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If you asked Hinata Shoyo how decent he was at cooking, on a scale of one to ten, he would say that he weighs in at a solid five. He can't do anything too fancy, and his mom banned him from using the oven after a failed attempt at Natsu's birthday cake, but he can do other things. Like make instant ramen, and scrambled eggs, and the occasional microwave mug cake.
If you asked Hinata Shoyo if he was able to make chicken katsu, a simple fried chicken cutlet dish, he would say something along the lines of this:
“Hmm, I’ve never tried making it before, but I can try!”
“Well, if you’ve never made it before, never mind,” Tsukki mutters, pushing his glasses up the bridge of his nose and turning away.
“Wha—hey!” Shoyo bristles, running to stand in front of Tsukki, blocking his way out of the gymnasium. "What do you mean by that?!"
"Where's Yachi?" Yamaguchi asks as he runs up behind Tsukki, tapping him on the shoulder. Tsukki glances back at him—and it's so unfair that Yamaguchi's the only person that can melt Tsukishima's ice-cold heart. Tsukki acts like a jerk towards everyone else, but he lets Yamaguchi hold his hand and hug him and touch his hair! It doesn't matter that they're dating! It's sooooooo unfair!
"I texted her to meet us at your house in three hours," Tsukki says, hiking his backpack up onto his shoulders. He nods his head over to Shoyo. "We have the really important test for English in three days, and Yachi's been stressed out of her mind about it. I had the idea—"
"I had the idea," Yamaguchi interrupts, and Tsukki pushes his hand into his boyfriend's face.
"To invite her over to Yamaguchi's house so we can make her dinner and study with her." Tsukki shrugs. "Come with us—or don’t, I don't care."
"Isn't fugashi her favorite food?" Kageyama asks, coming up directly behind Shoyo, startling a yelp out of him. "Shouldn't you make that for her instead?"
"Oh, we would if we knew how." Yamaguchi smiles up at Kageyama, hands clasped behind his back. "But neither of us know how. Do you know how, Kageyama?"
Shoyo sometimes forgets that Yamaguchi can be very mean when he wants to be. Thankfully, Kageyama is a socially inept idiot, and does not pick up on the sarcasm in Yamaguchi's voice. He answers with an honest, "No," and then follows it up with: "I'm coming with you guys too."
And at this, Tsukki lets out a long-suffering sigh. "I told you that inviting them would be a bad idea."
"What does that mean?!" Shoyo shouts, while Kageyama scoffs in annoyance.
“They could be helpful,” Yamaguchi says, nudging Tsukki in the side with his elbow. “C’mon, Tsukki. Please?”
The two of them have a silent standoff, staring each other down. After a while, Tsukki blinks, and Yamaguchi laughs in triumph. Tsukki just turns away and rolls his eyes.
“Shut up, Yamaguchi,” Tsukki mutters as he pulls his headphones over his ears.
“Sorry, Tsukki!” Yamaguchi says cheerfully, not sounding very sorry at all.
“You two are coming with us,” the blonde announces, and Shoyo whoops. He holds out his hands for a double high-five, but only Yamaguchi does it with him. The other two just say something about how much of an idiot he is.
—
So thirty minutes later, Shoyo is standing in his teammate’s kitchen, with Yamaguchi’s mother saying that she’ll be in the back garden if they need anything.
“Thank you!” Shoyo shouts as Yamaguchi-san waves and smiles at him before disappearing out the back door. “Yamaguchi, your mom is so nice!”
“You should’ve seen her yesterday, she was screaming at me so I would clean up my room,” Yamaguchi says as he pulls out their rice cooker. “Okay, we got three parts to dinner. Rice, the katsu, and some instant curry.” At Yamaguchi’s words, Tsukki flings a packet of instant curry blocks onto the kitchen counter.
“Divide and conquer,” Tsukki drones, slapping a bag of rice onto the counter next. “Okay, idiot one, you crack some eggs for the katsu, and idiot two, you measure out breadcrumbs and flour for the katsu. I will cut and flatten the chicken, because I don’t trust either of you to do it.”
“Who’s idiot one and who’s idiot two?” Kageyama leans over to whisper the question into Shoyo’s ear.
“You’re idiot one, because you’re the bigger idiot,” Shoyo loudly whispers back.
“What?! No, idiot two is the bigger idiot, it’s a higher number!”
“No, no, like if you go by ranking, it—“
“I’m going to feed you to Yamaguchi’s dog if you don’t stop arguing.” Tsukki’s voice cuts through theirs, and both of them briefly stop to look up. Tsukki is giving both of them the stink eye, and Yamaguchi is snickering into his fist. “Tadashi’s already gotten the rice started, because you two are both equally idiots.”
“He’s the bigger idiot!” both Shoyo and Kageyama manage to shout in perfect unison. It might have been the most synchronized thing they had ever done since they met—besides their super awesome freak quick attack, of course.
“You’re idiot one,” Yamaguchi says, now holding up a knife and pointing it at Kageyama. Everyone—including Tsukishima—freezes. The knife moves from Kageyama’s face to Shoyo’s face as Yamaguchi says, “And you’re idiot two. Now get to work!”
Yamaguchi goes to work dicing some carrots, and Shoyo’s eyes meet Kageyama’s in a silent agreement to not piss Yamaguchi off. Yamaguchi was scary when he was mad—almost as scary as that one time Daichi chased Tanaka and Noya around the gym for leaving trash in his car.
Yamaguchi could make a good captain in third year, Shoyo thinks to himself as he takes out some measuring cups. Well—I’d be a better captain, though!
—
The first problem arises when Kageyama somehow manages to drop all four of his eggs on the floor.
"I knew we shouldn't have let you into the kitchen," Tsukki sighs as Kageyama mops up the egg juice with a wet towel. "Tadashi, what did I tell you?"
"Mm, your judgment might have been right here, Kei," Yamaguchi says as he stirs the instant curry around in a pot. It smells so good, and Shoyo wishes that he could just take a spoon and start eating it. But it's a gift for Yachi, so they can't eat it before she gets here, and besides—he'll get to eat it after she gets here! And Yachi will be happy they made something nice for her!
"Not my fault eggs are so easily breakable," Kageyama grumbles as he sweeps up the eggshell remnants into a dustpan, into the trash.
"Yeah, not your fault you're such a brute!" Shoyo shoots back, grinning proudly at his pile of perfectly measured breadcrumbs and flour.
"Go sit in the living room," Yamaguchi says, not even looking up from his simmering pot of curry. "You're in time-out, Kageyama."
Kageyama grumbles, but he puts his towel by the sink and goes to sit on the couch. The rest of them snicker at his face of genuine annoyance.
"My sister and my grandpa always cooked food," Kageyama mutters as he crosses his arms and rests his head on them, watching the rest of them hustle around the kitchen. Shoyo cracks four new eggs into a bowl, with no eggshell in sight. He shoots Kageyama a satisfied grin, as if to say, look, I'm less of an idiot than you!
"Yeah, and it shows," Tsukki says as he saws the chicken breasts in half. The way he's cutting it, it almost looks like he's opening the chicken up like a book. That's a gross analogy to think about. "'Course, you're a king, you need all your meals cooked to perfection for you—SHIT!"
Yamaguchi immediately turns around, dropping his wooden spoon in the pot of curry. "Kei—Kei, are you good?"
"Nicked my finger," Tsukki hisses as the knife clatters down to the chopping board. Shoyo leans over to see what happened with Tsukki, and—wow, that's quite a lot of blood. Tsukki quickly moves his hand away from the food, over to the sink.
"It's better than it looks, don't worry," Tsukki says as he runs his finger under the water. Yamaguchi hurries over to him with a first aid kit, dabbing at his cut with a cotton ball. "Tadashi, I'm fine."
"Uh-huh," Yamaguchi says, wrapping a band-aid around Tsukki's middle finger. "Be more careful, you could've gotten even more hurt!"
"Whatever, Tadashi," Tsukki whispers, rubbing his thumb against his wound. Yamaguchi holds Tsukki's hand with both of his own, pressing a soft kiss to his boyfriend's bandaged knuckle. Tsukki groans, but Yamaguchi only smiles. Kageyama makes quiet retching noises, and Shoyo joins in after a moment.
"Time-out for you too, Kei," Yamaguchi says, still smiling, as he points to the living room. Tsukki groans, but stomps over to the living room and takes a seat next to Kageyama. Kageyama is snickering as Tsukki crosses his arms and scowls, flipping him the bird with his bandaged finger.
And then Shoyo looks over at the pot of curry and says, "Uh—Yamaguchi, your spoon's falling into the curry, is it supposed to do that?"
Quick as a flash, Yamaguchi races back over to the stove, muttering swears under his breath as he tries to fish the spoon out without burning himself. Luckily, the curry seems to not be burnt.
It's then that Shoyo also realizes that he and Yamaguchi are the only ones left in the kitchen.
"Hey—uh, how do I do this?" Shoyo asks as Yamaguchi begins to dump some seasonings into the pot of curry. "The katsu. How do I do it?"
"Oh, dip the chicken in the flour, then the eggs, then the breadcrumbs." Yamaguchi takes the pot of curry off the stove, going over to check on the rice. "And then I'll fry them. Oh—but first, flatten the chicken with the meat hammer."
"Meat hammer?" Kageyama asks in confusion, calling from where he's sitting criss-cross-applesauce on the couch.
"Meat tenderizer," Tsukki says, rolling his eyes. "Wow, it's like you've never even set foot in a kitchen before."
"Hey! I'm not that stupid!"
"So you do admit you are stupid!"
At this, Kageyama just lets out an enraged shout, pointing directly into Tsukki's face. Tsukki's laughter and Kageyama's shrieking elicits a loud barking sound from another room, and Shoyo sees a dark blur run into the living room.
"Hi, Kuma," Tsukki says, scratching the dog behind the ears. Kageyama leans forward curiously, hand outstretched, as though he's never seen a dog before.
Shoyo rummages around in some of the drawers, pulling out the meat tenderizer and then going to town on the chicken. Smashing things is actually pretty fun, who knew? Then he dips the chicken into the flour, then the eggs, then the breadcrumbs, then puts it onto a plate. Behind him, Yamaguchi is dumping a bunch of oil into a pan, cranking up the heat. Shoyo's not entirely sure if Yamaguchi can fry chicken, but he's certainly not going to volunteer to do it.
He goes through half of the chicken, making conversation with Yamaguchi about his dog as he does, before something goes horribly wrong.
The plate holding the flour was getting low on, well, flour, so Shoyo goes to refill it. He figures that he doesn't need the measuring cup for refilling the plate, because there's only two pieces of chicken left. So he just takes the bag of flour, tips it over, and—
Dumps an obscene amount of flour all over the plate, the counter, the floor, and himself. Behind him, he can hear Yamaguchi sighing, and he already knows what's coming next.
"Clean yourself up," Yamaguchi says. "And then to time-out you go."
"Aye aye!" Shoyo says, throwing Yamaguchi a playful salute before shuffling off to find a broom and sweep up the mess. In the living room, he can hear Kageyama and Tsukki snickering. "Hey, shut up! I lasted a lot longer than you two!"
"This isn't a contest," Yamaguchi says, slowly dropping the chicken cutlets into the hot oil. "Unless you're competing to see who can be the most incompetent in the kitchen."
"Yeah, and I came in second place!" Shoyo declares as he flops down on the couch, next to Kageyama. He grins, pointing between Kageyama and Tsukki in rapid succession. "I'm better than both of you!"
"Shut up!" Kageyama roars, grabbing Shoyo by the scruff of his neck and shoving his face into the pillows. Shoyo yelps, limbs flailing as he struggles to push Kageyama off of him. Tsukki does not help, as expected—he only snickers and starts taking photos with his phone.
"You realize that it's a competition for who's most incompetent, not the most competent, right?" Tsukki asks, the incessant click-click-click of his phone punctuating his words. "So that would mean Kageyama came in first place for being the most incompetent."
"It's still first place!" Kageyama says, briefly stopping in his quest to suffocate Shoyo via couch pillow. Shoyo turns his head up, squinting at Kageyama's face as he puts his entire body weight onto Shoyo's back. He's staring down at him with a blank expression, and—hmm, did Kageyama always look that cute?
"Get off me!" Shoyo shouts, though he finds that he actually doesn't really want Kageyama to get off of him. Kageyama just scowls, pressing his hands harder into Shoyo's back, and all of Shoyo's nice thoughts about Kageyama immediately vanish.
"Idiot!" Kageyama announces, his hands now moving to Shoyo's head, pushing his face back into the couch. Strangely enough, everywhere Kageyama's touched him feels hot, like fire.
Kageyama actually looks very nice when he's not screaming at him or scowling at him, he should try doing it more often—
"FUCK!" Yamaguchi screams, and Kuma the dog goes crazy, rolling off the couch and running around. All three of the human boys immediately move, tumbling over each other in their haste to get to the kitchen.
"What happened?" Tsukki asks, immediately grabbing at Yamaguchi's shoulders to assess the damage. Yamaguchi turns the stove off with one hand and sucks on his other one.
"Burned myself with the oil," Yamaguchi says, scowling at the stove. He has managed to fry two chicken cutlets—one of which looks a little bit more burnt than the other one. "Don't worry, it's nothing too serious. It just hurt for a little bit."
"Okay," Tsukki says, breathing out a sigh of relief. He smoothes his thumb over Yamaguchi's reddened skin, and he ducks his head for a second, as though he wants to kiss it. Midway, he stops, as if remembering that he and Yamaguchi are not alone.
"Now you have to go in time-out too!" Kageyama shouts, snapping Tsukki and Yamaguchi out of their stupor.
"Yeah!" Shoyo's finger points directly at Yamaguchi's face. "Now you get to join us in time-out too!"
Yamaguchi groans, but Tsukki places his hands on his boyfriend's shoulders, marching him towards the couch. Shoyo and Kageyama follow close behind, chests puffed out in victory.
"Wait—now there's nobody to cook Yachi her chicken katsu," Yamaguchi says, sitting up straight. He glances at his watch, then startles back in alarm. "Guys—we have thirty minutes to get her dinner ready."
"But we're all in time-out," Kageyama says.
All four of them look back and forth between each other.
"Uh," says Kageyama.
"Well," says Tsukki.
"So," says Shoyo.
Yamaguchi sighs, standing back up. "Mom!"
—
So that is how, fifteen minutes later, Yamaguchi-san has managed to fry all of the chicken cutlets for them. Now all they have to do is serve the food—Yamaguchi cuts the katsu into nice pieces, Shoyo scoops the rice, Tsukki portions out the curry, and Kageyama sets the table.
"Nice to see you can at least do that." Tsukki says, and Kageyama scowls and pokes him with the blunt end of a chopstick.
Shoyo's stomach begins rumbling, and he bounces around nervously in his seat. Where is Yachi? He's starving!
And then, sounding exactly like a choir of angels, he hears the dulcet tones of Yachi Hitoka's voice.
"Guys! Hey! Sorry I'm late, I had to make sure I remembered to bring all my things!"
"YACHI!" Shoyo bounds towards the door, pushing past Tsukki to hug her, even though they saw each other mere hours ago. "You're finally here, look what we made for you!"
"Ooh, what'd you make for me?" Yachi asks, grinning as she ruffles Shoyo's hair. Shoyo grins as well, taking Yachi by the hand and leading her to the dining room. Oddly enough, Kageyama scowls at this as well. He's not even doing anything this time! What, is Kageyama jealous that he's holding Yachi's hand? That sucks for him!
"We made dinner!" Yamaguchi says proudly, doing some jazz hands towards their food. Shoyo joins in, and after a moment, Kageyama joins in as well. All of them look towards Tsukki, who rolls his eyes but begrudgingly does jazz hands as well.
"Oh my god!" Yachi runs over to look at their food. She gets to sit at the head of the table, and she gets the best looking plate. The rice is a perfect dome, with the chicken katsu nestled on top of the mound, with the curry circling the rice like a little moat. "You guys!"
Yamaguchi gets the second best looking plate, because he made most of the food, and the other three get whatever scraps were left after that, tossed in a bowl.
"Aww, you shouldn't have," Yachi says as she sits down. She pokes at the mound of rice with her spoon, smiling as she does. "It looks so nice, I'd hate to eat it."
"Can we eat yet?" Shoyo asks, spoon already held over his bowl.
"Can we?" Kageyama echoes, and Tsukki snorts.
"Say thanks for the food first," Tsukki says as he sits down next to Yamaguchi.
Shoyo and Kageyama very quickly clap their hands together and shout, "Thank you for the food!" before shoveling their chicken katsu and rice and curry into their mouths. Finally, food! He's been starving ever since practice let out!
"Animals," Shoyo hears Tsukki say as he crams a whole piece of chicken into his mouth. Kageyama mumbles something through his mouthful of food, Yamaguchi chuckles, and Yachi giggles.
"Can you pass the tonkatsu sauce?" Yachi asks, and Shoyo reaches for the bowl of sauce without looking up from his food. It's so good. Yamaguchi and his mom are pretty good cooks. His fingers close on the bowl—that's not a bowl.
Shoyo looks up from his food, over to where his hand is currently sitting. He slowly turns his head, and he sees Kageyama slowly turn his head as well.
Shoyo's hand is firmly planted on top of Kageyama's. Both of them had reached for the sauce at the same time.
"Uh..." Kageyama gapes, mouth flopping open and closed like a fish. He looks kind of funny. His cheeks are flushing red—why are his cheeks flushing red?
"Aww, you look so cute holding hands," Tsukki jeers, and it's then that Shoyo realizes what exactly they're doing. They're holding hands.
"Idiot, get off me!" Kageyama screams, but he makes no move to get Shoyo's hand off of him. Why isn't he doing anything?
And it's then that Shoyo gets an absolutely awful idea.
"Make me," he says calmly, and he can see the gears turning in Kageyama's head as he struggles to figure out what Shoyo means.
"You—what—" Kageyama splutters, but he still makes no moves to get Shoyo's hand off his own. Shoyo makes no moves to take his hand off of Kageyama's. It's funny, watching Kageyama get all riled up over nothing.
So they just stay there for a couple more seconds until Kageyama takes his other hand, physically pulls Shoyo's hand off of his, and then passes the sauce over to Yachi.
Shoyo looks up at his other three friends, and they are all...staring at them. Yachi has her hands clamped over her mouth, and it looks like she's giggling behind them. Tsukki and Yamaguchi are leaning over, whispering to each other.
"Thanks, Kageyama!" Yachi says, hiccuping a bit because of her laughter. "Guys, this is really good, I can't believe you made this just for me!"
"Anything for you, Yacchan," Tsukki mutters. He probably thought his voice wasn't loud enough for Yachi to hear, but Yachi does hear, and Yachi does get up out of her seat to give him a hug. Then she gives Yamaguchi a hug, then Kageyama, then Shoyo.
"You guys are the best." Yachi sits down and begins eating the last of her food. Shoyo belatedly realizes that he hasn't eaten his food ever since he realized he held Kageyama's hand, and so he scarfs the last of it down.
The food tastes a lot better when he helps to make it, and it tastes a lot better when he's eating it with his friends.
"Idiot, you're getting food on me!" Kageyama protests as Shoyo looks up from the carnage he's wreaking on his dinner. Shoyo doesn't think that's fair, because Kageyama is just as messy while eating, if not more.
"You have rice on your face," Shoyo says, pointing directly at Kageyama's face. Kageyama rubs at his face, somehow touching every bit of it except the parts that have rice stuck to them. Shoyo groans at his idiocy, then leans forward to wipe the rice off himself.
"There!" Shoyo says in satisfaction, slapping Kageyama's cheeks for good measure. Kageyama has inexplicably gone red, his mouth hanging open, his eyes wide. "What?! What is it now?!"
Kageyama closes his mouth, opens it again, and then closes it again. Then he shakes his head, hiding his face in his hands.
"Are you okay, Kageyama?" Shoyo asks, concerned. Kageyama's really turning red—he looks like he might need medical help.
"I'm fine!" Kageyama screams, abruptly standing up and carrying his plates to the sink. "Don't—you can't touch me anymore!"
"Huh?!" Shoyo shouts, standing up as well to chase after Kageyama. "Whaddya mean?! You shoved me into the couch literally half an hour ago!"
"Stupid!"
"You're stupid!"
"No, you're stupid!"
"Idiots," Tsukki mutters as Yamaguchi and Yachi try—and fail—to hold back their laughter.