#houdidesu

“You have a fever,” Tetsuya notes, mildly amused despite the situation, as his lover groans and rolls around in bed. Seijuurou cracks a single ruby eye open, exhaustion evident on his face. Feeling pity for his boyfriend, Tetsuya pulls the covers up to his chin and leans down to peck him on the forehead. “Stay here. I’ll make you some soup and get you some medicine.”

Seijuurou’s only response is a grumble, and Tetsuya takes time to admire how childish he is when he’s sick.

It’s about half an hour later, when Seijuurou’s sipping his soup through a feverish haze, that he finally realizes, and he nearly knocks the bowl of soup onto the bed. Tetsuya catches it in time, opening his mouth to scold the other, but Seijuurou is halfway out the bed already. “Seijuurou-kun!” Tetsuya calls, exasperated, as he sets the bowl to the side and grabs the redhead around the waist, dragging him back into bed.

“Let me go, Tetsuya,” Seijuurou tries to keep his voice commanding, but it cracks halfway through, and Tetsuya rolls his eyes. “I have an important meeting today that I can’t miss.”

“Well, guess what? You’re missing it,” Tetsuya says, dryly, as he forces Seijuurou back into bed. He shoves his soup back at him, his sapphire eyes narrowing. “Now drink your soup and stay in bed.”

Even if Seijuurou was feeling better, he might not have stood a chance against Tetsuya. As it is, he shrinks back into bed and mumbles, “Yes, Tetsuya.” With a serene smile despite having a murderous glare the moment before, Tetsuya pecks him on top of his head before leaving.

Seijuurou shudders. Even he doesn’t want to even think about dealing with an angry Tetsuya.

Later, Seijuurou is lying on the couch in the living room, watching the news on TV. Tetsuya had rolled his eyes but permitted him to do so, only for his sake of mind. Seijuurou glances at their room’s door where Tetsuya is, wondering if he had taken the day off work at the kindergarten to take care of him. It makes him feel a little guilty, but he’d prefer to have Tetsuya around if he’s going to be stuck inside all day.

Tetsuya walks into the living room, pulling on his jacket. “I’m going down to the store to buy some more ingredients for soup,” he tells him, walking closer to the couch. Kneeling down next to him, he tilts his head and asks, “Do you want anything in particular?”

“Tofu,” Seijuurou answers immediately, and Tetsuya snorts, shaking his head. Seijuurou smiles a little. “You can’t ridicule me because you’re the same about vanilla.”

“Fair point,” Tetsuya concedes, standing up once more. Before he can walk out, Seijuurou reaches out and grabs his hand. He stops in his tracks, half-turning to him in question. “Seijuurou-kun?”

He blames it on the fever, but he can’t help but say, “I wish you’d stay with me forever.” It’s probably the sappiest thing he’s ever said (and trust him, he’s said plenty of sappy things in his history of courting Tetsuya), and if he didn’t have a fever, he would probably be face-palming.

Tetsuya looks vaguely amused, but he just gently shakes off his hand and comments, “That can be arranged.” When Seijuurou blinks in confusion, Tetsuya seems to consider something, and then he turns toward the kitchen. “Let me make more soup for you before I leave.”

Maybe Tetsuya thinks he’s delirious with fever. Seijuurou can’t blame him.

Sometime later, Tetsuya returns with a bowl of soup, and he offers it to Seijuurou. He stays next to him, waiting for him to do something (eat it, maybe), so Seijuurou looks down at the bowl—and squints. “You used alphabet noodles,” he states, not quite believing his eyes as he stares down at the arrangement of English letters floating in his soup.

“I hope your English isn’t too rusty,” Tetsuya says with an innocent smile. Seijuurou sighs, but before he eats the soup, he takes a closer look at the letters. It looks like they’re forming words.

Slowly, Seijuurou depicts the letters. “Will… you… marry… me…?” He blinks, rapidly, wondering if he misread it, but no. It still reads the same. Whirling around toward Tetsuya, he finds his lover holding a small black box open, a beautiful gold ring with a modest diamond surrounded by smaller ones in the middle of it. Tetsuya’s smile is hesitant but hopeful, and Seijuurou is downright speechless.

And, of course, the first thing he blurts out is, “I was supposed to ask you!”

Tetsuya blinks, but then he smiles again, this time a little more relaxed. “Then you should have,” he teases. Seijuurou can only gape at him. He loves Tetsuya, of course he does, but he never proposed because he wasn’t sure if Tetsuya was ready for that.

And now he’s getting proposed to.

This isn’t how he expected this to go.

Seijuurou stares at the ring for a long, long time, the bowl of soup long forgotten. Tetsuya starts to fidget, getting nervous again, but finally, Seijuurou looks up at him, and no, his eyes aren’t blurry. “Of course I’ll marry you, you idiot,” he murmurs, and Tetsuya’s expression lights up. He takes out the ring, and the ensuing moment of his sliding the ring on Seijuurou’s left ring finger must be simultaneously the most embarrassing moment in his life and the happiest. He never ever thought that he would be the one on the receiving end of the ring. 

Seijuurou unceremoniously dumps the bowl of soup on the side table, silently commending it for delivering the message, and pulls his boyfriend—fiancé—closer to kiss him. After they part, Tetsuya makes a face.

“I think you just got me sick,” he says, but his voice is light, and he smiles at Seijuurou when he turns to him, offended.

“Way to ruin the mood, Tetsuya,” Seijuurou sighs, exasperated, but he gives in to the urge to smile as well, kissing him on the forehead this time. “I love you.”

“I love you, too.” He pauses, considering. “But we’ll have to elope to America since we can’t get married here.”

Seijuurou laughs, resting his head on Tetsuya’s shoulder. “After I’m recovered,” he promises him. Tetsuya laughs, softly, and wraps his arms around him.

“Alright.”

Seijuurou sighs, stretching out his legs as he glances out the window. Of course, all he sees is blue sky and clouds, since he’s on his private jet.

He’s been on a business trip for three long weeks, which additionally means that he’s been apart from his boyfriend of five years (one Kuroko Tetsuya) for three weeks. He will fully admit to missing him sorely, and being jealous that Aomine and Kise are taking the opportunity to hog Tetsuya. Well, he won’t admit the last part, but he is.

Since he can use his phone at the moment, he takes it out and sees that he has a text from Tetsuya wishing him a safe flight. He smiles slightly, opening the conversation to text him back. After a moment’s hesitation, he sends his message.

I miss you

He’s normally not clingy (or so he believes), but in his defense, he’s been surrounded by boring old men for the past three weeks. Going on a trip through Europe with Aomine and Kagami sounds more pleasurable than a repeat of these last three weeks, and yes it really was that bad. (Not that there’s anything particularly wrong with Aomine and Kagami, just that they’d most likely be arguing the whole way.)

A minute later, he gets Tetsuya’s reply, and he can practically hear the amusement despite the fact that he just says I miss you too. Seijuurou taps his phone on his thigh before throwing his inhibitions out the window and typing back I wish I never had to leave you again. He regrets it a nanosecond after he sends it, and sighs heavily. Again, he’d like to state that he’s normally not this clingy.

He doesn’t get a reply and wonders if Tetsuya is showing the others and laughing with them at him. He frowns at the thought, hoping his boyfriend didn’t betray him in such a way.

When he’s about to give up and mute his phone for the rest of the flight, he gets a reply. He opens up the message, only for his fingers to freeze.

Marry me, then?

Another message comes in, but this time it’s a picture. Tetsuya peers into the camera with a small smile, holding an open black box with a breathtaking ruby as its centerpiece, small diamonds sitting beside it, and behind him are Aomine and Momoi forming a heart around him. Momoi is beaming at the camera while Aomine looks vaguely embarrassed.

Seijuurou lets out a breath.

He calls Tetsuya.

“Seijuurou-kun?” Tetsuya asks, voice hesitant. As if he would reject him. As if there would be any other answer than a resounding—

“Yes,” Seijuurou breathes, and he can’t quite believe it, really, that his polite and quiet boyfriend is proposing to him, and in such a way, too. But here they are, and he’s happy, he is, and he can’t wait to get off this plane and see him.

Tetsuya lets out a relieved breath, and he must still be with Aomine and Momoi because he calls, his voice a bit distant from the phone, “He said yes.” He hears Momoi’s telltale squeal and Aomine’s congratulations, and Seijuurou smiles to himself. “Hurry home. I love you,” Tetsuya says, softly, and Seijuurou’s heart melts because he knows that there are a lot of things they both want to say, but it’s not the same over the phone, and still, Tetsuya manages to make him feel all fuzzy inside.

“I will. I love you, too.” After that, the call ends, but Seijuurou still has a stupid grin plastered on his face.

It doesn’t fade when he gets off the plane and runs to Tetsuya, and it even widens when Tetsuya slips the ring onto his finger. He kisses Tetsuya, ignoring the catcalls of their friends, and leans his forehead against his fiancé’s with a dumb smile.

“I love you,” he murmurs, and Tetsuya snorts at his smile, but he smiles as well.

“I love you, too. Okay, now back on the plane, because we can’t get married here,” Tetsuya says with a laugh, and Seijuurou laughs as well.

They end up eloping to Canada, but their friends are there as well, cheering as they seal the deal with a kiss.

Seijuurou yawns as he rounds the corner of the hallway, heading back to the bedroom. He woke up wanting to drink some water in the middle of the night, so he went out to the kitchen. He made sure not to wake up Tetsuya.

But that apparently didn’t work as he ends up bumping into something solid that definitely shouldn’t be around the corner, and they both go sprawling.

“Ugh…” Tetsuya groans, rolling on his side, and Seijuurou manages to sit up, rubbing his hip that he’d landed on. Concerned for his boyfriend, he crawls over to him, gently taking his arms and lifting him into a sitting position.

“Are you okay?” He asks, worried, as he examines him for injury. Tetsuya nods, sleepily, hand flailing around for his glasses. Seijuurou withholds a chuckle as he locates his glasses and hands it to him. Tetsuya slips them on and stands first, and Seijuurou is about to follow his example when his leg nudges against something. Curious, he turns and spots a small box on the floor, and he picks it up, not recognizing it. Unable to quash his curiosity, he opens it up, only to nearly drop it in shock.

Sitting in the middle of the box is a silver ring with red and blue stones intertwining over the top of the band.

He looks up at Tetsuya, stunned, and Tetsuya just then notices the box in his hand and yelps. It’s only then that it occurs to Seijuurou that he’s down on one knee and holding out a ring to his boyfriend, and he pales, though you can’t really tell with the moonlight shining through the window.

Oh, shit, his sleep-addled brain so eloquently provides for him.

“I was supposed to propose to you!” Tetsuya exclaims, despairingly, and that just goes to show how tired both of them are. His hands are covering his eyes as if he’s too embarrassed to look at Seijuurou, and he finally realizes that the box must have fallen out of the pocket of Tetsuya’s pajamas. How long has he had the ring?

“…” Seijuurou stays in his position, too shocked to do anything else. Is he supposed ask him to marry him? Is he waiting for an answer? This is too much to be handled at four in the morning.

Tetsuya finally peeks out from behind his hands, and Seijuurou catches a glimpse of hesitant sapphire eyes. “So?” He prompts. Seijuurou stares at him blankly before finally realizing—he wants to know if he’ll marry him or not. That’s confirmed a second later as he asks, “Will you marry me?”

“Shouldn’t I be asking you that?” He shoots back, dryly, and Tetsuya’s hands fall to reveal a smile. Seijuurou can’t help the quirk of his lips. “I guess that’s a yes, then.”

Tetsuya hums, dropping back down beside him. “I guess so,” he says, lightly, as he plucks the ring out of the box and takes Seijuurou’s left hand, sliding it onto his ring finger. Seijuurou opens his mouth to protest, but Tetsuya rolls his eyes and kisses him, promptly shutting him up. “I bought the ring, I put it on your finger. Doesn’t matter if you had the box or not.” He tilts his head downward, a tiny frown tugging at his lips. “I’d still like to hear your answer, though…”

It’s Seijuurou’s turn to roll his eyes as he sets aside the box and leans up to kiss Tetsuya’s forehead. “Of course I’ll marry you, Tetsuya,” he sighs, pretending to be exasperated, but he feels happiness bubbling up inside him.

Tetsuya smiles again, leaning into him, and Seijuurou’s arms wrap around him. They sit in silence on the cold floor for several minutes before Seijuurou breaks the peace and quiet. “Can we go back to our bed? I know we just got engaged, but I’m so tired I might not even remember this in the morning.”

Tetsuya pulls back, a mischievous smile pulling at his mouth as he gets up and drags Seijuurou back to bed with him. “Then I guess I’ll just have to make you remember,” he teases, and Seijuurou feels a shiver run down his spine.

They have an eventful morning, to say the least.