Homemaking 101 | domestic!Chuuya x fem!Reader | Headcanons(?)
What happens when a flower bloomed in darkness suddenly finds himself in a patch of light? Word count: 2.3k
To turn a house into a home: a guide for those whom violence stalks like a shadow.
"Hah? The hell you think you're giving this lame pamphlet to? You've got the wrong guy."
No I didn't. You'll want to hear this.
"...Tch."
Step 1: When you reach the front door, pause at the ornate doormat, admire the rose bushes beginning to bud outside, and ring the doorbell— the one with the bluebird's chime.
Chuuya squints at the engraved bird, silver in tongue and countenance, hung at eye-level on the front door as its tune echoes inside. A cheerful melody that loops on and on, one he'd typically hear the morning after midnight stakeouts, when the nights were too long yet the sun rises too early.
Now he waits on the front porch, a heel tapping against the wood. Strange, you're taking longer than usual to open the door. Maybe you'd gone on an errand.
He glances at his boots and that's when he notices the trail of mud he'd just dragged up the steps. It stretches all the way from the front gate in a thick track, dirtying the chalk drawings on the pavement.
His chest twists with a tinge of something he can't explain, as he takes this time to examine the grime between the soles of his boots. He frowns, and tries to rub them against the floor mat, but this only spreads mud around on the porch.
Sighing, he picks up the garden hose and rinses off the mess he made on the front yard. He'd have to apologize for ruining your drawings later.
Wait. Why is he even counting on you to let him in? He has a key of his own.
Fishing it out of his coat, he unlocks the birchwood door with a click.
Step 2: When the door swings open, take a deep breath and call out, "I'm home."
The doorknob squeezes beneath Chuuya's gloved hands, his breath hitched in his throat. When did that become the first thing he said stepping through his own house?
Of course he was home, where else would he be.
The smell of the oven wafts to his nose first. He didn't even know ovens had smells. But now he can tell when it's just been used, when the heat meets butter, flour, sugar, and when he's going to start worrying about his blood sugar again.
Then comes the scent of lemons— the dish soap. Bubbles float from the open kitchen and drift in front of him in a lazy pattern. If they were targets he'd be pissed trying to snipe them in such a motion.
His nose wrinkles. Something foul infiltrates the cozy aromas, something wretched like an oil spill in clear water.
He lifts the lapel of his coat to his chin.
Oh. It's him.
Every time he comes home, he drags with him the remnants of the battlefield: blood, smoke, diesel, gunpowder, rust, sewer water this time too.
He immediately shrugs off the coat and slips into the kitchen to toss it into the washing machine, where a mellow hum floats through the air.
Step 3: Take responsibility for keeping the house running— that's what it means to be part of a household.
Without a word, Chuuya slips off his gloves and steals a dish out of your hands. You meet his eyes with a pout.
"I was in the middle of scrubbing that!"
"Not anymore," Chuuya mutters under his breath, plucking the sponge out of your other hand. "You know the deal, you make dinner, I clean. You'll exhaust yourself if you keep going like this."
You plant your hands on your hips where your apron is tied and give him an incredulous look.
"You barely got home and you're already doing work again."
"This isn't work."
You click your tongue. You never used to do that before dating him. "I just took a nice long bubble bath. I'm the farthest thing from exhausted."
"That's why you didn't answer the door?"
"Oh, my bad." You scratch your cheek. "Guess I was enjoying myself a little too much."
"No such thing," he huffs as he rinses the mixing bowl.
"Why'd you ring the bell anyway? You have your own key," you say off-handedly as you pick up the gloves he left on the counter.
Chuuya doesn't have an answer. He simply eyes the way you handle his gloves with such unflinching ease. You don't even grimace when your bare hands touch the dirt and dried blood caked on the leather. You simply take them to the powder room, where he knows they'll be rinsed, conditioned then hung out to dry beside fuzzy blankets and sundresses.
The way you'd seen him do once, many spring cleanings ago. The way you've been doing since.
Step 4: This one's non-negotiable. When there's a fire going in the hearth, grab a warm drink and dessert, and toss all your thoughts to the fire.
Fire. Ash. Scorched wood and rising smoke.
Chuuya once wondered whether his fingers were flints. Everything that's ever passed through them combusted in a roaring flame.
A blazing inferno. A spectacle of a mess.
Like a ballet routine, the rhythm of fire was a beat that Chuuya knew all too well. The initial lick of the flame before the engulfment.
Buildings. Ports. Ships. Documents. Merchandise. The aftermath may differ but the burning is all the same.
At least, that's what he thought until he watched the same fire cook his meals more times than he could count. The same heat that baked the cookie resting in his lap.
No. It wasn't the fire. It was you.
Even now, the oven door stays open so the heat can escape. Cinnamon lingers in the air.
His fist curls and clenches on the arm rest of his leather chair. It was the only piece of furniture he brought from his old apartment into your shared house.
His old place was a formality of a home. A bed to sleep in between missions, where he doesn't even dream. You'd think it was plucked straight out of an office magazine. Complete with dark walls that swallowed every shadow and marble floors that chilled the blood through his skin. Immaculate shelves of books he'd only ever skim.
"That's not reading," you'd argued with him, a groan leaving your perfect lips. "What's the point of having a bunch of books you don't even enjoy? What a waste of shelf space."
"Came with the apartment," he'd grunted. "Took too much work to throw them all out."
"Well, now you can choose how to fill those shelves yourself," you said, beaming at him. And Chuuya, with all the strength he's always boasted about, felt that same strength leave his body entirely.
With anybody else that crossed paths with him in headquarters, his patience runs as thin as water, his mouth acting before his brain could catch up. With anybody unfortunate enough to encounter him in battle, he'd demolish them before they could even see who they were up against.
But with you, against your countless books opened face down on every foreseeable surface, he couldn't so much as lift a finger, couldn't find the will to even spill a word of complaint.
"It's the easiest way to bookmark them," you'd always explain.
Yet for all the contrarian that he was, that was the only justification Chuuya ever needed.
He pondered this over a sip of steaming coffee and a half-eaten snickerdoodle. In his office, in his bedroom, he'd go for wine and crackers without a second thought.
But one summer day not unlike the rest, a breeze fluttering the linen curtains, you'd been rambling about something funny your coworker said. His fingers gravitated toward the bottleneck out of habit but stopped short. Your face, lit with dappled sunlight through the window, was animated with every word of your story.
All he thought was:
'I wanna make sure I remember this tomorrow.'
Now, in the living room (what a strange name, isn't that every room one lives in?), coffee and cookies it is.
Step 5: Appreciate the home decor.
The lighter clicks before he can stop himself, cigarette hanging from his lips mere inches from the tiny flame.
But his eyes flicker to the pot of orchids sitting on the coffee table in front of him. White and purple petals alternate like gemstones glistening in the afternoon sun.
A violet so striking it was no wonder the color was once likened to royalty. And the white... so luminous in the limning light. Seeing the ash tray anywhere near it somehow felt like vandalism.
Must be a new pot. You never did stop finding excuses to keep decorating the house.
With a sigh, Chuuya pulled himself out of the armchair, hooked the ash tray under a finger, and slipped past the backdoor into the yard.
He'd only taken one drag by the time a creak sounded behind him.
"Here all by yourself, handsome?" A giggle rises like champagne bubbles beside him. Before he could respond, you siddled up beside him and plucked the cigarette from his mouth into yours, smiling like you're oh so proud of your favourite trick.
He pulls another one out of the pack without missing a beat. He'd long since given up fighting the smile that fits onto his face, small as it is.
"Next time tell me when you want flowers. You don't gotta go buying em yourself."
A cloud of smoke puffs in front of you. "But I didn't buy them for myself. I don't mind spending my money on them because they're ours."
Chuuya exhales, a ribbon of smoke twisting into the air.
"Tch. Always got excuses for everything."
You smile anyway, seeing right through his thinly veiled irritation. "They're nice though, aren't they?"
"You're lucky you've got good taste."
Soon enough, your two trails of smoke curl together until he can't tell where his ends and yours start.
Step 6: Last but certainly not least. When somebody does something for you, you let them know you appreciate it.
"Thank you" weren't usually words Chuuya had a hard time passing. To his subordinates turning in their reports, to Kouyou for lending him another one of her hangover cures, to his ever- reliable gloves supplier.
But within the four walls of this house, the two words feel infinitely small.
It slips out anyway, when you surprised him with the wine cellar in the basement, when he saw his own dedicated hat and coat rack in the closet, when you arranged his vinyl records along the walls of the foyer.
Every time, he'd mumble the words under his breath, making you chuckle every time. But he couldn't stop the sweat that prickles the back of his throat or the way his palms would itch with the desire to give something bigger back in return.
After all, how does he thank someone for making space for him... for the discord that follows his every footstep, for the inevitable destruction that awaits and every scrap of chaos in between?
So Chuuya does what Chuuya knows best.
He remembers. He remembers your preferred brand of sugar, the farmers' market where you buy eggs from chickens whose names you know, your seasonal scented candles, your bath soaps, clay masks and face powder, your favourite authors.
Most of all, he remembers how the silence he once relished in solitude now feels wrong in place of your music. Your soft turning pages, your low hums, your bluebird doorbell, your bare feet padding in the backyard.
Until remembering almost makes him forget about his past long enough to forget why he needed to in the first place.
One night, you lay beside him on the couch in his home office, head completely entrusted to his shoulder. His fingers twisted the ends of your hair long after you'd fallen asleep, a mission report in the other hand. Every now and then you'd shudder and furrow your brows in a place unreachable to him, and all he can do is stroke your forehead until the creases smooth out.
One arm still hugged an open book to your chest, though it slid down a little after your last shuffle. Methodically, he set aside his report and picked up the book before the floor could claim it. He threw a glance around the room until his eyes landed on a dried leaf sitting on the side table.
That'll have to do. If he ever dog-eared any of your books you'd never let him hear the end of it.
You mutter something in your sleep, your now free hand searching the fabric of the couch for something to grasp. Chuuya sighs the sigh of a man who is exactly where he wants to be. It terrifies him.
But not enough to refuse you the warmth of his fingers intertwined with yours.
...
And that, dear readers, is how a house becomes a home.
"Wait, wait, hold up. Aren't ya forgetting something?"
I don't believe I am?
"Guess I gotta do it myself then."
Bonus step: Never forget that home is just a fancy name for the greatest thing you can lose.
A rose by any other name still bears petals bound to wilt. Such is the tragedy of life.
Chuuya knows this better than most others. That a man who is exactly where he wants to be knows exactly what he stands to lose.
And yet...
One look at your sleeping face, one brush against the hands that built a home out of this house, and he feels like he's ready to lay it all on the line again.
That doesn't quiet the unease that lodges in his chest like a bullet every time he thinks about it though. Every time he remembers another object you bring through the door is another thing that will one day be left behind.
If anything, it makes him want to protect it all the more fiercely.
So what happens when a flower bloomed in darkness finds himself in a patch of light? It simply means he'll fight tooth and nail to bask in the warmth for longer. Even if it means fighting to keep himself from withering.
Dividers by @/strangergraphics
