Work Text:
I was lying down on the couch in our living room, mindlessly scrolling through my Instagram feed while snacking on some chocolate-covered cranberries. I had gotten all my chores and errands done for the day, and I was waiting for Jojo to get home. He usually isn’t at work this long, I thought to myself. Hopefully, it’s only a difficult client and nothing too serious.
As soon as I finished my thought, the door opened with a slam. “Babe, I’m home!” Jojo’s voice echoed down the hallway to me, and I heard him loudly moving around as well.
I got up from my position, walked into the hallway, and waved to make myself known. “I’m over here!” I called, and I walked towards him once he got his coat and shoes off. “How was work today? You got here later than usual.”
He sighed and groaned at the same time, dragging his flesh hand down his face. “Ugh, don’t even get me started. First, I had a client that was there way past closing time, and then traffic was absolute rubbish! So it took me three times longer than normal to get home.” He looked down at me and loosened his body. “But I’m glad I’m finally home with you, Honeybee.” He kissed me on the cheek and gave me a hug as well.
“Aww, same here.” I let go and tapped him on the back. “Is there anything I can do to help you relax more? I didn’t really have plans for dinner besides takeout since you came home so late, but we can do something in the meantime!”
“Oh, and what’s that exactly?” He leaned up against the wall with his arm to try and block my way, but I easily ducked under it. “If I knew you had something for us planned, then I would’ve gotten out of there sooner than later~”
I reached up and lightly slapped him in the face as I passed by. “Well, it’s definitely not what you’re thinking of, as evidenced by your tone of voice.” I walk into the kitchen and grab the takeout menus from next to the fridge. “I found my old Wii as I was cleaning out the closet,” I yelled to him. “It should still work, though I’m not sure how many games I have left.” I flipped through the brochures, looking for a place that was open and had decent food. Finally, I peek my head into the hallway and yell to Jojo again. “Is Mother Cluckers ok?”
“Ooh, sounds good! Lemme take a look!” He rushed in and grabbed the menu from my hands, looking back and forth at the options. “The 4 piece chicken, with the biscuit, potato wedges, and corn!”
I wrote it down on a notepad as he was saying it. “Ok, I’ll get the crab cake po’boy again with some mashed potatoes. Do you want my sauce?” He shook his head no, and I wrote “no sauce” on the paper. “Ok, I’ll place the order, and you can get comfortable, then I’ll be right out to set up the system.” He gave me a thumbs-up as I ordered our meals through DoorDash. Jojo usually paid for our meals, but considering the day he had, I thought I’d be nice and pay this time. I walked into our room, grabbed the box containing the Wii and everything that came with it, brought it into the living room, and placed it on the coffee table. “The manual should still be in here. Hopefully, it’ll still work fine now that more than a decade has passed.” I find the manual and begin to flip through it, looking for the section about how to connect it to the TV. Finally, I found the page I needed and showed it to Jojo. “Can you try and find these in the box? I’ll make sure that we have the right inputs in our TV.”
“Mhm! Hopefully, we still have them!” He let out a hearty laugh, and I smiled in return. Then, a few moments later, he stuck his head out of the box. “I found them!”
“Oh great! Thank you, sweetheart!” I kissed him on the cheek and took the cords from him. I carefully looked at the TV to make sure the inputs were correct, and I took the Wii and base out from the top of the box, put them together, and plugged the wires in. I then connected it all to the TV. I handed the guide to Jojo again, flipping through a couple of pages. “I think these are the last couple things we need to hook up, and then we’re all done with the cords!” He got them out quickly and handed them to me. I hooked everything up and smiled with satisfaction.
I heard Jojo clear his throat from behind me, and he held the remotes up. “Forgetting these?” he smirked, but not in a mean way. I slapped my face with my hand, and he passed them to me. “The batteries are probably dead. Let me go grab some new ones.”
He left the room, and I removed the old batteries, which I promptly threw in the trash. There’s no saving these, I thought to myself. Soon he returned with the batteries, and I popped them in. “Ok, we’re all set! Now to see what games we have.”
We started to go through the box and made two piles: one for games we like and another one for games to donate. After a few minutes of searching, Jojo held a game in front of my face. It read “Mario Kart Wii” on the cover, with Luigi and Mario as well. “Man, I haven’t played Mario Kart in forever! The last time it had to have been Double Dash!”
I laughed and took the box from him. “It’s been a while for me too. This one was always my favorite!” I opened it to make sure the disc was still in there, which it was. “Wanna give it a try?”
“Oh, brilliant! I’ll let you choose the track since you know it better than I do!” He let out another laugh, and I put the disc in and booted up the game.
I passed Jojo his remote and opened the profile that was left in the game data. “I think VS Race is what we want unless you wanna do a team battle.”
“I want to go head-to-head. Whoever wins has to do the dishes for the next week!” He held out his hand, and I shook in in agreement. “Now, let’s get this started!”
We got to the character select stage, and I chose Princess Peach with the Super Blooper, and Jojo chose Mario with the Zip Zip. After that, it was time for choosing the first track, and I went with Coconut Mall. I have this one in the bag, I thought. I know this track by heart. “Ready?” Jojo nodded in response, focused on the TV screen.
The countdown had begun, and Jojo already had his thumb down on the 2 button. When it got down to 1, I began to accelerate, and I sped off while Jojo’s kart malfunctioned. He started to sputter, confused as to why he was stuck in place for a moment. “What the hell was that? I was pressing the button!”
I chuckled in response. “That’s one of the tricks! You have to wait until it gets to 1 to press the button!” I was making my way up the escalators, but Jojo was starting to catch up. I got the lead again when I jumped over the fountain and got a green shell, which I tossed in his direction.
“Oh, come on! Can’t you give me a break?” He let one hand off of the controller to give me a playful shove. He came back, though, and proceeded to speed way ahead of me with the help of a Golden Mushroom. Soon enough, lap 1 was over, and we moved into lap 2. Jojo’s golden mushroom ran out, and I sped ahead. He caught up with me, but I was able to get ahead by going through the metal tunnel and over the arches while he was stuck to the ground.
Lap 3 started, and we were neck and neck the whole time. C’mon, I gotta win this. I don’t wanna be doing the dishes all by myself for an entire week. One of us would speed up, and then the other would catch up and get ahead. We were maneuvering through the cars near the end when the doorbell rang.
Jojo’s eyes lit up, and he forgot what we were doing instead of rushing to the door to get our dinner. “Nosh’s here!”
I took advantage of the situation and acted as if the race had already ended. “Ok, honey, you can place it on the table!” I yelled out to him. As he did that, I rushed to finish the race, while Jojo’s kart sat there and went from second to third, all the way down to twelfth. Just as I passed the finish line, Jojo walked in and saw the screen and then his controller on the ground. “Oh no! Did I seriously forget we were racing?” He looked at the grin on my face. “Wait, does that mean I have to do the dishes? But that can’t be fair!”
I shrugged. “A deal’s a deal, Jojo. I never said anything about when dinner arrives.” I got up and kissed him. “I’ll make it easy on you and break out the paper plates and plastic silverware if you want.”
“Oh, alright,” he sighed. “But we need a rematch once we’re done!”
I chuckled. “Sure thing, babe.”