Chapter 8: Cooking: Egoist: Romantica

The Uke Flu

Chapter Eight: Cooking

When Hiroki finally arrived at home after his "faculty meeting," he was surprised and a little annoyed to find the apartment dark and silent.

Slipping into the house and out of his shoes, he had expected to be greeted by the welcoming aromas of Nowaki's cooking and the low murmur of the TV or the radio. When he was home, Nowaki constantly had one or the other on. The background noise was reminiscent of the near-constant sound he'd grown up in at the orphanage. It was also a means of dispelling the loneliness he felt when his Hiro-san was not there with him.

It was Nowaki's week to cook and Hiroki had really been looking forward to it. He didn't know how much more of his own cooking his stomach could handle. This was one of the reasons that he had finally swallowed his pride and had sought Misaki's assistance. In exchange, he'd agreed to do some tutoring for the young man, who had recently returned to the pursuit of his degree through an online university.

Their first afternoon lesson had not gone as well as Hiroki had hoped. Outside of making a mean fried egg, he was about as good a cook as Misaki was a student.

Throughout what Hiroki was now terming "his afternoon ordeal", Misaki kept gently encouraging him to relax; repeatedly offering the kind but useless opinion that "cooking should be fun." All of this warmth and understanding had only served to wind him tighter.

At one point the demon in him had been too much provoked. He snapped and called Misaki an idiot. He felt terribly ashamed, of course, as soon as the words had left his mouth. He was shocked when Misaki responded to his attack with a truly genuine smile.

"Thank you, Kamijou-san." A warm light filled Misaki's overlarge eyes.

"What? For insulting you?" Hiroki was perplexed and simultaneously glad that Akihiko was out of earshot, knowing he would have caught a serious ass-kicking if his old friend had heard him speak to Misaki that way.

"No, for treating me the way you would anyone else and not like a special case."

Hiroki was embarrassed by Misaki's gratitude. "Well, you were one of my students, Takahashi-kun, you should know as much as anyone, that I'm not one to make exceptions."

The growl in his voice as he said this only made Misaki's smile grow wider.

When the two dishes the men had made were done and set side by side on the kitchen counter, Misaki's beautiful example and Hiroki's poor facsimile, Akihiko glided in, sure that the largest possibility for disaster had passed.

The author balanced Aki on his hip; father and son looked at the two meals with careful consideration.

Akihiko's lavender eyes regarded his friend. "It's a good thing you can teach, Hiroki," he observed drily, "because you can't cook for shit."

"Usagi-san, be nice!" Misaki scolded, blushing furiously at the man's poor manners.

Hiroki, however, was quite used to Akihiko's ways and thought nothing of it.

Then looking between older father and son Misaki added, "Language, Papa."

Akihiko just looked at Misaki, secretly delighted that whatever else, spending two hours in the kitchen with the Demon Kamijou has seemed to put some spark back into his beloved. He hitched Aki up and then turned and walked out of the kitchen.

As he left Misaki could hear Usagi saying to Aki in his smoky drawl, "Did you hear that, Aki-chan? Apparently your Daddy thinks your Papa should watch his fucking mouth."

Misaki turned to Hiroki, rolling his eyes in frustration. "Incorrigible," he sighed.

Then the young man looked back down at Hiroki's misguided cooking attempt, and seeing the thinly veiled disappointment in the man's eyes, he tried again to be encouraging.

"It really doesn't look that bad."

"Are you going to taste it, Takahashi?" Hiroki challenged.

Misaki quailed under the other man's scrutiny. "Ummm, no, thank you, Kamijou-san."

"Uhh huhh, I thought so." Hiroki sighed.

After hanging up his things, Hiroki walked stealthily through the apartment. He peeked through the open door of the bedroom. The shades were drawn. In the dim light, he could make out the slumbering outline of his giant.

Hiroki softly closed the door, deciding not to wake Nowaki up. Usually he would have not hesitated to rouse Nowaki and chide him for not having dinner started yet, but… something had been definitely off with the younger man recently.

For one thing, his usually ebullient partner had been much more restive of late. Hiroki wondered if all those years of crushing hours at the hospital and multiple work shifts had finally caught up with Nowaki. But Nowaki, who was normally so extroverted, had also seemed to be withdrawing increasingly into himself over the last few weeks.

This was really the basis for Hiroki's complaints to Akihiko about their upcoming marriage/commitment ceremony. It seemed to him that everything had been fine until he and Nowaki had finally gotten engaged and then suddenly, somehow, everything started shifting.

It was the same thing with the premarital counseling.

It was bad enough that he had to sit there and let that weasely-faced therapist, Kobayashi, pry all the most intimate and embarrassing details about his life before and with Nowaki from him during their sessions, but on top of that he'd agreed to the ridiculous anger management sessions. He'd done the stupid role playing too.

Well, okay, that one turned out to be kind of fun.

Now he was even subjecting himself to the humiliation of taking instructions from Takahashi.

He was doing all this because he wanted to be a good partner to Nowaki and, though he still had difficultly expressing this, he did want for them to be closer. Instead, in the last few weeks it seemed as though he and Nowaki were growing farther apart.

Hiroki felt guilty as he considered that perhaps part of Nowaki's shift in mood was that he was still upset with the his decision to take the vaccine. In a way, Hiroki did really feel badly for Nowaki: he knew how desperately his partner wanted a family that included children.

There was a part of Hiroki that, despite what he said, wished that he could bring himself to feel differently about this than he did.

A big part of his not wanting to have children, of course, had to do with his own relationship with his father. There was no way in hell he ever wanted to repeat that pattern. And as much as Hiroki hated any comparison with the man, he knew that he shared a lot of traits with the senior Kamijou.

Fearful of what this might mean in terms of how he would deal with his own family, Hiroki couldn't bear the idea of causing someone that kind of damage. He felt badly enough about being such an ass to Nowaki, who was an adult, and the idea of doing or saying something unthinking or cruel to a defenseless child…

Then when the whole thing with the flu came out and the possibility that he could conceive and carry another life became something other than science fiction, he had been honestly scared shitless.

Not to mention, he was not good with illness. Even a simple cold could reduce him to an embarrassingly infantile state. If he couldn't go through a fever without wanting to hold Nowaki's hand, he could not even begin to imagine what a nightmare it would be for his pride, feeling miserable for a whole year.

A lot of his resistance to the whole pregnancy thing, in fact, had to do with his pride, though he was ashamed to admit it.

Hiroki didn't think he could bear the teasing he would have to endure from Akihiko and Miyagi, they with their stupid seme superiority, knowing he'd been knocked up. They made enough joking remarks about him being an uke as it was… despite the fact taking that role in his relationship with Nowaki had been a conscious decision on his part.

And the thought of him, the Demon Kamijou, waddling through the halls of the University, while his students whispered behind his back, sent chills down Hiroki's spine.

Outside of these issues, the knowledge of what the whole thing would do to his body greatly disconcerted Hiroki as well. Perhaps he was a bit vain, but he liked his flat stomach and trim waist, and what's more, so did Nowaki. What if he had a baby and things never went back to how they used to be?

Still even with all these issues, Hiroki was still haunted by the look on his sweet giant's face when he'd announced as soon as the news broke that a vaccine had been developed, that he was getting inoculated. It had been heartbreaking.

Nevertheless, he had held firm and resisted discussing any other possibilities. He couldn't bear the thought of Nowaki knowing all of his reasons for not wanting to carry a child. He was afraid that he would look even more selfish and silly than he felt now. He was also worried that Nowaki would find some way to convince him, which terrified him even more.

He'd had finally gotten an appointment to get the shot three weeks ago.

He and Nowaki had had a big fight, just before he'd left for the clinic because he hadn't wanted Nowaki to go with him.

"For god's sake, Nowaki, it's just a shot, not open heart surgery. I don't need you to hold my hand and to be honest; I don't think I can stand to look at your hangdog face for one more minute right now!"

Hiroki sighed remembering the scene. By the gods I am a bastard sometimes.

They'd made up when he'd finally returned. Nowaki, of course, apologized all over himself for being so self-centered, saying repeatedly how terrible he felt for making Hiroki feel bad.

The poor idiot.

Hiroki shook his head, realizing that he'd been standing motionless outside the bedroom door for several minutes.

The truth of the matter, something that he had not confided to anyone, was that while he had gone to the clinic, he hadn't actually gotten the shot. He'd backed out at the last minute.

There was no way that he was going to let Nowaki know this, however. He couldn't deal with the thought of getting the man's hopes up.

After all, it was probably just a case of nerves that had kept him from going through with it. He'd planned to call and make a new appointment a few times since then, but things had just been too busy. He would just make another appointment and try and go get it again next week.

Hiroki moved into the kitchen, opened the fridge and began rummaging around; looking for something he could throw together without damaging too badly. There was rice and a few other things left over from what Nowaki had fixed the previous evening. He could stir-fry some vegetables, thinking that much at least he could manage. They could have these with the leftovers. Nowaki wouldn't mind and if he did Hiroki would get after him for skipping out on his designated cooking night.

As Hiroki took things out of the refrigerator and began setting them on the counter, he scanned their new apartment.

It was considerably bigger than their last place. It had a great balcony that was much larger as well. He finally had most of his books corralled into the one room they had made into a library/office space, since he and Nowaki were no longer making any more pretenses about being merely "roommates."

"Maybe now I should let Nowaki get that puppy he's always wanted," Hiroki muttered to himself.

Maybe that will pull Nowaki out of his funk.

Of course Hiroki knew there was a world of difference between a baby and a puppy, but it seemed like the best compromise he'd come up with so far.

Thank you for reading and reviewing!

To all my old readers who may be re-reading, I am sorry for the current exclusion of my old author's notes. I only have the YFF version where those were edited out. Somewhere there is a jump drive that has the older version with my shout outs. If I can find it this weekend, I'll start putting the old notes back up too, because our little conversations are also part of the story to me.

For my most recent reviews:

Sweet Black Bird, how your feedback fills that hungry place in this writer's heart. I am so glad you're finding the Romantica chapters satisfying. I do plan to reveal Misaki's reasons for refusing Usami in the future. I hope over time to continue to restore poor Misaki as well. And as one who is definitely not too comfortable around tiny ones myself... though they are cute from a distance... mostly... I am glad you find Aki an agreeable OC. Glad you like the cover too. It was fun to do. You know the book in Nowaki's hand... That's an actual cover for a book for guys. Heh. I will try to get back to my own review marathon this weekend. The week has been crazy.

FujoshiNinjaNumber6, I agree, Nowaki does need a hug, but he's not going to get one right away. That's why this is listed under "drama." I am so mean.

Ashley Tangerine, your reviews always please me. I am glad that you too find Aki cute. Thank you for mentioning the details in this piece. They are important to me. Though I sometimes think I get a little lost in them I want the scenes to be able to be clearly imagined. Hope to keep hearing from you and I am pleased that you're braving Days without Sun. Keep plugging away on your studies. I'm also still looking at that piece of yours.

Asdfghjklove, so wonderful to hear from you and I am glad you're enjoying your return trip. I have always valued your thoughtful feedback and I am delighted to have you along again. I do hope you'll start writing again too yourself. I was enjoying your work. Your comments on the details too, makes me very happy. "The devil is in the details as they say," so that's where I lurk.

X, My Dear One, thank you so much for chiming in. Again so glad to hear from my favorite readers and know you are with me. Thank you for the proofreading by the way. So helpful, even after the original post goes up. Hope you're feeling better!