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Nomamoto’s apartment is a piece of shit, obviously. All of it. Mold creeps up the walls, the curtains are moth-bitten and threadbare, and the tatami mats in the space where she sleeps are worn and stained. It doesn’t take a genius to figure out that this coffin is the only place she can afford. Of course it sucks.
What gets Kitami, though, is the faucet. It drips incessantly. He doesn’t mind much when he first comes over, given that they’re rather preoccupied with cutting up the body in her bathtub and cooking whichever parts look edible. But in the aftermath, when the only sounds are Nomamoto scarfing down as much as she can at once and then licking her bowl clean and the drip-drip-drip of the faucet, it starts to drive him a little crazy.
“—and it’s kinda weird to only be—hey, are you even listenin’?”
Kitami blinks. He realizes his teeth are clenched. He’d been distracted by the faucet.
“No. Sorry.” Kitami frowns. “What?”
“I said it’s kinda weird to only be wearin’ one earring, y’know. You don’t really seem like the fashionable type. No offense.” Nomamoto grins. A piece of cooked alien carcass is caught between one of her canines and her incisors.
“Oh.” Kitami’s hand reflexively goes to his ear, touching the jewelry there. “I don’t know. It—it looks cool.”
“Ya sure you didn’t just lose the other one?”
Drip. Whatever response he would have come up with is washed away by frustration that flares up in him at hearing the leaky faucet. Kitami stands, fast enough that he bangs his elbow on the bit of counter that juts out from over the cabinets in her “kitchen”.
“How can you fucking live like this?” Kitami mutters, mostly to himself, already moving to open the cabinet under the sink.
“Well I’m sorry if my place isn’t up to your standards,” Nomamoto grumbles. “Geez.”
“No, no,” Kitami mumbles, his face heating up as he roots through the cabinet. “I just—the faucet. It keeps dripping.”
“Well, yeah. It’s a piece of shit.”
“You’ve tried to fix it?” Kitami asks, turning to face her, peeking over the cabinet door.
Nomamoto blinks at him. “What?”
“Like. Fix it,” Kitami repeats, as though that actually says anything more.
Nomamoto shrugs. “Dunno how.”
Kitami turns back to the cabinet. “You’re hopeless.”
“You’re a murderer.”
“You’re an accomplice,” he bites back.
He hears Nomamoto laugh. “Is it murder if it isn’t a person?”
Kitami’s fingers find the water valve beneath the sink. “No. I guess not.”
——
The better part of an hour later, Kitami has replaced the cracked rubber gasket that was causing her sink to leak. Nomamoto was no help, just watched videos on her phone and occasionally said to Kitami that she really didn’t give a shit about the sink. But he did, so he ignored her. And besides, her piece of shit apartment is a little better for it.
“Huh.” Nomamoto stands with her hands on her hips, her head turned at a ninety degree angle. “Well. Thanks, I guess.”
Nomamoto’s eyes flick to him, and Kitami suddenly feels like her already tiny apartment really is the size of a coffin. “It’s just… it was annoying.”
“Maybe to you. But you don’t even live here.”
“I’m gonna be here often, aren’t I?”
“Mm.” Nomamoto turns her head right-ways up. “Guess so. If it bothers you that much.”
“It does.”
Nomamoto shrugs. “Whatever.”
——
The curtains are the next thing to go. They barely shut out the light of the garishly illuminated sign of the hostess club across the street. It’s too bright for Kitami when he comes over late the next week, and when he comments on it, Nomamoto loudly complains about how hard it is to sleep in the summer, when it’s too hot to pull her futon over her head and block it out.
Now that he thinks about it, she does have dark circles under her eyes.
It suits her. Makes her look… unkempt. Distinctive. Interesting.
But he dislikes the light seeping in more than he likes Nomamoto’s tired-looking eyes, so he buys some cheap replacements for a hundred yen. They’re not perfect, but they make it bearable. And in the following days, Nomamoto seems a little bit more well-rested.
It’s a bit uncomfortable how much he likes this fact.
——
The flickering light in the bathroom? Fixed, with one of the bulbs Nomamoto already owned but has been too lazy to actually pull out and replace. The drawer in her sleeping area that’s fallen off its track? Shoved back into place. The dust that’s settled on every unused surface in her apartment and makes them both sneeze like crazy? Wiped away.
There comes a point where Kitami realizes that he’s not fixing things around her place that actually bothers him anymore, but rather just things that seem like common sense. Things that he thinks she would like. Or, at least, things that she might appreciate being less terrible.
The realization as to why comes when he’s scrubbing some of the built-up grease off of her sink. It occurs to him that it’s quickly going to get dirty again, considering how much cooking she does. And it occurs to him that he doesn’t really mind having to clean it up again.
Kitami blinks, gears clicking into place. He sets the rag he’s been using to the side, and looks down at Nomamoto. She’s in her usual spot sitting on the floor, back against the kitchen cupboards, licking putrid slime from her fingers as she finishes off the last of the day’s meat.
She notices. Pauses, looks back up at him. Her dark circles are mostly gone now, though not entirely. She’s probably staying up late anyway, watching those stupid videos of dogs being groomed.
“What?” she asks, her head quirking to the side.
There’s a stray spot of grease from the meat at one corner of her mouth. Kitami imagines crouching down, taking her jaw in his hands, and wiping it away with his thumb. Thinks about how her skin would feel against his palm.
“Nothing,” he mutters, turning back to the sink and trying to ignore the warmth creeping up his neck. “Your place is disgusting.”
Kitami can practically hear Nomamoto’s grin when she replies. “That’s why I keep you around, huh?”
He doesn’t reply.