Chapter Text
Chigiri knew he was difficult. It was a piece of information he was no stranger to, something he had been told from a very young age and for as long as he could remember. He knew he had a bad attitude. He knew he was moody and bratty and whatnot. He had always known it and, despite the mockery (“Hyoma, when you get a girl, she better be ready to be the boyfriend of the relationship!” Yeah, haha, very funny, Mom, thank you), he wasn't especially bothered by it. He knew it was mean of him to say, but he had always perceived his moodiness as a part of him, and even though sometimes he got self-conscious when he got the feeling people were bothered by it, it didn't mean he was going to change anytime soon.
The deal did change when his body was also being difficult. During those times, Chigiri really wished he had a sunnier disposition.
His knee was killing him.
Even though Chigiri had learnt to live with his injury and was proud of himself and his leg for the endurance, sometimes it still drove him crazy when his knee acted up. It was clear his body was just as displeased with Chris Prince’s training as he himself was. Seriously, who even trained like that? Chigiri's coach was never getting a wife, that was for sure. And if he did, there were only three options:
- They were two peas in a pod, which was, for lack of a better word, scary.
- She stayed for the dick, or
- She stayed for the money, which was the most believable one.
Because if not, there was no way in Hell a normal woman could tolerate such a fucking batshit crazy man.
After enduring the actual public humiliation ritual that was training with Chris Prince, Chigiri damn near crawled his way back to his house and up the stairs to his doorstep, where he laid for ten full minutes like a dying squid. The doormat, which had a big yellow smiley face, seemed to be looking up at him with mockery instead of the cheerfulness it was supposed to convey. Chigiri never thought he would ever feel the need to punch a doormat but, alas, he considered himself allowed to lose his mind just a little bit after the absolute torture he had survived that day.
With a soft grunt, he raised his fist and let it fall limp against the stupid smiley emoji he himself had insisted on buying. Then, he wondered how long it would take his neighbors to call the police if they saw him on the floor like that and punching his doormat, so he pushed himself up (not without letting out a cry of pain) and fell forwards against the door, opening it with the weight of his body.
Their cat, Panda, strutted his black and white fluffy ass to the living room to demand food the moment he heard the door. However, he turned around when he saw the state Chigiri was in and disappeared down the hallway as quickly as he had appeared, probably on his way to hide in an open kitchen cabinet so nobody would bother him for the rest of the evening. Smart cat.
Chigiri's knee burned every time he took a step, so he basically had to limp his way to his couch. He fell face-first over the armrest and didn't even attempt to correct his posture, just groaned into the black leather and began experimenting fever dreams. He deadass could have sworn he heard Bachira’s devilish laugh at some point, and he didn't raise his head out of fear of suddenly seeing his old teammate buttnaked in the middle of his living room, even though the rational part of his brain was pretty sure they lived in different countries now. Wow, that guy surely had managed to traumatize him. Silently, Chigiri wondered how Isagi was holding up.
At some point, he fell asleep and drooled all over the leather couch Rensuke had insisted on buying in retaliation for the stupid doormat Chigiri had forced them to acquire for their new home. It had never been especially comfy, but at that moment, he did not care. He urgently needed a nap.
Chigiri apparently napped his way through the afternoon, missing his favorite English TV program (which would have made him go even more insane if he hadn't been so desperate for sleep; he had literally perfected his English just so he would be able to watch it without subtitles). He probably would have remained asleep for three days and would have come back to life on the third just like Jesus did, if it hadn't been for his absolute sweetheart of a fiance.
Chigiri woke up a few hours later while he was being gently laid down in bed by Kunigami. At first, he thought somebody had broken inside and was robbing the house, so he raised a weak fist to try and hit his attacker. However, the movement was so sloppy that the other couldn't help but let out a soft laugh under his breath, which immediately activated Chigiri's Kunigami Sensors™.
Kunigami wrapped a strong, literally gigantic hand around Chigiri's pale, delicate wrist and brought his hand up to his lips to press a soft kiss to the knuckles, like a true hero. He guided it down to rest on the bed, against Chigiri's body, before he leaned in to press a second kiss to his forehead.
“Rough day?” he asked. His voice had somehow grown deeper and hoarser over time, making him sound unbearably mature and logical and serene and level-headed and exactly like the man of Chigiri's dreams.
Chigiri used up all his leftover energy (if he even had any to begin with) to open his eyes. Kunigami had closed the curtains and the scarce light in the room was coming in through them. It was a rare sunny day in England, so Chigiri was not about to complain, but he still squinted.
His heart skipped at least three beats when he caught sight of his fiance looming over him with a small, calm smile on his face.
Kunigami had never been quite the same since the Wild Card project. That period of his life had marked a clear turning point for him. He had never laughed with the same intensity again, never eaten with the same appetite, and had never fully recovered from what he had seen and heard there. He still found it hard to talk about it. All of that was reflected in his appearance: he’d let his hair grow a little longer than it had been when they’d met, his eyes didn’t sparkle the same way (it was a miracle they had come to sparkle again at all, Chigiri thought), and his expression, in general, had taken on a calm but essentially ominous seriousness.
However, for all the trauma he endured in the Football Hunger Games, he had also become as big as a tank: he was already a good head taller than Chigiri, but with the muscles he’d gained during the program, the poor redhead was genuinely afraid of getting crushed while they slept. Kunigami’s arms were wider than his head.
And despite all of it, he was still the same noble soul Chigiri had come to know and love. Now that had never changed.
Kunigami’s smile was small, but there was a certain tenderness in his eyes that made Chigiri feel like he was being doted on, cherished and adored. He had grown an absolutely adorable stubble those days, which Chigiri would surely convince him to never shave off, and he was still in his gym clothes. He hadn't had training that day, but Kunigami had never been one for lazy days, so he always insisted on going to the gym the days he didn't have to train. It was frustrating, confusing and cute, all at the same time, and Chigiri loved it.
The redhead reached out his hand to try and cup his fiance's cheek, but he ended up needing said fiance's help to be able to do so. Kunigami's smile widened almost imperceptibly, and Chigiri knew it had to do with the fact the big man adored feeling needed. It could be seen clearly in the way he nuzzled his stubbly cheek against the other's hand, which he was still holding up by the wrist. Kunigami was happy when Chigiri needed his assistance and his support, something he admitted out loud pretty often.
Chigiri genuinely thought he would never fully get used to it.
“You can’t even imagine,” he forced out, not even noticing the exact moment when Kunigami’s arms came under his knees and around his torso to pick him up bridal style. Chigiri rambled the whole way to the bathroom, because even though he was objectively half dead, he always had energy to complain. “He filmed the whole thing, Ren. The entire training. It was humiliating. I’m not even kidding when I say Nagi was passed out in the background during most of it. If that thing ends up on Instagram, I swear, I’m breaking into Prince’s house and beating the lights out of him with a frying pan.”
Rensuke chuckled, gently placing Chigiri in the sink while he ran them both a warm bath. Chigiri leaned back against the mirror and watched him, marveling at how such a tall, broad and brute man could do stuff so ridiculously delicately. Steam fogged up the room and made the redhead’s muscles relax and his lungs open up, allowing him to breathe in deeply.
“A frying pan would be too noisy. I would simply get a gun and use the pillow as a silencer,” Rensuke joked, coming to stand in front of him. He handled Chigiri like a lifeless ragdoll, removing his clothes with special care, and the other couldn’t find it himself to protest against it, especially not when it felt so good. “How’s your knee?”
Ah, of course, the question. How was his knee? Well, Chigiri looked down at it with his eyebrows and his nose scrunched up, trying to think about how his knee was. It hurt, that much was clear.
“Uh… like, a 7,” he answered, resorting to the pain scale. Rensuke looked up at him with worry shining in his eyes. He had knelt down to take off Chigiri’s socks and the sight was one for sore eyes: a 6’2, 200-pound man, holding a pair of sports socks as if they were small, vulnerable animals.
“Did you massage it?” he asked softly, and Chigiri almost (almost) let out a giggle.
“No, I died,” he reminded him, and Rensuke let out a hum that sounded like he was calling himself out for forgetting that fact, which was downright adorable. He grabbed Chigiri and hoisted him up carefully, slowly lowering him into the bath. It was pleasantly hot and smelt like Chigiri’s favorite lavender bath salt, which only made the redhead fall in love with his fiance even more. He sighed and was about to pass out again, when he heard the sound of clothes being removed and it finally reached him that Kunigami was going to get in with him. Immediately, his head peeked from inside the bath, gaze clearly interested. Rensuke noticed, of course, but he didn’t do much about it apart from smiling.
Now, now. A naked Rensuke was another sight for sore eyes. A naked and cocky Rensuke? If Chigiri had been in his right mind, he would have had to be held back.
He strategically made space for Kunigami to step inside the bathtub, and, as if the other had read his mind, he sat down right behind Chigiri’s leaner body, wrapping an arm around his waist and pulling him against his hard (as a fucking rock) chest.
“Lean back.” Kunigami had never been one for orders. Even when he actually gave orders, they didn’t exactly sound authoritarian, more like strongly advised suggestions. However, not many ever dared disobey. Not even Chigiri, who absolutely despised being ordered around like a dog. He knew that, when Kunigami ordered something, it was for his own good.
Chigiri leaned his head back and immediately felt the steady current of water falling down his head. He sighed, snuggling against Kunigami’s neck while the other shampooed the long hair, scrubbing Chigiri's scalp and brushing his long, thick fingers through the soft strands. He then pushed Chigiri forwards and helped him slide down until his head was in the water, effectively rinsing the product off. He repeated the process a second time with a different shampoo (the fact that he knew his routine by heart made the other feel a little bit too giddy) and then rinsed the water off and conditioned the ends, grabbing their shower hairbrush and brushing through the knots in Chigiri's hair.
Safe to say, the redhead was in Heaven.
“This is better than sex,” he moaned, feeling his fiance's chest shake and tremble with laughter.
“Really?” he questioned, not even sounding mocking.
“For fucking real, Ren.” Chigiri melted against the other, sighing as if he were being massaged all over. Kunigami kept laughing, braiding the boy's red hair and then pinning it up so the conditioner could work. He then pressed a hand under Chigiri's ticking bomb of a knee and pushed it up, watching it emerge from under the hot water. “Mhm… you don't have to do anything, you know…”
“I know.” Kunigami pressed a soft kiss to Chigiri's cheek, and the feeling of the stubble against his skin almost made the redhead swoon and start drooling like an idiot. “But I want to.”
He reached out of the bathtub and grabbed a bottle of lotion from the table next to it. Chigiri, despite his stupor, noticed it was the cream he normally used to massage his knee. Kunigami dried Chigiri's knee, put a little cream on his hand and rubbed it all over the pale skin, then began massaging the injured joint carefully.
Chigiri hissed just a little bit, so the other stopped almost immediately.
“You okay?” he asked. Chigiri nodded his head as a response.
“I'm fine, don't worry.” Kunigami frowned, but he kept going. After a while, it stopped feeling so painful and Chigiri leaned back and closed his eyes, feeling like he would fall asleep at any given moment.
“... Doesn't feel better than sex anymore?” Kunigami whispered in his ear while he worked. He sounded playful and it made Chigiri smile.
“Mhm… now it feels like mediocre sex,” he answered, to which the other chuckled.
“You've had a lot of that?”
“Not since I know you,” Chigiri complimented, making his fiance blush. “What?” He laughed, pinching Kunigami's chin. “I'm not lying.”
“Ah… I never said you were, you just surprised me,” Kunigami smiled shyly, pressing another kiss to Chigiri's cheek. “... You should tell Prince to relax a little bit if his training hurts you.”
Chigiri immediately sulked at the simple idea of telling Chris Prince anything unless it was screamed in his face while both his legs were being stretched and pushed up until they cupped his face. Besides, it wasn't like his training had hurt him. Chigiri had been hurt ever since he was a teen, and that was nobody's problem but his own. He wasn't going to push himself, but he also wasn't going to blame anyone for his pain.
“I'm not doing that,” he whispered. He felt Kunigami press the sponge against his body and scrub his back, so he leaned forwards and sighed deeply, pleased. “A lot of my disgraces are his fault, but this is not one of them. Nagi was in way worse shape than I was.”
“The day Reo sues Chris Prince, it's over for the team,” Kunigami joked, although both of them shivered at the idea. Of course, they knew Reo would never do such a thing, but it was still a terrifying thought.
“Let's hope Nagi doesn't complain or put on puppy eyes,” Chigiri hummed, allowing Kunigami to rinse the conditioner off his hair. He waited for a few minutes for his fiance while he scrubbed his own body and quickly washed his head, and then they both got out of the bath.
Kunigami grabbed a towel and dried Chigiri off with it, then dressed him in his pajamas and helped him dry his hair while the other sat on a stool. Chigiri felt bad for making Kunigami work, so he made him sit down next to him and washed his face with his skincare products, which made the big man grin adorably.
“You shouldn't have done all of this for me,” Chigiri reprimanded him, feeling the tiredness returning to each and every single one of his muscles. His arms legitimately started trembling, so Kunigami gently held them for him as he finished the routine.
“I couldn't let you fall asleep without bathing,” the other answered, bringing him close and placing a peck on his lips. “And the neighbor told me you spent ten minutes on the floor punching our doormat, so I considered you needed some care before you descended into madness.”
Chigiri turned red from head to toe and cursed out their neighbor (a nice old English lady) under his breath, making Kunigami laugh.
“Don't get mad, she was worried. Come on, let's get you to bed.” He hoisted Chigiri up and walked him to the bed, even though he was still naked under the fluffy pink towel wrapped around his waist. Chigiri clung to him like a lifeline even as he was lowered. The moment his back hit the mattress, he sunk into it while letting out a pathetic little whine of exhaustion. When Kunigami untangled himself from him to get dressed, he whined again. His fiance giggled, but was extra fast putting on his underwear and his sleeping shirt and sneaking under the covers with Chigiri. He threw the blanket over the redhead and smiled when the other nuzzled against him like a cat seeking heat. He ran a hand through Chigiri's hair, his engagement ring shining in the dim light of the bedroom.
Kunigami leaned down and placed a soft kiss on Chigiri's forehead. Chigiri hummed, pleased, making the other smile against his skin and wrap his arms around him, bringing him impossibly closer to his body. Slowly, he whispered in his ear.
“Good night. I love you.”
And then, he pressed one last kiss to Chigiri's cheek and closed his eyes. However, before he could fall asleep, Chigiri parted his lips and breathed out a gentle:
“I love you too.”