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It's a peaceful Sunday until Subaru knocks down the door. Metaphorically, he means.
"Hokke, Hokke!" He says, excited and panting, with a large cloth bag bulging suspiciously in his hand. He runs over to their shared kitchen in their shared apartment, and dumps the contents of the bag onto the counter.
It's…Hokuto has no idea what he was expecting.
It's been about two weeks since they moved to their new apartment, a decently-sized room in a decently-sized apartment in a decently-sized city once they were done with Yumenosaki Private Academy, raring to start with their careers as dazzling idols.
"We're going to be idols, Hokke!" Subaru says, excitedly, even as they struggle to carry a sofa into their new living room. It’s a lovely black sofa that’s comfortable and really heavy and it’s digging into his skin. There’ll be permanent marks once they’re finished.
He’s dying. The act of carrying the sofa is going to be the death of him. It’s squashing his soul. It’s going to turn his blood sour. This is no way to go.
Subaru, however, doesn’t see his Very Important Internal Crisis over the act of placing heavy furniture and continues speaking. "Glittery, sparkling idols! Hokuto aren't you excited?" They put down the sofa and Subaru rushes over to clasp his hands around Hokuto's (and he ignores how his blood rushes to his face, warm and prickly and uncomfortable).
Subaru doesn't talk about his other reason for wanting to be an idol. It's kept hidden under layers of warmth and smiles and energy and his refusal to talk about That Akehoshi. It's his father on the big stage, bright and famed and loved and then scorned and then cast away, left to rot behind bars in scandal and filth. It's his father's spark snuffed out by the dark of a prison cell.
They don't talk about that today. Subaru drags him to the sofa and sits them both down.
"I want to buy something shiny for our living room! It's very dull right now, so something that looks nice should do!" His eyes sparkle as he says that.
"Like your eyes?" Hokuto blurts out, and almost instantly regrets it. He doesn't know why, but something inside him just feels…strange. He doesn't know how to put it, but saying that makes him feel something. There's butterflies in his stomach. Carrying the couch has weakened his immune system severely. He's going to get a fever from all of this. He feels like he has a fever too, with his warm face and the way his hands slacken in Subaru's.
His hands.
Subaru is still holding them as he looks at him with this vaguely peculiar expression, head cocked to one side. He looks like he's about to say something, with the way he's opening his mouth up to form words, and then shuts up.
"That's a bit weird, Hokke." He says, eventually. "Don't gouge out my eyes and put them on the table as decor, please!"
They laugh over that. Subaru takes his hands away.
"I'll miss my grandmother's Konpeito." Hokuto sighs. "Even if she sends it over now, it'll take a long time for it to reach here." He slumps into the sofa, and Subaru pats him on the shoulder in a sympathetic way.
…It's a big bag of sugar, a small packet of fennel and a skillet.
"...Akehoshi," Hokuto starts, "Why did you buy this?"
Please don't hit me with the skillet because I accidentally put your shirt with the LEDs on it into the washing machine, he prays silently. Please don't beat me over the head with it and turn this place into a murder scene. I spent so much time looking for the perfect rug. Bloodstains would never go well with it.
Subaru would never do that, but it never hurt to assume the worst. He really liked that shirt.
“To make Konpeito, of course!”he says, in a cheery tone. “Didn't you say you wanted to eat Konpeito a few days ago?”
He nods. “I did, yes, but aren't you afraid that we’ll burn down the kitchen? We just installed it a few days ago. I'll hate to see it go up in flames.” They're also incredibly lacking in the culinary department. Why they ever installed a kitchen he’ll never know. He chalks it down to just feeling right.
Subaru strikes a very cute pose and smiles. “It’s the age of technology, Hokke! There’s nothing YouTube can't teach!”
So 2 hours later, they're both staring confuddled at a YouTube tutorial. It's a video of a brown-haired lady with a bright smile and crows feet at the edges of her eyes teaching about how to make Konpeito at home. While her Konpeito looks delicious and delectable and like something that fell out of Heaven, Subaru and his Konpeito look like, for lack of a better term, shit. There's molten sugar on the countertop and sugar on his face and sugar in Subaru’s hair.
It's, quite frankly, a fucking mess.
Subaru sighs as he tries, again, to brush off the remaining sugar off his hair. The tip of his hair’s a bit singed from a splash of molten sugar managing to get into it.
“Maybe making Konpeito isn't that easy…” he bemoans. “How does your grandmother do it?”
Hokuto doesn't answer, too focused on drizzling the molten sugar onto the fennel. Apparently, Konpeito is made by covering small seeds or rock sugar with a mixture of boiled sugar, water and prayers, if what YouTube lady says is to be believed.
For their sake, it better be. He nearly triggered their smoke alarm an hour into making it.
He takes up the spoon and drizzles more molten sugar onto the “konpeito”. It looks closer to a small misshapen sugar cube instead of what he's used to, but that's okay. It irks him though, that he can't quite get it right. He dislikes things not being perfect, comes with the perfectionist packages and all.
Then it happens.
While he's all distracted riding The Train of Thought, he drizzles the sugar onto his hand.
Here’s one thing: molten sugar is really, really fucking hot. Molten sugar is Lava, everyone. It's burning through his skin and getting into his bloodstream and mixing with his blood cells. Forget about diabetes from the Konpeito, the sugar is going to kill him first.
He's not that calm out of his head though. There are hot tears forming at the edges of his eyes threatening to fall, and he's clutching his hand so damn hard. It hurts so goddamn bad. His eyesight’s blurry from the tears and his hand is burning up and-
And he feels another hand on his, slowly leading him away to what he presumes is the sink from the trickling of water he hears. One of the hands helps him run his hand under cold water from the faucet while the other rubs away his tears.
It's Subaru, worry etched in his features, looking at Hokuto like he's such a fragile thing.
Of course it's Subaru, He scolds himself internally. If it wasn't I would be calling the cops.
“Are you okay? Does it hurt?” Subaru frets, and wrings his hands. “I mean, it's a bit of a stupid question but...” Hokuto shakes his head like he's a dog fresh out of the bath. He looks down at his hand: there's a pretty nasty burn on his skin now, red and angry and unfriendly. He touches it, despite his better judgment, and recoils in pain.
Ow. That was…pretty stupid of him to do. His ancestors are frowning upon him. Subaru is, too, with the way his nose is all scrunched up and his smile becomes a little tighter.
“I'll get the gauze and antibiotic ointment,” he sighs. “Just stay here, alright?”
Subaru returns about 4 minutes later (I forgot where we put the medical supplies, he says, a bashful expression on his face) and starts slathering the ointment onto his burn. It feels cool and nice, but it does hurt a ton: he makes a soft strangled noise from the light stinging pain as Subaru rubs in the ointment. He rubs circles into the wrist of Hokuto’s other hand.
It’s very nice like this, with Subaru so close to him that they're sharing body heat, with his hand on his and it feels so domestic and cozy and so within his reach. He'll never feel like this with his family, on the very rare occasions they ever come around on.
He’s closer to Hokuto now, so, so close that he can feel his breath on his face. His brain might shortcircuit. It probably already has: there are stray sparks behind his eyes and electricity coursing through his veins and his heart is jackhammering in his ribcage and his face feels so so hot.
As he's having his Incredibly Gay Mental Breakdown, Subaru’s done dressing his hand. It’s wrapped neatly and he’d even placed a small star sticker onto it.
“Is that better, Hokuto?” he asks, gently, and then…
One of the stray sparks from his short circuited brain must've got out of his head, because suddenly they're kissing, soft and gentle and oh my god we're kissing what the hell what the hell.
His brain is decidedly not functioning anymore. Probably never will: if that was a short circuit, his brain has now imploded. Hokuto is no more.
Subaru's arm is around his waist. Hokuto's hair is grasping onto his hair like it's a lifeline. Oh yeah, he's definitely non-functional now.
They pull apart after a while, both of them panting and semi-dazed. The sugar that was stuck on his face is now on Subaru's. Brain still not thinking clearly, he licks it off.
"Ew Hokke, that's gross," He whines playfully, and they both laugh.
It's a good day, despite not getting to make any proper Konpeito.
(About 5 days later, they attempt to make Konpeito again, and Hokuto teasingly asks his boyfriend if they'll kiss again if he burns his hand.
Subaru swats his hand away and giggles.)