An Archive of Our Own, a project of the Organization for Transformative Works
Hello @baserun! I’m your secret santa for the @fydaiyanoace exchange. I hope you like it!
Ryou was going to die, and this term paper was going to kill him.
He was beyond the point of caring. The paper was trash and he knew it, and he was going to have to turn it in anyway because the deadline was in a few days and he had absolutely no clue how to fix it.
“Ryou-san.”
Right. Kuramochi had let himself in with his spare key, almost without Ryou noticing him come in. He’d been sitting quietly, patiently waiting for Ryou to finish up what he was working on. It was so different from how dynamic he was in other parts of their lives that Ryou had legitimately forgotten he was there.
“You should take a break,” Kuramochi suggested. “You’re grinding your jaw.”
“This paper is due in three days, Youichi,” Ryou said. Even he could hear the edge in his voice.
“And sitting here grinding your jaw isn’t going to make it more done,” Kuramochi said firmly. “You haven’t typed anything in five minutes. I brought you dinner. At least eat it before it gets cold.”
Ryou’s stomach gave an unpleasant gurgle at that. He’d started working on this as soon as he’d woken up on his free day, and he hadn’t moved from this spot as the sun had moved over him and eventually gone down. Much as he hated to admit it, he was starving.
“I got spicy curry from that place you like,” Kuramochi went on. “Ignore your term paper for a few minutes and come eat dinner.”
“I’m going right back after I eat,” Ryou threatened.
Ryou would never admit it, but he found the way Kuramochi went into spirals of mild fretting interminably cute. Doubly so when he started fretting over Ryou, because of the two of them, Kuramochi needed fretting over far more often than Ryou himself did.
Ryou inhaled the curry, barely slowing down to gulp some water down to soothe the burn that affected even him. There was a reason this place was his favorite; it was the only one that heard his request of make it melt the inside of my mouth and didn’t assume that was an exaggeration or refuse on grounds of “safety”.
“If you were hoping the food would make me stop working on the paper and pay attention to you, it’s not gonna happen tonight,” Ryou said, setting his chopsticks down. “I’m sorry I’ve been neglecting you for a week, but this is worth fifty percent of my grade.”
“No, yeah, I know,” Kuramochi assured him. “I’m here for moral support.”
“Are you now?” Ryou asked silkily. “You’re going to sit here silently and think positive things at me?”
“Yes.”
Sometimes Ryou forgot that it wasn’t as easy to tease Kuramochi as it had been when they were still in high school. Age and a few years as a pro baseball player had taken the edge off his temper, and he’d learned better than to rise to every trap Ryou tried to bait him into. In fact, with Ryou’s status as a college senior keeping him in a near-constant state of stress, Kuramochi had become the more stable of the two of them.
“Come on,” Kuramochi said, depositing their cups in the sink. “I’ll do dishes later. You wanted to get back to your paper.”
Ryou was ready to park himself right back where he’d been sitting on the couch for so long that it would never lose the perfect imprint of his ass, but found that Kuramochi was occupying the space instead.
“What are you doing?”
“Helping,” Kuramochi said, patting the space between his legs. “I’ll be good, I swear.”
“How is this supposed to help?” Ryou asked, raising one eyebrow.
“It can’t hurt,” Kuramochi shrugged. “And at least this way I can remind you to stop grinding your jaw so you don’t have to pay for expensive dental work.”
“Is this just your way of trying to cuddle because you feel neglected?”
“Maybe,” Kuramochi admitted, blush rising in his cheeks. “If I was really bothering you, you would’ve kicked me out already.”
He had a point.
Ryou grabbed his laptop and settled between Kuramochi’s legs, leaning back into his chest. He’d put on an impressive amount of muscle during his years of playing pro ball, and it was nice to rest against. Kuramochi rested his chin on Ryou’s shoulder to look at the laptop screen, looping his arms around Ryou’s waist.
“You’re probably not going to follow this,” Ryou warned him. He felt Kuramochi shrug.
“I didn’t even know you could write papers for math before you majored in it,” Kuramochi said. “I’m not here to help you write the paper. I’m just making sure you don’t go crazy doing it.”
“Quiet now.”
“Shutting up.”
Ryou had to admit, he was surprised at how well Kuramochi was behaving himself. He wasn’t fidgeting or making noise, sitting almost perfectly still and watching the words appear on Ryou’s laptop screen. In almost no time, Ryou had forgotten he was there entirely, just as he had when Kuramochi had let himself in earlier.
Until Kuramochi poked his cheek.
“You’re grinding your jaw again,” he said before Ryou could snap at him for breaking his concentration. “And you’ve been staring at that last sentence for a few minutes. What’s wrong with it?”
“It’s bad,” Ryou said.
“Why?”
“This isn’t exactly what I mean.”
“Then what do you mean?”
“I’m not teaching you differential calculus right now.”
“I’m not asking you to,” Kuramochi said. “I’m saying to say what you mean.”
“You make it sound easy.”
“It should be,” Kuramochi said. “You’re really good at this stuff. You’re just frustrated because you’ve been working on this for too long.”
“Sometimes I think you overestimate me,” Ryou told him.
“You’re underestimating yourself,” Kuramochi countered. “I don’t really get math, but I’ve sort of been following your logic in this. I think it’s a good paper, and at least you’re done actually writing and you’re just editing. I think you’re chasing yourself around in circles because you’ve been staring at this too long.”
“That’s because…”
“It’s important, I know,” Kuramochi cut him off, squeezing him around the waist. “But at least you’re most of the way done. It’s not like you’re doing the last minute scramble to finish it.”
“Like you did in high school?” Ryou teased. Kuramochi made some noise of protest.
“There’s a reason only one of us is getting a degree,” he agreed. “Go to bed, Ryou-san. You’re just going to drive yourself crazy if you work on this anymore tonight. You still have a few days to tweak it, right?”
Ryou hummed in answer. Now that he’d finally stopped his laser focus on his term paper - one that hadn’t been broken even during dinner, his mind wrapped up in formulas even as he shovelled curry into his mouth - he was starting to shut down. Without his permission, his body was relaxing backwards into Kuramochi’s chest, head nodding down.
“Come on,” Kuramochi said, gently shaking his shoulder. “Bed. The paper will be here in the morning.”
Ryou had to admit that he had a point, even if it was a point he didn’t want to concede. Being human really sucked sometimes. If he could ignore his need to sleep, he could get so much more done.
He shivered as he walked into his room, the warmth from the heater staying trapped in the living area.
“Good night, Ryou-san,” Kuramochi said. Ryou turned to see him heading for the door.
“You could stay the night, you know,” Ryou said, making the offer even as he knew it was a bad idea.
“No, I couldn’t,” Kuramochi said. “I know you have to focus on school right now. Make it up to me when your finals are done.”
“Impertinent,” Ryou said, letting one side of his mouth slide up.
“I’ll see you later,” Kuramochi said, waving over his shoulder. Ryou turned into his room, passing out almost immediately despite the cold, never having actually gotten out of his sleep pants that day.
Maybe it was Kuramochi’s influence, or maybe it was just the effect of being full of his favorite food, but that night was the best Ryou had slept since he’d entered the home stretch of his time in college. Rather than rolling out of bed at the crack of dawn like he had for the last week, he blinked his eyes open to mid morning sunshine streaming through his window, feeling better rested than he had in over a month.
He really had missed Kuramochi in these trying times of finals. He was looking forward to being able to spend more time with his boyfriend when this was all over.
Opening his laptop once again, he saw that what Kuramochi had been saying last night was true. It really was much better than he’d thought it was at ten at night.
He could do this.
And the tonsil hockey he was going to play with Kuramochi as soon as this was done was going to be worth it.
Ran 14.10 km with #Nike #Run Club, one hour plus a little bit more to get home with @coachbennett. A #BaseRun after too many days without one. And despite what my #Fitbit kept telling me, a decently good #pace! And I remembered to #smile at the end. #running #workout #NikeZoomFly3 #MorningRun #Charge3 #Brooks gloves (at La Grange, Illinois) https://www.instagram.com/p/B_NKO0KF8hI/?igshid=doaafy5a46or
kominato ryousuke/kuramochi youichi // kuraryou exchange gift for @baserun // 19800wc // ao3
this was difficult for me to write for a lot of reasons, mainly because kuraryou has always been really hard for me, lol. thank you (j) for initially looking this over and helping me worldbuild, and to (l) for stopping me from throwing this in the garbage after i finished the first draft; thank you to the mods for hosting this event! dear recipient, i hope you still enjoy this, despite the mess it is!
warnings: manga spoilers for who the new seidou first years are, but no plot spoilers. fire/fire imagery. electricity/lightning imagery. minor panic attack/panic attack-like symptoms. firearm use. minor injuries. mild mild mild gore/body horror. off-screen background character death (as much as you’d probably expect from a superhero au).
Kuramochi ‘Flash’ Youichi is not one of the following things: a partner to take on roller coasters, a veteran of bad mornings, a family man. Superhero AU.
