The sign outside Rakuen said "closed", and Soushi frowned a little, wondering if he was too late. The lights inside were still on though, and there was no harm checking if Kazuki was still in. He tried to door, finding it to be open. "Kazuki?" He called, and a hint of a smile rose to his lips as he saw Kazuki organizing dishes behind the counter. "Thought you'd still be here. Working late?"

"I've got some cleaning to do," Kazuki replied. "And you're one to be talking about working later, you know," he continued in a reprimanding tone. "I asked Maya to call Alvis earlier, but she said you weren't picking up the phone, so she called Kenji instead and had him check on you." Soushi sighed; it wasn't like he had any excuses to offer at this point, when the only reason why he had left Alvis in the first place was because Kenji had showed up, told him it was past dinnertime and that Kazuki and Maya were worried. "You've been working overtime again," Kazuki went on. "What have we told you about getting too distracted by your research?"

This was starting to feel like he was a husband coming home late from work only to get a lecture from his wife, and Soushi lowered his head. He seriously had no way of defending himself, considering he had still stayed in Alvis for another half an hour after Kenji's visit. "Sorry to worry you. I did come see you, didn't I?" He pointed out. "If you hadn't been here, I would've gone over to your house. I..." He took a deep breath and looked at Kazuki. "I did want to see you. Also, I learned that Commander Makabe is staying in Alvis tonight," he added. "Perhaps we could go home together."

Kazuki didn't look all that impressed at first, but it passed quick, and he even looked a little embarrassed of the last implication of Soushi's words. "Ah... All right," he consented. "I just need to finish cleaning. Although I bet you haven't even had dinner yet. Or have you?"

"No," Soushi had to admit. It was only now that he even realized he was hungry. "I... forgot." Kazuki gave him another scolding look, and Soushi, again feeling like a husband getting lectured, stepped closer and took a seat by the counter. "It slipped my mind, all right? You know how I get if I come across something that catches my attention. You don't happen to have any leftovers?"

That reprimanding look on Kazuki's face stayed for another moment, but then his expression turned thoughtful. "Hmm, well," he pondered, looking around. "We had quite a busy night, unfortunately, to the point where we ran out of some things. Let me see." He checked for a few things around the kitchen before turning to look at Soushi again. "There's still rice left, and some leftover vegetables. I could stick them into the rice cooker to have something to go with the rice, if that's okay with you?" He took a knife and started going through the vegetables.

Soushi relaxed and smiled. "Considering my other option at this point is vending machine food, and if I were to take that route, you'd scold me even more?" Kazuki shot a glare at him for even bringing it up, and Soushi shrugged. "Seriously, anything's fine if you're making it."

Such a simple compliment, but he got Kazuki to smile. Rice and vegetables sounded quite a lot better than vending machine food, though, and he crossed his arms on the table and leaned on his hands, smiling as he watched Kazuki start preparing the food. Somehow, this brought back memories of old days...

They had forgotten about the pass of time while heading home from school, taking a detour to play in the forest. Now it was almost dinnertime all of a sudden and they still had homework to do, which had led to Kazuki suggesting that they'd head to his house since it was closer. "And you can call home and let your father know where you are," Kazuki continued his idea. "Or we could even say that there's lot of homework to do and I could use the help, so maybe you could sleep over?"

A valid, but somewhat questionable suggestion from Kazuki, seeing Soushi knew that his friend never made things up. "Wait, you needed help with the homework we were given?" He asked. "You should've told me before so we could've headed back earlier."

"I, ahh," Kazuki looked almost embarrassed. "Please? I really could use some pointers on that stuff. I kind of forgot earlier and now it's getting late and, uhh." He gave Soushi a pleading look. "So err. How about it?"

"Don't be silly, of course I'll help," Soushi replied. "Besides," he added with an excited smile. "Staying over would be cool! Well, if we just can get my father to agree. We just need to come up with some excuse to your father about why we're so late. Maybe uhhh..." He went thoughtful. "We went to the forest to look for plant samples but forgot what we were looking? Maybe not, that sounds too obvious..."

They were almost to the Makabe house at that point, and Kazuki looked at the door then at Soushi. "I bet my dad will understand if I really stress the 'need help with homework' part," he said. "I hope so, anyway. Dad's not really good at helping me himself, but he's got to know that you're really smart, so..." He took a deep breath and stepped through the door. "I'm home- Uhhh."

Two men turned to look at them enter, and Soushi, stepping in after Kazuki, caught in on what was going on. Fumihiko Makabe sat a few feet away with a pile of clay under his hands, and Soushi's father - Kozo Minashiro - gave the two of them a curious look. "Welcome home," Fumihiko replied. "Where have you been all evening, anyway? Did school activities really take this late? And," he nodded towards Soushi before concentrating on the pot he was making. "Well, guess we know where your son has been," he continued.

The look on Kozo Minashiro's face didn't change. "I haven't actually had the time to go home tonight to notice him missing, but it kind of figures. Where have the two of you been off to?"

"The forest! There were, uhhh. Plants! We were thinking off collecting some but had not tools and... And I asked Soushi to come over," Kazuki went on with his rather pathetic explanation attempt. "I really really need help with studying and Soushi's better at this stuff than I am. And I kind of already asked Soushi if he'd stay over and, uh." He looked at his father then at Kozo Minashiro with a determined look on his face. "Can he? Please?"

Soushi looked a little nervous. "If this isn't too much trouble, Mr. Makabe? I guess we could look over this during the weekend too but..."

"Fine with me," Fumihiko said, his attention still on the pot under his hands. "If you don't mind, that is. On that note, maybe you could just stay for dinner," he suggested to Kozo. "We still need to talk about... Ah, that one thing."

Kozo nodded. "Well, seeing your father's fine with this, Kazuki. Not like I have a reason to refuse." Soushi and Kazuki looked at each other, smiling and feeling relieved, although neither of them really dared to start celebrating yet. "So you boys just go on, go do your homework and whatever," he continued, looking a little more serious. "We've got some adult business to discuss here, and this might take a while. Guess I'll take you up on that dinner offer, then?"

The older Makabe looked up from his pottery work. "Sounds like a plan. But speaking of dinner," he said, turning to Kazuki and Soushi. "Nothing's been prepared yet. Guess I'd better order something. What would you boys like?"

"Nah, you don't have to do that, dad. I'll make something!" Kazuki offered. "We have some food here, don't we?" Fumihiko looked a little hesitant at that, but Kazuki ignored his father. "Come on, Soushi, let's go see what we have!" Soushi looked at him, a little surprised, but he followed after Kazuki as he headed upstairs.

"Kazuki's the one who cooks here now?" They heard Kozo questioning behind them, and Soushi had to admit he was about as surprised as his father. The two of them went to drop off their school bags in Kazuki's room, and Soushi looked at his friend, starting to feel impressed.

"You're the one who cooks?" He asked. "I think you've might've mentioned that at some point, but that's really something. I don't know how to make food."

Kazuki gave him a proud smile. "Yup! Well, it's more like," he then admitted. "It's just that dad doesn't really cook that often, and honestly? He kind of sucks at it. But someone has to cook unless we eat out or get takeaway every day," he explained as they walked over to the kitchen. "It works out, but it gets boring after a while, so I've learned to make a few things! Dr. Tomi taught me some. It's not really that hard to cook rice, anyway. You just rinse it, put it in the rice cooker and that does most of the work for you. We just need to... Hmmm..."

He looked around the kitchen for a moment, and Soushi just stared at him, fascinated. "You okay with rice and vegetables?" Kazuki asked after he picked up a few things. "Just figures that dad hasn't been stocking up with groceries again. I should probably start doing all the grocery shopping too, since he's so bad at it."

Soushi nodded. "Mm-hmm. Sounds good to me. Can I watch you make it? I really don't know anything about cooking."

"Sure! I'll try to explain. First you take..." Kazuki took a measuring cup and took some rice in it. "Uh, there's dad, your dad, and both of us, so I need..." He continued his measuring for a moment. "Okay, this much should do? Not sure, I'm just going by 'double the amount I usually make' since that should be it. But as I said, now I need to rinse it and..." He went on with what he was doing, and Soushi watched his every move.

Not that he actually had much idea how the rice cooker worked either, but Kazuki seemed to know exactly what he was doing, adding the rice and some water in the thing then turned the rice cooker on. "Wanna help me with the vegetables?" He asked, and Soushi nodded as a reply. Kazuki moved the things over to the table and sorted them out. "I need to cut these," he explained. "They cook faster than the rice, so I'm going to add them later. We need to prepare them, anyway."

The cutting board itself was somewhat too high for someone of Kazuki's size, but he didn't seem bothered as he dragged a small kitchen stool over and stood on it, then picked up a knife. "Would you wash those a little? Just rinse them in the sink," he requested as he set to work on chopping things.

"You really do know what you're doing," Soushi said with admiration in his voice as he did his best to do what Kazuki had asked. "And if you end up having to go grocery shopping, I want to come too. I'll help you!"

Kazuki nodded as a reply, looking happy about the offer.

The set-up took some time; they then went to Kazuki's room to look at their homework for a while before Kazuki went back to the kitchen to deal with the vegetables. After that, they went to get an extra futon for Soushi to sleep on and put it in Kazuki's room.

"And done!" Kazuki said as they went to check on the food. Satisfied with the results, he made a quick stop by the stairs. "Dinner's almost ready!" He called to the adults then returned to the kitchen. "Want to help me set up the table, Soushi?"

Everything was done a short while later, and Soushi watched in awe as Kazuki brought over the food like a professional. Kozo and Fumihiko showed up after a moment, and they all sat down to eat. Simple rice and vegetables it maybe was, but Soushi took another bite and decided it was the best rice he'd ever had.

His father seemed to agree. "Not bad at all," Kozo said after eating another piece of a vegetable and some rice to go with it. "Your son's got talent. So this might be just rice, but for someone his age, he's good. You'd think anyone can cook rice, but this..." He paused to eat a little more. "Got to say this is quite delicious, Kazuki."

Fumihiko nodded. "Hate to admit, but he's better at it than I am by now." He laughed a little. "I feel bad making him do things like this, but then again, Kazuki doesn't seem to mind. Maybe he's just better at housekeeping than I ever was?" He looked at his son, who just smiled. "Seems to be happy about doing it, even, so who am I to say? If he wants to cook, by all means. Saves me the trouble of listening him complain about my cooking quality."

"You should consider remarrying, so Kazuki doesn't have to cook for you," Soushi bluntly stated.

Fumihiko coughed a few times then sighed. Kozo was already giving his son a stern look, but before he managed to start a lecture, the older Makabe grabbed a glass of water, drank some and turned to Soushi. "Ah, well you see. You kids wouldn't understand," he said with a serious expression on his face. "It's kind of too early for me to consider something like that. Maybe one day. And as I said, Kazuki seems to like doing this."

"Yeah, but you really should consider," Soushi continued with a dead serious look, completely ignoring the glare his father was giving him. "If Kazuki can make something like this, then when I get older, I'm marrying Kazuki so he can cook for me. So you're going to have to find someone else to cook for you, Mr. Makabe! Right, Kazuki?"

Kazuki blinked, looking confused for a second, then smiled and nodded. "Okay!"

Their fathers looked at each other then just burst out laughing, and Soushi and Kazuki stared at them for a good while until they finally managed to calm themselves. "Well," Fumihiko commented. "Doesn't your son like to plan his life pretty far out, huh, Minashiro?" He fought to suppress another laughing fit then took a deep breath. "But Soushi," he added. "Wouldn't you rather marry a girl? Or how about you, Kazuki?"

"Um, nope. Girls are weird," Kazuki replied with a straight face. "Besides they're expensive. I heard you tell that to Mr. Mizoguchi that one time when you were drinking!" Kozo was suppressing another laughing fit at this point, and Fumihiko rolled his eyes. "Hey I know," Kazuki added after a moment. "Why don't you ask him to cook for you? He promised he'd teach me to make that curry he brought over that time, too. If I use mom's recipe and learn to make it, I bet I could make great curry!"

Kozo shook his head, finally managing a serious face. "Damn it, you kids," he said. "The things that go through their silly heads." He ate a bit more rice then looked at Soushi. "Listen, son. I think you're seriously a little too young to decide who you're going to marry."

"No I'm not. And you can marry a boy, can't you?" Soushi questioned, his voice still absolutely matter-of-fact. "I read that in a book. And I don't want anyone else to cook for me, so it's got to be Kazuki, then!"

The two men seemed to have trouble not laughing again. "Damn kids, indeed," Fumihiko cheerfully commented. "Oh fine, Soushi, you can marry Kazuki. If you both actually still happen to think that way in some ten years from now, that is." He grinned and gave them both an odd look. "It just might be that you won't think girls are so weird all of a sudden when you hit that age, is what I'm saying."

He looked at Kozo, who nodded with this weird smile on his face, and Soushi couldn't figure out why their fathers found it all so funny.

"Soushi?"

Soushi raised his head and opened his eyes, snapping out of his deep thoughts. "Hm? Oh. You're done," he said, noticing Kazuki setting down a bowl of steaming rice and vegetables in front of him. "Thank you for bothering at this hour."

"No problem at all. I need to clean around here some more anyway. And hey, this way you'll help take care of the remaining rice, so it's all good. Besides you said it yourself," Kazuki added as he handed over a pair of chopsticks. "Vending machines." His voice took that disapproving tone again. "You might think that counts as food, but taking the nutritional values into question, absolutely not. And you should eat fresh meals."

"Mmm," Soushi muttered, picking up some rice and eating it. Leftovers or not, the rice and vegetables still held that little Kazuki magic that made everything taste so great. He smiled and he took another bite, thinking about that silly memory of his. How old had they been back then, maybe six? It definitely had been so many years since then. Whether their fathers had been right about that 'some ten years from now' part or not...

On the other side of the counter, Kazuki continued his kitchen cleaning then paused to look at him. "Is it good?" He asked as he put some kitchen tools away. "Or is there some other particular reason why you're smiling to yourself like that?"

Another bite of a tasty vegetable, and Soushi looked back at his boyfriend. "It's delicious," he said. "So why wouldn't I be smiling?" Kazuki looked a little embarrassed at that, and Soushi smirked. "Although I was thinking of this one incident from far back in the day when we were kids. This reminded me of that," he gestured at his food. "That time, you made rice and vegetables, too. Do you remember?"

"What incident?" Kazuki inquired, glancing over his shoulder as he turned to put the remaining glasses back onto the shelf. "Hmm. I think you ate at my place a few times when we were kids. Sometimes you were with your dad who had something to do with mine. Thinking back... I didn't know back then, but it was probably Alvis business they were talking about. Anyway..." He turned around and stepped closer. "I probably did make the food though, since dad didn't really cook. He just bought food from somewhere, got some from the neighbors, or ordered take-out until I started cooking all the meals."

"It was the very first time you made food for us," Soushi specified. "Remember what I said during the dinner?"

Kazuki looked thoughtful then looked at what Soushi was eating. "Hey, now that you mention it," he said with a chuckle. "Dad was absolutely horrible about making sure there were enough groceries, so that's why all I could make was rice and vegetables. I'm pretty sure you said it was the best you'd ever had. I also remember we went grocery shopping that weekend. I had a lot of fun, and you were impressed I knew what could be made out of all the fish they had."

"During the dinner. My father and yours had a good laugh over something I said." Soushi picked up another piece of a vegetable with the chopsticks, then grinned a bit and held it over the counter. Kazuki looked at him for a few seconds then leaned forward and ate it. "Really, ring a bell? Father was also absolutely certain I'd change my mind when I get older, but I still think I want you to cook for me."

At this point it seemed Kazuki did remember something. "Oh yeah. You told my dad to remarry so he'll have someone cooking for him, because you're going to..." He blinked then stared at Soushi with his mouth open. "Ahhh... Because, you decided... you're going to..." He trailed off and lowered his face, that adorable flush touching his cheeks again. "Soushi..."

Soushi took another bit of rice with his chopsticks and ate it then looked at Kazuki with a grin. "Quite certain I have your father's permission too, although I hope he hasn't forgotten about the whole thing. I mean. Do I need to remind you at this point that you agreed to my proposal?" He asked with playful tone in his voice. "My honor's at stake here, so I guess I'll just have to go through with it."

The slight nod and that utterly embarrassed look on Kazuki's face told him that Kazuki certainly hadn't forgotten - but that flustered smile also told Soushi that Kazuki hadn't, in the last decade or so, changed his mind about the agreement either.

Author's notes:

Cute kids are cute, etc. And sure Kazuki's the one who usually cooks, but kind of doubtful he started doing it before he was at least 5-6. Reminder that according to the timeline, Kazuki’s mom died when he was 2 and that’s kinda too young for that. I also think Kozo and Fumihiko might be kinda talkative here, but they might've had a few drinks before the kids got home. Who knows.

- Lady Harken (August 2015)