Cooking Time: 30 Minutes

“Not The Carpenters again, Shiki,” Aoe Reiji groaned, as he covered his ears with both hands.

Behind him, Takamiya Katsura chuckled and set down the cups of tea he had been holding, carefully folding his lanky frame onto the couch beside the young Japanese visitor.

“Leave him be, Aoe,” he chided. “He's only trying to make the rain stop.”

“He's failing miserably.”

“Hush, just listen.”

The odd pair, curled onto the well-worn and much loved couch, then listened in silence, watching the redhead as he magically worked his fingers over the ivories. Each note ended with a flourish and as Shiki turned to regard them and bring his hands down on the last note, Reiji was sure he caught the glint of a mischievous smile tugging at the corner of the redhead's mouth.

------------------------

Autumn in England was usually as miserable as could be imagined; rainy, chilly, foggy, filled with gloom and thunderstorms. Reiji snorted at the rain-covered window in the kitchen and continued to peel potatoes, tossing their naked bodies into a large pot of salted water, destined to be boiled and added to a shepherd's pie. The meat had already been browned and sat cooling in a dish in the oven, which he had neglected to turn on, as his version of the recipe did not call for baking afterwards.

Unless he was sleeping or drunk, Shiki remained on the small wooden bench, tickling the keys with delicately crafted hands, his long hair bouncing against his back with each swift movement of his lithe body. There was no denying the sexual attraction Reiji felt towards the elder male, what with his feminine qualities–not to mention the fact that he looked very convincing in a dress—and his motherly concern over the way the boys behaved.

“Takamiya, come in here, would you?”

The slightly gruff mobster-esque dialect Reiji used to speak back when he was a teenager still shone through on occasion, but he worked hard to get rid of it, and the memories associated with it. He had been in England for only a few weeks and it still stuck when he was demanding something, or attempting to get someone's attention, who apparently did not want to be bothered.

“Takamiya!”

The strawberry blond sauntered into the kitchen in only a pair of soft fleece pants, the kind used for sleeping in on cool nights. He scratched at the light trail of hair below his belly button and yawned, earning a snort from Reiji.

“Goddamn lazy ass. What time did you get home this morning? I know I heard a fucking car door close around three.”

Takamiya nodded and settled himself onto one of the kitchen chairs, resting his head on an upturned hand, the elbow balancing precariously on the edge of the table.

“Around three, then.”

“Someone new, or the same asshole I saw you with in town the other day?”

“Same guy,” he mumbled, obviously still half-asleep, despite the hour nearing dinner time.

“Wow,” Reiji commented, flicking the gas on for the element that would boil the potatoes, then setting the lidded pot down upon it. “That's gotta be a record for you, huh? The same guy twice.”

The translator nodded again and slumped over in his chair, resting his forehead on the tabletop, savouring the coolness of its polished surface.

“You're not really listening to me, are you?”

Takamiya shook his head and began to laugh, sitting back up and offering an apologetic look to the darker male.

“I'm sorry, Aoe. I'm just so tired...”

“Then get your sleepy ass back to bed! It'll be done in half an hour.”

Reiji knew all about staying out late on dates with various people and then sneaking back home at all hours, so he could hardly complain about Takamiya's behaviour. The fact that the he was dating men and no doubt having sex with them while he was out was the part that bothered Reiji the most, but when he had sat down and thought about it the night he had first seen Takamiya's dalliances, it did not seem quite so weird. After all, it was no different than dating a strange woman each night, fooling around with her and then conveniently forgetting to call her again.

Ah, youth.

Grumpy already, the sound of Shiki starting the same song over for the thousandth time struck a chord within Reiji and he stormed into the living room, scowling from the doorway. The look Shiki leveled upon him made his blood run cold, as if he had been stabbed in the heart with a frozen sword. The redhead pouted his big plump lips and gazed up through the heavy fall of his lopsided bangs, his eyes wide as saucers. Reiji growled and threw his hands up in the air, turning his back and returning to the kitchen, his right eye twitching as a cheerful sound came from the elder male and barely a second later, the opening chord to the same song began again.

The kitchen was thankfully deserted as Takamiya had returned to his bedroom, so Reiji leaned back against the counter and lit up a cigarette, crossing his arms over his chest as he inhaled and blew the smoke out through the side of his mouth, leaving the ashes to continue to accumulate. He gave the cigarette a light flick into the tray beside him before returning to his former stance, his eyes gathering a hazy look over their surface as he slipped into a mild daydream.

Shiki stepped into the brightly lit kitchen and stopped just inside the door, his dark eyes regarding Reiji with something akin to hunger, though the young Japanese male knew that Shiki was not interested in him. The man had never shown an ounce of attraction throughout the few weeks he had stayed at their bed and breakfast, so why now?

“Smells good, Aoe,” Shiki chimed, crossing the short expanse between them and standing still before Reiji, his arms at his sides.

He wore a light sweater over faded denim slacks and his hair was in its customary ponytail, though a few strands had fallen loose at the sides and they cascaded over his shoulders like red cobwebs. Reiji's hand itched to brush them away but he stayed the hand in favour of simply watching the elder man. Shiki had a certain way of walking that aroused the senses; a sauntering shift of his hips that way and the click of his heels as he hurried up a set of stairs. It was both endearing and exciting, and Reiji found it hard to ignore on most occasions.

“It's just pie, Shiki,” Reiji answered lazily, the cigarette still hanging from his lips, even in the dream. “It'll be ready in about a half hour.”

“What should we do to waste time 'til then? I could play the piano a little more-”

“No. No more piano,” the foreigner answered immediately, plucking the smoke from his lips and crushing it into the ashtray.

He unbuckled the belt that held his apron on as he closed the barely two feet of space between them, letting the item fall to the floor and crushing the edge with one foot as he clumsily stepped over it. Shiki looked down to it as it fell and then directly into Reiji's eyes when he looked back up, a smirk growing at the corner of his mouth.

“Got another idea, Aoe?”

“Got a better idea,” he stated, both arms curling around Shiki's waist as he leaned in to kiss the redhead.

Shiki hesitated for a second but returned it nonetheless, accustomed to the kisses he and Takamiya shared and assuming it may be along the same lines, though the arms around his slim frame clutched with an intensity he doubted his young nephew would have matched at that same moment. The kiss was brief but delicious; Reiji tasted of ground beef and onions, muted with the taste of nicotine, whereas Shiki tasted like the strawberry chewing gum he enjoyed after drinking his tea.

To most, the taste of a meal, cigarettes and fruit may have been odd enough to warrant the forgoing of the kiss, but the pair hardly cared as a smile rose on both of their faces. Reiji's was only a tiny one; barely seen unless one looked very hard, and Shiki's shone as bright as the sunlight that streamed in through the slightly dusty looking windows.

Reiji's suspicions on the moment being a true daydream were affirmed when he glanced to the window and saw a clear blue sky above the barn behind the house, indicating a beautiful sunny day, whereas the 'real' day was a bland, rainy waste.

“Doesn't just smell good, Aoe. It tastes good too.”

The younger man growled quietly and demanded a second kiss, forcing his tongue into Shiki's mouth, licking his teeth and the roof of his mouth. He tugged at the slimmer man's body, pulling it against his own, the evidence of his excitement pressing against Shiki's. A flash of recognizance zoomed through Reiji's mind when he felt a hardness pushing against his own.

How thrilling, his mind announced. The man you adore so undeniably is aroused and wants it just as badly as you do.

Reiji pulled away and let the redhead go, quickly divesting himself of his own pants and underwear, the length of his shirt hiding his nude form but hardly hiding the outline of his engorged cock. Shiki chuckled softly, enough of an embarrassing moment to bring colour to Reiji's cheeks, but he too undressed, leaving his sweater on.

The foreigner's hands were on Shiki's body as quickly as before, turning him around to face the counter, Reiji's large hands on the redhead's hips. The bottle of cooking oil he had used for the onions still sat before them, announcing its 'non-stick' abilities in bright red text. Reiji chuckled mentally and grabbed it, listening with quiet humour as the bottle gurgled out a good portion of the golden liquid into his cupped palm.

Shiki writhed between the young Aoe and the cool countertop, one hand holding him away from the chilly surface while the other had already wrapped around his own eagerly twitching member, giving it light caresses and squeezes to keep himself as aroused as possible. Reiji had seen it and allowed it on the grounds that the elder man not release before his time came, but it was a silent demand, one that Shiki knew without truly knowing.

The oil was cold and Reiji hissed as he fisted his cock to smear it around, letting the messy liquid stain his t-shirt while he dabbed the coated fingers against Shiki's displayed hole, not bothering to mention that he was about to enter him with them, two of the digits sliding in without resistance. It surprised him but considering the slickness of the oil, Reiji doubted it really mattered. Shiki moaned against his upper arm, where he had pressed his head to hide his embarrassment on enjoying the ministrations.

“Takamiya's upstairs, Shiki,” he said quietly, a warning in his tone. “He's probably sleeping again but you have to be quiet anyway.”

“I'll try.”

It sounded like a lie, but it hardly mattered, when the man's ass was suckling at his fingers, demanding more. Reiji pulled them out and again stroked himself briefly, lifting his shirt with his clean hand and tucking it under his lowered chin, giving him a magical view of Shiki's bared ass being impaled on his oil-coated arousal. He slapped the hole with it twice before finally pressing inside, letting the forward momentum of leaning that direction to carry it all the way inside, quickly wiping his hand on his shirt as it fell again.

He replaced his hands--one clean on Shiki's left hip and one still slightly greasy on the right—and pulled back sharply, fully seating himself inside. The redhead howled and tossed his head back, nearly braining the younger man as Reiji has dipped his head forward. His teeth were gritted together to avoid simply pounding the tight hole and he lifted his head slowly, his hips doing all of the work as he dragged himself just to the tip from the slick tightness and then slid back inside, his hips bumping the fleshiness of Shiki's ass with a muted slap.

The pianist's hair tickled Reiji's belly when he finally divested himself of his shirt, after a few moments of absolute bliss. The sweater still clung to Shiki's pale body and as Reiji--now slicked and able to move his hands while Shiki pushed back on him, working together in tandem—lifted his hands, he moved them over the slim expanse of the redhead's skin, palming his pecs and pinching his nipples with a ferocity that made the smaller man's knees buckle a bit, his ass tightening around the other's cock to a nearly painful degree.

Reiji held Shiki tightly enough around the chest that the redhead did not have to hold himself against the counter any longer, his legs parted wide but supported from the front by his young guest's strong arms, giving him the opportunity to grind back against him when the delightful thickness of Reiji's arousal reached its widest point. It opened him impossibly wide and he groaned into the silence of the kitchen, the only sound accompanying him coming from the potato pot, which had begun to boil.

The culmination of the moment came when Reiji made the redhead hold himself on the counter for a second and with a bit of acrobatics he had mastered while growing up as a playboy amongst the girls of his neighbourhood, Reiji tugged Shiki's sweater off and held him again with one arm, the other still-oily hand now wound around the pianist's cock.

Shiki cried out sharply and then sucked in a deep breath because he knew he had been too loud, too far gone to honestly care. His member twitched angrily, ready to burst, causing him to again tighten around Reiji's still-thrusting one. The tightness made the arousal feel all the better and Shiki consciously did it to bring the younger male off more quickly, as well as stimulate himself, despite the obvious stimulation Reiji was giving him from the front.

Each pass of Reiji's thumb over the swollen and sensitive head of his cock brought Shiki a step closer, until he could no longer hold his release and came, spurting thick streams of the white cream onto the cupboards below the counter and the floor beneath them. The last vestiges of release dribbled down Reiji's hand and it remained there while the foreigner came as well, his head against Shiki's, while he sunk his teeth into the meaty flesh between the redhead's shoulder and neck.

Weak thrusts followed and then finally finished, giving Shiki time to step away from Reiji and the mess they had made. The young Aoe stumbled back for a second and caught himself on the edge of the adjoining counter, still breathing deeply. He watched Shiki lift the lid off of the nearly boiling over pot of potatoes and set it down, then make his exit.

The sound of the main floor bathroom door closing brought Reiji out of his reverie, his dark eyes blinking as they regarded the spotless kitchen. He looked down at himself and noticed that he was not aroused, as he should have been after such an erotic daydream. At the table, Takamiya sat, fully dressed and showing only a hint of the sleepiness he had displayed earlier, the gloominess of the rainy day returning, accompanied by a crack of thunder from the swollen, purple clouds.

“Is it almost done, Aoe? I'm starving!”

The Japanese traveler looked to the stove and blinked, seeing the lid beside the pot, the potatoes still cooking slowly in the boiling water. They were obviously done, as was evidenced by the light foam that rose to the surface of the water on the gentle boiling waves, the potatoes throwing away their important starch the longer they cooked.

His mind was panicking, trying to make sense of what had just happened.

It was a dream, right? Shiki and I...no, we couldn't have. Takamiya's a light sleeper and he would've heard...but...the lid. They don't just pop off by themselves. What the hell's going on...

He finally nodded to Takamiya's question and went back into chef-mode, carefully preparing the potatoes and mashing them into a thick paste, then adding them to the top of the meat and onions, which had been cooling in the unlit oven. As he was walking to the table with it, Takamiya got up to get the plates, utensils and condiments they would need, while Shiki again sauntered in, a brilliant smile on his face.

He gazed directly at Reiji, happy for Takamiya's ignorance of what the look actually meant. Shiki was prone to making goofy faces and for being far too intimate with friends and family, so a sensual look in Reiji's direction was nothing. The young Aoe actually jumped a little when the redhead spoke and goosebumps broke out on his arms when the man's words echoed back from deep within his mind, the man's dark eyes shining a little bit too...knowingly.

“Smells good, Aoe.”

Reiji shrugged.

“Thanks.”