Okay, so. Life got stressful and then TGCF and MDZS like...ate my brain. A lot. Work got very intense for a bit and all my creativity and everything else just kinda...took a really long hiatus. I am so SORRY for the wait. I'm still thinking of these stories, I promise. I'm just super slow at updating. If you're still reading, thank you so much for your patience. Thank you so much for your encouragement. I'm super bad at responding to comments but know that comments make my life and always encourage me to write more. This is, as usual, fast and dirty. I generally spit words out, scan them quickly once, and then post and run away, because if I look at any of this for too long I inevitably talk myself out of sharing it.

Thanks for being awesome guys. Here's some Touma awkwardness and Touma/Mako fluff.

Chapter 8

Touma opened his apartment door, surprised when the pleasant scent of sweet citrus and – was that meatloaf? – hit his nose. The combination was odd, to be sure, but more in ithe unexpectedness of it than anything else.

He blinked, keys clattering clumsily in their bowl when numb fingers dropped them, but he barely noticed the cacophony. He was too busy taking in his space, stunned into silence. This wasn't –

Was he in the right apartment? He stared at the keys in their familiar bowl for a moment, but even that sight didn't convince him. Not entirely.

Bewildered, he leaned back, opening his door wider and carefully read the brass figures nailed in the top center. 16 stared back at him, exactly as it should have. He poked his head further into the hallway and looked around. Yes, there were doors 14 on his left – Makoto's apartment – and 18 on his right. 17 and 15 stood across the hall, exactly where he expected them to be.

Everything outside of his apartment made sense.

It was the inside that made no sense.

He pulled himself back into his space slowly, and closed the door behind him absently. Then he leaned against it and tried to make sense of what he was looking at.

It was clean. But clean wasn't even the right word.

He was pretty sure this space hadn't been this clean since the building had been constructed. Back in the 50s.

The hardwood of his floors gleamed, well-tended with whatever it was people treated wood floors with. All his rugs – had he always had that many rugs? – were crisp and plush and bright.

Toeing his shoes off in an entry where the concrete of the genkan was so polished it actually gleamed, he shoved his feet clumsily into the house slippers that were waiting up on the wood for him. His own, well worn slippers that somehow looked as though he'd just purchased them.

Should…should he feel embarrassed? He was more feeling alarmed. Had something happened? Where was Makoto?

Was the enemy sneaking into his space and cleaning now? It probably wasn't the weirdest thing that'd ever happened to him.

Idly, Touma ran his fingers over an end table as he wandered by, alarmed to see not a speck of anything come away from their surfaces. His lamp shades were bright white, and the light in the space in general was somehow…lighter.

He squinted up at the nearest lighting fixture hanging from the ceiling with suspicion. Not a speck of dirt. Carefully, he set his leather bag down in the kitchen next to his table. There was a perfectly cooked meatloaf resting on the counter beneath what looked like a glass dome that he often saw over cakes and pastries at bakeries.

His battered little rice cooker was steaming cheerfully beside it, the tiny orange light on its front set to Keep Warm. Actually, where had that even come from? Touma was pretty sure he hadn't seen it in years.

His teapot sat nearby, more steam drifting gently from its spout, two mismatched teacups upturned beside it, but all of it clean. Uncomfortable, he cleared his throat, readying himself to call for his recovering neighbor when the door to his bathroom flew open and she emerged from within, a puff of fragrant steam following after her.

And Touma's brain went stupid for a minute.

She was rosy cheeked, skin gleaming, the ends of her hair still damp. And he was trying, really hard, not to picture her taking a bath in his bathtub – naked and soaking in the water, eyes closed, a pleased smile on her face.

He failed, but he tried.

She saw him and jumped a little. And then her face lit up in a dazzling smile.

"Oh! Touma! Welcome home, I didn't even know you were back you were so quiet! How was work?"

Fuck.

He was so dead.

"Ah…ah it was good?" he said lamely. She raised an eyebrow at him.

"Are you asking me or telling me? Everything ok Touma?" She moved past him as she spoke and began checking the food and tea over in the kitchen. A waft of warm, sugared vanilla mixed with rose hit his nose as she did, and he very nearly floated in her wake.

He was helpless. He couldn't even fight his own reaction to her anymore. Offering to take care of her had been one of the dumbest things he'd ever done. If he hadn't been able to stop thinking about her when he barely saw her, what had made him think having her in his space all the time wasn't going to destroy his sanity?

He already knew, of course. He hadn't been thinking about anything except wanting her safely under his protection. And that hadn't changed.

So.

He might as well embrace his new normal. Which, apparently, came with dinner and a clean apartment.

"…Touma?" Touma snapped back to himself, flushing with embarrassment. Makoto was so close he nearly flinched back. Years of battle stayed his reaction. Feeling awkward, he cleared his throat and focused on the table next to them.

"Sorry, sorry. I was just a little distracted. Did you…like…clean? And cook?" he asked, and then mentally kicked himself for it. Because of course she'd done that. Anyone who had eyes and a decent nose could tell that.

Her cheeks flushed a charming shade of pink and how, how in the hell could he keep falling deeper when she wasn't even doing anything?

"Ah…hahahaha, I kinda did, sorry. I was bored, and I'm really bad at sitting still. I wandered next door but I just kept getting in the way of the construction crew, and then the landlord was there, and did you know his insurance covers this? I guess they call it "acts of god", which is kinda hilarious, right? So anyway, I don't have to be in debt for the rest of my life, which is super, and you know it probably helped that I look a little banged up right? Anyway, I came back over here and was just staring at the walls, and you've been so totally nice to me looking after me, and like, I had some mincemeat in the fridge that was going to go bad anyways, so I just kinda…did some stuff."

She was rambling. It was fucking adorable. How was she not married yet?

The rambling trailed off and she stood rubbing at the back of her neck and ducking her head to look at the floor.

It was cute, but Touma wasn't sure what she had to be embarrassed about. If anything, the embarrassment belonged to him, for having the sort of unholy mess around that probably no sane human could tolerate for longer than a few minutes.

"I'm sorry the place was such a mess. Was there…uh… anything I should be embarrassed about?" he tried tentatively. If she'd encountered something awkward, he wanted to get that right out in the open. No sense letting it fester to bite him in the ass later.

Her head snapped up, and she blinked wide green eyes at him. "Huh? Oh, no way! I'm just sorry I got a little carried away is all. I kinda can't help myself sometimes." She gave him a small, wobbly little smile.

To hell with it.

"I won't make a big deal about it if you won't. I don't want to hear about my dirty laundry though, 'kay? Once a month is perfectly fine for washing clothes," he tried, striving to make things light hearted and more natural.

She snorted, the embarrassment leaving her face almost immediately. "Men," she muttered under her breath with an eye roll. Louder she said "Deal. I won't make it awkward if you don't"

Touma nodded, relieved he'd somehow navigated that minefield of treacherous male/female interaction with moderate levels of success. Then his brow furrowed as something occurred to him.

"Uh hey, aren't you supposed to be resting? Your friends are going to murder me if they find out I've got you laid up here cleaning my place and cooking five star meals," he hesitated, a wave of panic sweeping up along his spine. What in the hell had he been thinking?! What had she been thinking?!

She rolled her eyes again. "Please. I'd like to see any of them try," she snarked, crossing her arms over her chest and jutting out a hip. She was not trying to be seductive, he knew that, he did. But it just…drew attention to the graceful lines of her body and…

Touma snapped his attention back to her face before his eyes could wander past her neck. Where, thankfully, he could see fresh bandages wrapped neatly under her shirt. Grateful for the change of focus, he appraised them and felt his anxiety ease when he realized that she'd competently changed them on her own without any apparent struggle.

"Still. This doesn't seem particularly restful…" he hedged, guilt now joining the already confusing cocktail of emotions he'd been trying to sort out since he'd first walked in. She gave him a sweet smile then, and he forgot about those pesky, confusing emotions and simply basked in the expression.

"Actually, giving me something like this to focus on was the best way for me to feel rested. I'm not one of those people who can lay around all day, you know? I go crazy sitting still. This was perfect," she said firmly, reassuring him.

Well. That was kind of a strange way to relax, but he'd definitely encountered weirder things in his life, and she seemed honestly genuine about it, so Touma kicked his guilt and anxiety to the curb and gave her his full attention.

"Okay, well, if anything changes, just tell me all right? I definitely don't want to prevent you from getting rest."

She nodded at him, promised him she would, and then directed him to sit at the table with the visible excitement of a kindergartener. Touma sat gamely, but his amusement faded when she brought dishes with their dinner in and set them down.

She'd plated dinner like a professional chef.

Like…art.

His meat and vegetables and sauce were all arranged in an asymmetrically pleasing way, with graceful lines and carefully placed drizzles.

Touma hadn't even known a person could make art with food. Admittedly, art wasn't really his thing. He liked it, sure. It was pleasing to look at. But he'd never been to any of the restaurants where they dished up dinner so it looked like a masterpiece.

He looked up from his plate with awe to find her sitting across from him watching him with wide-eyed nervous tension.

He almost immediately came down with a bad case of stage fright. What if he took a bite and had a weird reaction? What if all the art was hiding food that tasted awful?

Still. She'd worked hard for all this, right?

Touma manned up and took a large, bold bite.

Immediately a burst of amazing, savory goodness exploded across his tongue.

Shit.

Shit.

It wasn't a fluke. She was amazing. She was perfect.

She'd been in his life full time for less than a week and he already couldn't imagine it without her.

He was so very, very fucked.

But it was really hard to care about that right now. Especially when she smiled with sunbeam brightness at his praise over the meal, eagerly watching him eat, joy lighting her expression as he sincerely, visibly enjoyed her cooking.

Touma Hashiba was an idiot. An idiot that'd fallen in love with Makoto Kino.

Over a meatloaf.