… "What? Like you always on the bottom during sex?"
"Nooo… well, maybe… no! I mean other uke things like cooking for you…"
The blonde quickly cut his lover off with a scathing remark. "Correction, I end up cooking us both food after you almost burn the house down."
"…. fine. But I do clean and everything so tha— "
"You do more harm than good when you clean. Everything ends up in the most ridiculous places! I found the toothpaste in the refrigerator one time!"
"Mou… I honestly have no idea how that got there. Still… I do our laundry which—"
"You broke the washing machine the last time, brat. And made the new one emit some sort of creepy shrieking, strangled sound that a machine should not be able to make…"
"Okay, okay! I get it," Shuichi grumbled, albeit not losing his determined tone. "But I am the wife in this relationship, Yuki! I take care of you like a good wife should…"
"Take care of me…? How do you do that, pray tell?" Eiri asked incredulously. In his opinion, it was he was the one who took care of Shuichi. After all, what with the idiot constantly cutting himself with kitchen knives, burning down the kitchen, breaking household appliances, and tripping over his own feet and hitting his head… Shuichi definitely needed constant supervision.
Shuichi's own voice was just as incredulous. "If I didn't make sure you ate, you'd still be cooped up in that damn study of yours and starve! And I try to get you to cut back on all your alcohol and cigarette consumption before you drive yourself into an early grave…"
"… that makes you a meddlesome brat, not a wife."
"Yuuukiii! You know I take care of you whether you admit it or not… I'm the wife! And I'm the mommy too! I take care of our kids and give them all the loving nourishment they need and tell them to be nice to their daddy (even if he yells at them)…"
"We don't have any kids!"
"Well, if we had some that's what I would do!"
"Which we won't!" Eiri growled and glared at the closed door to where his crazy lover was on the other side. And how the hell had this conversation got onto the subject of children!
Apparently Shuichi also had that same thought. "We're getting off topic anyway! The whole reason I brought up this "wife" topic was because I felt that I was being cheated out of some privileges that I rightfully deserve!" An angry stomp of the foot could be heard in the next room.
Eiri just had to laugh at that one. "Brat, you are on that couch because you did something I explicitly said not to. This is your punishment for not listening to me. It has nothing to do with "wives" and "rightfully deserved privileges."
"….. I look sorta like a girl…"
The older man blinked, caught off guard. "Excuse me?"
"… so therefore I'm the wife."
Eiri sighed and rubbed his temples. "Give it up, Shuichi."
"No… no! I won't give up until I convince you that I'm the wife and that I should have the power of couch banishment! Mwhahahaha…" The boy in the living room cackled, obviously slipping into an "insaner than usual" mood.
"What if we compromise and I call you my bitch?" The writer muttered.
There was silence.
Then…
Shuichi erupted into loud sobs, no doubt striking a dramatic pose even though Eiri couldn't see him.
"You… you're so mean, Yuki!…sob… Here I am, your sniff poor, hardworking wife, trying to earn some sniff respect after I slave away trying to make you happy…sob… and you have the nerve to call me something so unromantic as your bitch! Why I oughta…"
By this time, Eiri was already attempting to tune out his lover's painfully loud wails and searching around for his precious earplugs.
"…how could you… so… cruel! And…"
Sighing, the blond halted his fruitless search and just decided to end this immature argument the quick way. "If I said you could sleep in my bedroom tonight, would you stop your incessant bawling and drop this "wife" matter entirely?"
There was complete silence for the third time that night.
"… yes."
Eiri smirked, feeling that he had finally gotten his way that night. He rose elegantly from his chair and proceeded to open the study door, only now realizing that they had managed to have that whole, insane argument while being in different rooms. When he opened the door, the blond simply had to roll his eyes for the second time that night. Shuichi had apparently camped out in front of his study door… judging from the makeshift bed on the floor and pocky packages littering the surrounding area.
"Since our discussion has permanently ended, I suggest you go to bed and allow me to work in peace," Eiri said to a grinning, pink-haired, safety-hazard.
Shuichi blinked up innocently at him. "But I deleted everything you had to work on…"
That comment earned him a boink on the head and a warning growl.
"Get lost before I change my mind."
The singer simply smiled and leaped up to give the older man a tight hug and a sneaky, little bite on the ear. "Goodnight, Yuki-darling!" And with that Shuichi skipped off to his lover's bedroom, giggling.
Eiri stood there, hand clasped protectively to the nipped ear, a pale pink hue dusting across his cheeks. Growling, he shook his head harshly and retreated to his study, deciding that he had had enough for one night.
Meanwhile, we find our pink-haired singer pouncing on the bed and snuggling into the covers, still chuckling to himself. "No couch tonight… mwhahaha…" Shuichi was quite proud of himself, even if guilt was beginning to tug at his little heartstrings. Nevertheless, the boyish beauty glanced toward the dresser mirror and gave his reflection a cheeky li'l wink.
"I guess I am the wife after all…"
Indeed he was.
--"The husband may be the head of the household, but the wife is the neck… that turns the head."--
Fin…
Sidenote(s): Erm… yes. How was it? Originally, I had planned for it to be shorter, but I suppose it ran away on me… (shrugs) Anyway…. I adore reviews, darlings, and appreciate constructive criticism. Flames have no effect on me unless I am in a particularly sadistic mood and feel like playing with someone's mind. Which isn't that often, I assure you…
Hope you enjoyed!