When All Hell Breaks Loose

Week Six: Sharing With Your Partner - Sae

When it came to the mundane things, Sae felt that sticking to the self contract was shockingly easy.

Or maybe disgustingly easy was a better way of putting it, seeing as once he'd started, it felt like such basic, simple shit that it was himself he was disgusted with for not figuring it all out sooner. It wasn't second nature or anything. He still had to think about it. Pause. Breathe. Catch his automatic reactions, when he could, which wasn't always. But he was doing better. Much better, he assumed, than the twenty percent condescension reduction that he'd been aiming for.

Sendou had moved into his apartment. And he felt, well, some type of way about that. If he had to consult the emotion wheel, perhaps he'd land on satisfied. Or relieved. Or whatever.

They didn't talk about it. They didn't talk much at all. They weren't really that kind of friends, and besides, Sae didn't have much experience with friends of any kind. But they'd started this type of game of sorts. It had started when Sendou texted Sae a picture of Sae's own fridge, the water dispenser on the front of it. The accompanying text read: Sixteen settings for ice? Three different grades of crushed? I'm in heaven. And instead of texting him back uh, yeah, obviously I'm the one who fucking bought it or what, Oliver's only good enough for bagged ice from the corner store? or even, don't get too comfortable, it's only one more week, all of which would have been very kneejerk Sae reactions, he texted him back a picture of Rin and Meguru's fridge, the no water dispenser on the front. With a text that read: And I'm in hell.

Sendou texted back a whole string of laughing emojis. And Sae felt some type of way about that too.

It went on like that. Sendou sent him a picture of the showerhead in the guest bathroom and said, legit forgot I wasn't in the rainforest, and Sae sent one of Rin's guest bathroom showerhead and said, never forgetting I'm in Peasant Town.

And there was more to it. Sae wasn't that much of an idiot; even he could see that. This was Sendou's way of saying that he appreciated what Sae had done for him and Sae's way of not making a big deal about it. He didn't really care that he was personally digging at people he was harboring his own brand of reluctant appreciation for. As far as Sae was concerned, what Rin and Meguru didn't know couldn't hurt them.

Plus, there was the time he caught Sendou pacing back and forth in the living room, staring into his phone. Sae couldn't see the screen, but he didn't have to. The guy was alone, and as such, had no motivation to keep it off his face. It's not like Sae was spying. He'd gotten cameras put into the house, as a precaution, after Ryusei had retired and he'd gone back to work. Like the ones you can buy for pets, just higher grade. He'd never told him about it. About the cameras or the fact that they were technically for spying on pets. But that's just because he'd wanted to spare them both the fight of Sae not trusting him to take care of himself or keep himself alive or whatever, even though that was true. But he would be a whole continent away, so he didn't feel bad. He hadn't been spying on him. He'd check in from time to time to make sure Ryusei wasn't sprawled out on the kitchen floor in a puddle of his own blood or vomit and he was doing the same thing when he was making sure Sendou wasn't sleeping in his bed or wearing his clothes.

But instead, he saw, well, whatever the hell this was.

He watched him just long enough to get a pretty good idea of what the hell this was, and then he rolled his eyes to himself and pressed the microphone button. A feature he'd never used, but was using now.

"Sendou."

"Jesus fucking Christ!" Sae watched the Sendou on his screen gasp, jump, and drop his phone right out of his hands. He didn't seem too concerned, however. Instead, he was looking around into the corners of the room. "Sae? Is that you?"