{chocolate clementine： 2； House Cleaning
Title： House Cleaning
Genre： Fluff
Pairing： Ryo Nishikido / Tatsuya Ueda
Rating： PG
Disclaimer： Alas, not Johnny. [mourns]
Word Count： 1859
Author’s Notes： Because Chocolate has a special fondness for rich!prince!Ueda and commoner work~ XD Although this kind of veered off-track quite a bit, ne... >.<
Summary： Ryo and Ueda decide to move in together.
Ryo stares at Ueda blankly. Ueda who is staring back at him, also blankly.
"…What?" he manages at last, rag halfway through its sweep over the tabletop.
"Um," Ueda says, turning a little bit pink, which is really cute-but completely irrelevant! Ryo reminds himself hastily-as his knuckles turn a little bit white around the bottle of cleaner in his hand. "I don't… know how to use this."
Ryo blinks and glances at the label, which says "Multi-Purpose Cleaner" in bright blue kanji, and the spray nozzle, which is pretty self-explanatory. "What do you mean, you don't know how to use it?"
Ueda bites his lip cutely-still not relevant!-and frowns. "I just mean… What does this go on?"
There are times when it's easy to forget that Ueda is rich and has servants milling around his house, a cleaning lady and bellboy and sometimes even a butler, when he goes home to visit. Most of the time, really, it's pretty easy to forget. He works as hard as the rest of them, and he doesn't pull rank or attitude; his parents didn't raise him to be spoiled, and he tries not to act like it. He doesn't like bragging, either, so his private wealth is a fact that generally goes unmentioned unless there's an emergency (which, in some cases, means Kamenashi's starving himself again, but Ryo supposes that Ueda's standards of emergency are also different from everyone else's).
But other times, like now, Ryo can feel the mile-wide gap between them, can feel the difference between being one of four who fought over splitting chores on the weekend and being an eldest son who was too preoccupied with daily lessons for such plebeian things as cleaning. It's… not bad, but it reminds him about how different they are, how little they really know about each other.
Even though they're living together.
Well, Ryo reasons, just as Ueda tries not to act like a brat, he will try not to let these things bother him.
He clears his throat. "Well, it's multi-purpose, so it pretty much goes on everything."
Ueda looks mystified. "Everything?"
"…Yes." Ryo fights the urge to smile at Ueda's wide-eyed expression of wonder. "Everything."
"Okay!" He ambles back to the bathroom, the usual bounce in his step, and Ryo turns back to the kitchen table, shaking his head.
Rich boys.
* * *
Living together is a fairly new development, even though they've been together for a while now. The relationship seems to surprise everyone, but Ryo personally thinks they should all have seen it coming.
…Okay, fine, maybe from an outside perspective, there hadn't been too many signs. It wasn't like they'd agreed to keep it a secret, but Ueda doesn't think his relationships are anyone else's business, and Ryo agrees. Besides, they both know what the possible ramifications could be if they were discovered by the tabloids.
But they don't think about that.
All in all, it's not that difficult to act normal in public. They don't get to see each other much, anyway, but when they do, they just hang out like other guys. No one has to know that it's a date. Ryo regrets this sometimes because the romantic in him kind of likes the idea of holding hands by the seaside ("Shut up," he says shortly when Pi falls to the floor laughing. "It's sweet, okay."), but Ueda disapproves pretty vehemently about public displays of affection, and. Well. There are better things to do in private.
* * *
The kitchen is Ryo's arena. He's quite adamant about this, and Ueda lets him have it since Ryo is the much pickier eater between the two of them. He's learned the hard way that it's just easier to let Ryo prepare his own food because then he can't complain.
He does cook, though, when Ryo is feeling generous or, as Ryo calls it, adventurous (which makes him roll his eyes because he cooks fine; he just doesn't cook like Ryo). Ueda used to make things he knows Ryo likes, things like curry, miso soup with Ryo's specified ratios, okonomiyaki Osaka style; he even tried Mont blanc cake once. The evening usually ended up with the both of them annoyed when Ryo petulantly kicks up a fuss about how something's a little bit off.
These days, he knows better, and he cooks food Ryo would never make himself. Foreign recipes from Italy and Vietnam and Peru, stuff Ryo wrinkles his nose at until Ueda guilts him into trying it. And then his expression will smooth out as he slowly chews.
"This isn't bad," he'll say half-grudgingly, but Ueda can see the interested gleam in his eyes. He hides his smugness by digging into his own plate.
He is magnanimous, though, and doesn't mention how these "adventurous" moods seem to be getting more and more frequent.
* * *
They have six guitars. Two belong to Ueda, four belong to Ryo, but then there is Ueda's baby grand to account for. It's something they didn't really think about until they'd already moved into their new home and realized that half the space was taken up by instruments.
"…I think we might need to rethink our furniture arrangement," Ryo says with a frown.
What was supposed to be the master bedroom ended up being converted into a music room instead, with stands for their guitars and a couple of bookshelves stuffed haphazardly full of music notebooks and sheet music. There's a low coffee table and couch in one corner where Ryo likes to work, and a small desk by the window for Ueda.
Despite the separation, music still ends up all over the place. Ueda finds pages in Ryo's hasty scrawl full of lyrics about true love stashed in his drawers, and Ryo opens his guitar case to sheets of Ueda's stick figure notations on arpeggios and chords not meant for any stringed instrument. Neither of them really minds until Ryo loses the words to something he'd never planned on singing in public.
"Ryo," Ueda asks. "Why are you writing a song about…" He glances down at the paper in his hands; paper, Ryo realizes with a sort of sinking dread, that looks awfully familiar. "'Sunset red on the pillow next to mine'?"
"Um." Shit, shit, no one was supposed to see that, Ryo thinks as he sweats cold bullets.
Ueda gives him a reproachful look. "Are you seeing someone else?" His mouth is twisted into the semblance of an upset pout, but Ryo can see the smile that is desperate to break through. He's not too worried about the accusation of cheating because Ueda obviously doesn't really think so, but that doesn't make this any less mortifying.
"It's nothing," he chokes out at last. "Nothing!"
Ueda raises an eyebrow. "'If you'll have me, I'm yours forever, if I know nothing else, I think I can say that much'? That doesn't sound like nothing."
Ryo whimpers, buries his face in his hands, and kind of wants the ground to just open up and swallow him whole, please, but of course, that would be too easy. "It's nothing," he says again, and it's almost a whine because he really, really doesn't want to explain.
He carefully keeps his eyes down and to the right, but even so, he can see that puff-cheeked look out of the corner of his eye, the one that means Ueda is silently laughing at him.
Ryo jumps when there's suddenly a nose in his cheek and 53 kilograms of boxer hanging on his shoulder. "Is it for me~" Ueda sings softly in his ear. Bastard doesn't even bother making it a question.
He grunts in response, refusing to give a straight answer, but it's not too hard to guess.
Either way, they start buying color-coded binders because even though Ueda will never let Ryo live this down, it'd be worse if Ryo decided to get revenge.
* * *
Ueda's been told that he's ditzy, a little bit airheaded, and it's true, sometimes he asks about simple things like vacuum cleaners ("But they're cool," he insists when Jin gives him a disbelieving look.), but otherwise, he finds that he's actually pretty practical.
That's why he thinks moving in would be a great idea.
"I'm just saying." He sips his coffee calmly at Ryo's startled expression. "Your place is a mess because you're almost never there, and when you are, you're too tired to clean it properly. In the mornings, I end up in your clothes more often than my own, and you don't even need to pack to stay over anymore. There's no point in paying two sets of rent when we basically live together anyway."
Ryo stays silent and fiddles with his own cup, staring glumly at the saucer. "Are you just asking because it'd be more convenient?" he mumbles finally, picking at the gilt pattern with a thumbnail.
Ueda sighs. That's not the real problem, and they both know it. Ryo likes to think he's straightforward, but he actually sidesteps confrontations a lot, especially with people he really cares about, dropping incomprehensible hints as to what he wants and then falling into grumpy moods when they don't get picked up.
Fortunately, they've known each other long enough by now that Ueda knows how to draw it out.
"Of course not," he replies, folding his napkin neatly and sliding it beneath his cup. "I just don't think it makes sense otherwise. I mean, we don't get to spend a lot of time together as it is. This way, we can be together more, and we pay less money. Doesn't that sound better?"
When Ryo doesn't answer, Ueda straightens in his chair. Maybe he was mistaken, and it's too early for this? "…Ryo?" he asks, the squeamishness of unease swilling around in his stomach. "Um, I mean, if you don't want to, we don't. I mean. It's not… You can tell me, it's not-"
"I can't afford your place," Ryo says abruptly. "And I'm not going to let you pay for me."
"Oh." He blinks. Smiles. "Let's find a new place just for us, then, okay?"
* * *
"So that's why you shouldn't use that cleaner on the windows," Ryo explains patiently.
Ueda scratches his nose, frowns. "But I thought it was supposed to clean everything?"
"Well, it leaves residue on the glass, so." Ryo puts the roll of paper towels back on the floor. He straightens to find Ueda staring glumly down at the bottle in his hands, looking sorely disappointed.
"This is such a misnomer," he grumbles. "They should call it the everything-but-glass cleaner."
Ryo coughs gently and pretends to wipe his forehead. "Technically, it's still multi-purpose," he points out when he's sure he can keep a straight face again.
"But still." Ueda scowls. "If it's going to be a cleaner, then it should clean." He snatches the other bottle and huffily stomps back to their balcony door, shoulders tight with annoyance as he re-scrubs the entire two panels.
Ryo opens his mouth, closes it again, thinks better of it, and quietly puts their new schedules up on the refrigerator instead.
Hello! Greetings from Clementine!
Ahh, this is my first message, isn't it...
Well, since Chocolate's first piece was especially sour, ne, we thought it might be a good idea to offer some sugary goodness as a chaser. :D A little bit of white chocolate goes a long way, doesn't it?
I hope you are all enjoying your visit here!
Faire bonne chère,
Clementine.
Genre： Fluff
Pairing： Ryo Nishikido / Tatsuya Ueda
Rating： PG
Disclaimer： Alas, not Johnny. [mourns]
Word Count： 1859
Author’s Notes： Because Chocolate has a special fondness for rich!prince!Ueda and commoner work~ XD Although this kind of veered off-track quite a bit, ne... >.<
Summary： Ryo and Ueda decide to move in together.
Ryo stares at Ueda blankly. Ueda who is staring back at him, also blankly.
"…What?" he manages at last, rag halfway through its sweep over the tabletop.
"Um," Ueda says, turning a little bit pink, which is really cute-but completely irrelevant! Ryo reminds himself hastily-as his knuckles turn a little bit white around the bottle of cleaner in his hand. "I don't… know how to use this."
Ryo blinks and glances at the label, which says "Multi-Purpose Cleaner" in bright blue kanji, and the spray nozzle, which is pretty self-explanatory. "What do you mean, you don't know how to use it?"
Ueda bites his lip cutely-still not relevant!-and frowns. "I just mean… What does this go on?"
There are times when it's easy to forget that Ueda is rich and has servants milling around his house, a cleaning lady and bellboy and sometimes even a butler, when he goes home to visit. Most of the time, really, it's pretty easy to forget. He works as hard as the rest of them, and he doesn't pull rank or attitude; his parents didn't raise him to be spoiled, and he tries not to act like it. He doesn't like bragging, either, so his private wealth is a fact that generally goes unmentioned unless there's an emergency (which, in some cases, means Kamenashi's starving himself again, but Ryo supposes that Ueda's standards of emergency are also different from everyone else's).
But other times, like now, Ryo can feel the mile-wide gap between them, can feel the difference between being one of four who fought over splitting chores on the weekend and being an eldest son who was too preoccupied with daily lessons for such plebeian things as cleaning. It's… not bad, but it reminds him about how different they are, how little they really know about each other.
Even though they're living together.
Well, Ryo reasons, just as Ueda tries not to act like a brat, he will try not to let these things bother him.
He clears his throat. "Well, it's multi-purpose, so it pretty much goes on everything."
Ueda looks mystified. "Everything?"
"…Yes." Ryo fights the urge to smile at Ueda's wide-eyed expression of wonder. "Everything."
"Okay!" He ambles back to the bathroom, the usual bounce in his step, and Ryo turns back to the kitchen table, shaking his head.
Rich boys.
* * *
Living together is a fairly new development, even though they've been together for a while now. The relationship seems to surprise everyone, but Ryo personally thinks they should all have seen it coming.
…Okay, fine, maybe from an outside perspective, there hadn't been too many signs. It wasn't like they'd agreed to keep it a secret, but Ueda doesn't think his relationships are anyone else's business, and Ryo agrees. Besides, they both know what the possible ramifications could be if they were discovered by the tabloids.
But they don't think about that.
All in all, it's not that difficult to act normal in public. They don't get to see each other much, anyway, but when they do, they just hang out like other guys. No one has to know that it's a date. Ryo regrets this sometimes because the romantic in him kind of likes the idea of holding hands by the seaside ("Shut up," he says shortly when Pi falls to the floor laughing. "It's sweet, okay."), but Ueda disapproves pretty vehemently about public displays of affection, and. Well. There are better things to do in private.
* * *
The kitchen is Ryo's arena. He's quite adamant about this, and Ueda lets him have it since Ryo is the much pickier eater between the two of them. He's learned the hard way that it's just easier to let Ryo prepare his own food because then he can't complain.
He does cook, though, when Ryo is feeling generous or, as Ryo calls it, adventurous (which makes him roll his eyes because he cooks fine; he just doesn't cook like Ryo). Ueda used to make things he knows Ryo likes, things like curry, miso soup with Ryo's specified ratios, okonomiyaki Osaka style; he even tried Mont blanc cake once. The evening usually ended up with the both of them annoyed when Ryo petulantly kicks up a fuss about how something's a little bit off.
These days, he knows better, and he cooks food Ryo would never make himself. Foreign recipes from Italy and Vietnam and Peru, stuff Ryo wrinkles his nose at until Ueda guilts him into trying it. And then his expression will smooth out as he slowly chews.
"This isn't bad," he'll say half-grudgingly, but Ueda can see the interested gleam in his eyes. He hides his smugness by digging into his own plate.
He is magnanimous, though, and doesn't mention how these "adventurous" moods seem to be getting more and more frequent.
* * *
They have six guitars. Two belong to Ueda, four belong to Ryo, but then there is Ueda's baby grand to account for. It's something they didn't really think about until they'd already moved into their new home and realized that half the space was taken up by instruments.
"…I think we might need to rethink our furniture arrangement," Ryo says with a frown.
What was supposed to be the master bedroom ended up being converted into a music room instead, with stands for their guitars and a couple of bookshelves stuffed haphazardly full of music notebooks and sheet music. There's a low coffee table and couch in one corner where Ryo likes to work, and a small desk by the window for Ueda.
Despite the separation, music still ends up all over the place. Ueda finds pages in Ryo's hasty scrawl full of lyrics about true love stashed in his drawers, and Ryo opens his guitar case to sheets of Ueda's stick figure notations on arpeggios and chords not meant for any stringed instrument. Neither of them really minds until Ryo loses the words to something he'd never planned on singing in public.
"Ryo," Ueda asks. "Why are you writing a song about…" He glances down at the paper in his hands; paper, Ryo realizes with a sort of sinking dread, that looks awfully familiar. "'Sunset red on the pillow next to mine'?"
"Um." Shit, shit, no one was supposed to see that, Ryo thinks as he sweats cold bullets.
Ueda gives him a reproachful look. "Are you seeing someone else?" His mouth is twisted into the semblance of an upset pout, but Ryo can see the smile that is desperate to break through. He's not too worried about the accusation of cheating because Ueda obviously doesn't really think so, but that doesn't make this any less mortifying.
"It's nothing," he chokes out at last. "Nothing!"
Ueda raises an eyebrow. "'If you'll have me, I'm yours forever, if I know nothing else, I think I can say that much'? That doesn't sound like nothing."
Ryo whimpers, buries his face in his hands, and kind of wants the ground to just open up and swallow him whole, please, but of course, that would be too easy. "It's nothing," he says again, and it's almost a whine because he really, really doesn't want to explain.
He carefully keeps his eyes down and to the right, but even so, he can see that puff-cheeked look out of the corner of his eye, the one that means Ueda is silently laughing at him.
Ryo jumps when there's suddenly a nose in his cheek and 53 kilograms of boxer hanging on his shoulder. "Is it for me~" Ueda sings softly in his ear. Bastard doesn't even bother making it a question.
He grunts in response, refusing to give a straight answer, but it's not too hard to guess.
Either way, they start buying color-coded binders because even though Ueda will never let Ryo live this down, it'd be worse if Ryo decided to get revenge.
* * *
Ueda's been told that he's ditzy, a little bit airheaded, and it's true, sometimes he asks about simple things like vacuum cleaners ("But they're cool," he insists when Jin gives him a disbelieving look.), but otherwise, he finds that he's actually pretty practical.
That's why he thinks moving in would be a great idea.
"I'm just saying." He sips his coffee calmly at Ryo's startled expression. "Your place is a mess because you're almost never there, and when you are, you're too tired to clean it properly. In the mornings, I end up in your clothes more often than my own, and you don't even need to pack to stay over anymore. There's no point in paying two sets of rent when we basically live together anyway."
Ryo stays silent and fiddles with his own cup, staring glumly at the saucer. "Are you just asking because it'd be more convenient?" he mumbles finally, picking at the gilt pattern with a thumbnail.
Ueda sighs. That's not the real problem, and they both know it. Ryo likes to think he's straightforward, but he actually sidesteps confrontations a lot, especially with people he really cares about, dropping incomprehensible hints as to what he wants and then falling into grumpy moods when they don't get picked up.
Fortunately, they've known each other long enough by now that Ueda knows how to draw it out.
"Of course not," he replies, folding his napkin neatly and sliding it beneath his cup. "I just don't think it makes sense otherwise. I mean, we don't get to spend a lot of time together as it is. This way, we can be together more, and we pay less money. Doesn't that sound better?"
When Ryo doesn't answer, Ueda straightens in his chair. Maybe he was mistaken, and it's too early for this? "…Ryo?" he asks, the squeamishness of unease swilling around in his stomach. "Um, I mean, if you don't want to, we don't. I mean. It's not… You can tell me, it's not-"
"I can't afford your place," Ryo says abruptly. "And I'm not going to let you pay for me."
"Oh." He blinks. Smiles. "Let's find a new place just for us, then, okay?"
* * *
"So that's why you shouldn't use that cleaner on the windows," Ryo explains patiently.
Ueda scratches his nose, frowns. "But I thought it was supposed to clean everything?"
"Well, it leaves residue on the glass, so." Ryo puts the roll of paper towels back on the floor. He straightens to find Ueda staring glumly down at the bottle in his hands, looking sorely disappointed.
"This is such a misnomer," he grumbles. "They should call it the everything-but-glass cleaner."
Ryo coughs gently and pretends to wipe his forehead. "Technically, it's still multi-purpose," he points out when he's sure he can keep a straight face again.
"But still." Ueda scowls. "If it's going to be a cleaner, then it should clean." He snatches the other bottle and huffily stomps back to their balcony door, shoulders tight with annoyance as he re-scrubs the entire two panels.
Ryo opens his mouth, closes it again, thinks better of it, and quietly puts their new schedules up on the refrigerator instead.
Hello! Greetings from Clementine!
Ahh, this is my first message, isn't it...
Well, since Chocolate's first piece was especially sour, ne, we thought it might be a good idea to offer some sugary goodness as a chaser. :D A little bit of white chocolate goes a long way, doesn't it?
I hope you are all enjoying your visit here!
Faire bonne chère,
Clementine.