Chapter Two: que será, será

So, how was day 1 of ur horoscopes?

-Hinako [Received 14:22]

Shit.

They don't work. It told me I would meet the 'love of my life' but the only person I saw was Yukihira. If it had said I would meet one of the most fucking annoying chefs alive then fine, but love of my life? Get real.

-Shinomiya [Sent 15:14]

Lol

-Hinako [Received 15:15]

Lol?

-Shinomiya [Sent 15:15]

Please don't tell me u don't know what lol means lmao

-Hinako [Received 15:16]

I'm not that stupid, Hinako. /sigh/

I'm just saying. Those horoscopes don't fucking work.

-Shinomiya [Sent 15:17]

Lol

-Hinako [Received 15:19]

How the fuck did it take you two minutes to type 'lol'?

-Shinomiya [Sent 15:20]

Lol

-Hinako [Received 15:25]

HINAKO

-Shinomiya [Sent 15:26]

What? Lol

-Hinako [Received 15:36]

"She really loves getting on my nerves," Shinomiya grumbled, rolling his eyes as he clicked off the text messages. He set his phone to one side before glancing at his laptop, which was displaying a bunch of emails. He had an email from Abel, who was asking to go for drinks.

"Can't," Shinomiya said, typing out the words as he said them. "I've got paperwork to finish tonight for Monday. Try asking Lucie, I'm sure she'll want to go."

He pressed send before looking at his other emails, deleting most of them until he got to Midorima Horoscopes. He was tempted to delete that email too, but there was a niggling feeling in his brain from him to check his daily horoscope. At first, he was able to ignore it as he responded to all of his important emails and updated the SHINO's Tokyo website. Three hours later, however, when it was the only unread email in his inbox emblazoned with bright bold text, he couldn't help but click on it.

"It'll only take a minute," he rationalised.

Again, the stars shot across his screen as it loaded up his personalised horoscope for the day, the loading screen just as pretty and spacey as it usually was. It was so pleasing to look at that Shinomiya actually felt at peace while waiting for the horoscope to load. Hopefully it would be something simpler like 'you will receive good fortunes today' rather than something as significant as true love.

Good evening, Kojirou! The stars are unclear and the clouds are in sight. One reading says this could be the best day of your life. Another states this could be the worst day of your life. Proceed with caution, and you might just get lucky tonight. Either that, or you'll end up in a fight.

"Well… that's depressing," Shinomiya said, frowning as he read over the last sentence. "For the other person, anyway. There's no way I'd lose in a fight."

As if on cue, a thunderclap emerged out of nowhere, bringing Shinomiya's thoughts to a halt. It had been raining since the morning, though Shinomiya hadn't expected the weather to be this bad. Sure, they were in November, but still. Was it too much to ask for one birth month without rain?

"Clearly," Shinomiya muttered, standing up and walking over to his kitchen so that he could grab himself a bottle of red wine. He was about to start responding to some more emails, but he needed a bit of conviction from that trusty red bottle of his. After all, some of the emails he received made him want to rip his hair out — or rather, the hair of the people who had sent him those emails in the first place.

As he opened the fridge door, however, there was another thunderclap outside. This time, it resulted in the lights of his fridge going off.

When Shinomiya looked away from his fridge and around him, he realised that all the other lights had gone off too.

"Shit," he muttered, shutting his fridge door and rushing towards his electric oven where a pot of coq au vin had been simmering on low heat. It was a dish that Shinomiya had been experimenting with lately, and one of the key things Shinomiya had learnt was that constant heat was a must. Not high heat, but constant heat.

This electricity cut would fuck up his dish for the day.

"Well," he murmured, letting out a deep sigh before wandering out of his kitchen, "I guess this means I have to talk to Yukihira."

Shinomiya fished his mobile phone out of his pocket and dialled the number for the front desk, listening to the first few trills before the perky receptionist picked up with a bright and cheerful, "hello! How can I help you today?"

"Hello, Shinomiya calling. By any chance, is Yukihira Souma in today?"

"Yes, he's right here," was the peppy response. "Yukihira-kun, someone's asking for you. Name's Shinomiya."

Shinomiya didn't hear Yukihira's response, but it wasn't long before the sound of the phone exchanging hands came, a sound characterised by rustling and various sounds before a cheerful "Afternoon, shishou!" fired down the phone and into Shinomiya's ears.

"I'm surprised you're so happy considering there's just been a power cut," Shinomiya dryly remarked. "I was cooking coq au vin and now it's ruined, so thanks."

"You realise I don't control the weather, right? Also, a greeting would be nice."

"Perhaps. But, there is such a thing as reserve electricity, isn't there? I can't even access the internet now," Shinomiya complained, throwing a hand out in frustration. "I was meant to spend today responding to emails, and now it's all been ruined, so excuse me if I don't exactly feel like greeting you."

Yukihira sighed. "Just as difficult as usual, huh?"

Shinomiya had been about to rant at him for that completely untrue observation, but before Shinomiya could get started, Yukihira's voice cut through the silence once more. It was just as calm and cheerful as it had been when he'd started speaking, though a new emotion had entered the atmosphere. Timidity, maybe?

"What are you more mad about? Your emails, or your food? I mean, I'd assume that you'd be able to afford unlimited data to hotspot your laptop, but I guess I assumed wrong," Yukihira said. While his tone wasn't exactly teasing, Shinomiya could sense that there was meant to be some sort of joke in there.

"I'll come and hotspot you if that makes you happy," Yukihira continued. "It'll take about three hours until someone can come and fix the electricity problem. It's a Sunday, so it's a miracle we can get someone to come out in the first place. And, as for the food, don't fret. I'm a chef too, remember?"

That particular sentence was said with a teasing aspect to it.

"Yes, Yukihira," Shinomiya sarcastically replied. "I remember."

"So, this is a formal invite to your apartment?"

"Don't take it as an invitation to talk to me. I'm a busy man," Shinomiya brusquely informed him. "I'm simply inviting you for my own benefit. Nothing less, nothing more."

"Mm-kay. Sure. See you in five," Yukihira cheerily replied.

On that note, Shinomiya hung up, though he couldn't help but stare at the phone screen for a good few minutes as he reflected on his rapidly beating heart. He didn't quite understand why his heartbeat had changed like that. He wasn't nervous, was he? After all, to put it in the bluntest terms possible, Yukihira was nothing compared to him. Shinomiya had carved himself a spot on the world's top chefs. Yukihira was still yet to achieve such a feat. Shinomiya shouldn't have felt nervous about Yukihira, not really.

And yet, his heart just wouldn't stop… racing. What was it trying to run away from?

…you will meet the love of your life…

"For fuck's sake, he's not the love of my life," Shinomiya growled, his frustration flaring at the antics of his brain. Why did his brain keep flickering back to that damn horoscope? It was bullshit. Bullshit. Bullshit. He was pacing back and forth now, trying to sort out his thoughts, but everything was scattered. It didn't help that there was no longer any stereo music to distract him. There was nothing but silence and occasional thunderclaps, and Shinomiya couldn't exactly decide which of the two options he preferred.

"Hey," Yukihira trilled. "I come bearing the answers to your problems!"

Yukihira strolled in through his front door, portable charcoal cooker balanced in his hands. He proceeded to make his way into Shinomiya's kitchen, oblivious to the look on Shinomiya's face. Shinomiya was preparing a dish which would sell for no less than a hundred euros in his restaurant, and Yukihira was bringing him a charcoal cooker? Charcoal?

"You coming, shishou?"

"For the last time, stop calling me that."

Shinomiya reluctantly trailed after Yukihira, though he was still stunned at the fact that Yukihira had brought him a charcoal cooker of all things.

"Hey, this smells great," Yukihira marvelled, his attention now on the pot of coq au vin as he levelled a silver spoon above its contents. A deliciously meaty aroma was emanating from the pot, and even though the heat was no longer on, the flavour of the aroma only seemed to develop as the seconds went past.

"Idiot, I didn't invite you to start tasting my food. It's not even ready," Shinomiya reprimanded, steely eyes fixated on the spoon which was now entering Yukihira's mouth. All he got in response was a happy grin from Yukihira, who seemed to be enjoying the taste of the food.

"This is great," Yukihira said, quickly readying his spoon to secure himself a second round of flavour. "Seriously, you've gotta give me some of this when you're done—"

"Yukihira."

When Shinomiya took a threatening step forwards, Yukihira raised both hands and stepped away from the pot, though he still had a playful smile on his face.

"Fine, fine. I know, you're a busy man. But, don't forget. I'm a busy man too," Yukihira remarked, bending down to activate the charcoal cooker. He briefly straightened his back to grab the pot of coq au vin off the hob so that he could lower it onto the cooker, though it wasn't long before he walked out of the kitchen, satisfied with his work. The whole time, Shinomiya had remained silent, his irritation momentarily eclipsed by his curiosity.

I'm a busy man too.

"What's that meant to mean?"

When Shinomiya didn't hear a chipper voice saying something irritating in response, he rose an eyebrow to himself. "Yukihira? You there?"

Again, no response.

With a sigh, Shinomiya wandered into the living room, surprised when he didn't see Yukihira sprawled out on his couch. In fact, Yukihira wasn't there at all — his phone was. On the table, there was a portable hotspot device.

"Mon Dieu, are you playing hide-and-seek or something?"

When there was no response, Shinomiya sighed and raked a hand through his hair as he approached his couch, lowering himself down before casting a curious glance over at Yukihira's phone. He looked around the room again, then at the phone, then around the room. Finally, his hand darted out for the phone, the warm metal pressing against his palm. It buzzed with a message, causing the lock screen to flicker on. The lock screen itself was a colourful image of Yukihira, some blonde guy and a blue-headed dunce doing peace signs at the camera. The message itself was from a guy called Takumi: srsly that Shinomiya guy is a dickhead… if I were you I'd kick him out of the apartment

"What are you glaring at?"

Shinomiya's head jerked up when he saw Yukihira approaching from the direction of the bathroom, one eyebrow cocked in curiosity.

"Your stupid lock screen," Shinomiya nonchalantly replied, tossing the phone to one side.

"Oh," Yukihira said, a slow smirk spreading across his face. "What, you jealous now?"

"…fuck off."

"You didn't say no," Yukihira teased, that smirk still playing on his lips. "Seriously, I can't seem to satisfy you. I bring you a charcoal cooker, I offer to give you free Wi-Fi but nope, you're still just as apathetic as ever. You really are something, huh? Well, you're in luck. I'm off for the evening, so I'll be back for my stuff tomorrow. You can connect to my hotspot. Password's 'squid21'. See ya—"

"Wait," Shinomiya interrupted.

Yukihira let out a hum. "What for?"

"…the coq au vin's almost done," he explained. "I'm not saying I want you here, but I'd feel bad if I just used your Wi-Fi without giving you anything in return. Besides, I could use some feedback on my dish. You're no expert, but it's better than nothing."

"You're really not the best at selling an enticing evening, are you?"

A laugh bubbled out from Yukihira's lips as he moved to stand directly in front of Shinomiya, hand reaching out to grab the phone which was a short distance away from his thigh. Shinomiya gulped at the sudden proximity, though he didn't say anything in response to Yukihira. He couldn't understand why he was so affected all of a sudden, nor could he quite understand what was happening to him. He couldn't help but feel like he was being a bit too mean to Yukihira, but at the same time… these feelings made him want to act like that.

Did he really have feelings for Yukihira? The biggest dunce to walk the planet?

…except, he wasn't really a dunce. Hell, he was the owner of the building that Shinomiya was living in. He was doing great things in the cooking world. He was on the brink of something brilliant, and Shinomiya was here degrading him? Was that really the right thing to do?

"Well," Shinomiya began after a pause, "I'm not selling you anything. It's just an offer. Do what you want. But… there's enough for two."

"So, is that 'shishou speak' for 'I want to catch up but I'm too much of a pussy to say it outright'?"

Shinomiya's hand reached out to grab Yukihira by the collar, the words "I'm not a pussy" ominously creeping out from his lips.

"Oh, grabbing me? Kinky," Yukihira teased.

Shinomiya's irritation was quickly replaced with embarrassment, his face going bright red as he released Yukihira, shuffling back on the couch to put as much distance between them as humanly possible. Yukihira burst out into laughter at his reaction while Shinomiya glowered to himself, regretting his decision to invite Yukihira to eat with him.

"In case it wasn't clear," Yukihira said after a pause, "I was kidding."

"I know," Shinomiya snapped.

"Then why are you blushing?"

This time, Shinomiya responded by throwing a cushion at Yukihira's face.

"Just shut up already, Yukihira."

Yukihira didn't shut up at all that evening.

And as it turned out, Shinomiya didn't even mind all that much. Occasional quips aside, Yukihira had actually turned out to be pretty good company. Shinomiya's coq au vin had turned out better than expected, though he still had a few things to tweak in terms of ingredient ratios.

"Seriously," Yukihira said in-between his final mouthfuls of the dish, "did you spill the whole wine bottle in there or something?"

"No, you're just a lightweight," Shinomiya fired back. He wasn't about to admit he'd added too much wine, not to Yukihira. He'd been tweaking the recipe to see what worked over the past few days, so now he had one more thing to add to this certain recipe: less is more.

"Well, I'm sorry," Yukihira replied, his tone clearly indicating the opposite. "We can't all be alcoholics, can we?"

"I'm not an alcoholic!"

"This dish says otherwise."

The overhead lights chose that moment to flicker back on, rendering the candles redundant. Shinomiya could hear all the other things around the room powering on, the whirr of the fridge and the growl of the nearby freezer. He was hoping that his ingredients hadn't been too badly affected by the outage — he'd moved a few items over to the freezer to prevent any spoilages — and most importantly… he was kind of hoping that Yukihira wasn't about to leave. Today had been strangely fun, though he wouldn't dare admit it out loud.

"There's your electricity," Yukihira proclaimed, leaping out of his chair and spreading his arms out as if he were the cause for it. The action was followed by laughter, a happy smile on his face as he looked up at the ceiling. Before, the room had only been lighted by candles and natural light poking out through the windows. Now that bright white light was falling upon Yukihira, Shinomiya was paying attention to him.

His eyes lingered on Yukihira's exposed collarbone, pale skin which was flushed a healthy shade of pink. His jawline. The gleaming of his teeth behind soft lips, rosy from the wine.

"…so now you can stop cursing me, right? You'd better not go around telling people I can't run this complex," Yukihira teased, eyes lowering down to meet Shinomiya's hungry ones. There was a flickering of confusion in Yukihira's eyes as he noticed the look in Shinomiya's.

"Uh… Shinomiya?"

Shinomiya hastily looked down at his dish before responding with a "What?"

"Your face looked really weird there," he pondered out loud. "You looked like… uhh… I don't know. Just weird."

"No, I'm just tired," Shinomiya replied, though his voice was lacking conviction. "Of you."

There was a pause before Yukihira replied.

"Whatever. It's late, so I'm a little tired too. I'm gonna head off."

Yukihira was courteous enough to clear his dishes away, even going as far as to give them a quick scrub in the sink before setting them to the side. A minute had barely passed before Yukihira trotted out of the kitchen, offering a quick "Later, shishou!" to Shinomiya before leaving the apartment, the door gently clicking shut.

Shinomiya looked across where Yukihira had been sitting, then down at his own empty plate.

"…fuck. I think I like him."

This time, however, Shinomiya didn't shy away.

He got up and ventured into the living room, swinging the front door open before stepping out into the corridor. Yukihira had been standing by the lift, his eyes glued to the phone in his hand. Shinomiya stared at him, unable to muster the words he wanted to say.

Thankfully, Yukihira was the first one to speak.

"Hey," he said, looking up from his phone. "You need something?"

"You," Shinomiya blurted. He quickly went bright red — he couldn't believe that he'd said that of all things — but he didn't turn his head away, not this time. While he'd expected Yukihira to rightfully poke fun at him (for God's sake, that line sounded like it had come straight from some sort of cheesy romantic comedy) Yukihira didn't poke fun at him. Nor was he laughing.

Yukihira slowly deposited his phone into his pocket, his eyes not straying away from Shinomiya's.

"Thought you were a busy man, shishou."

"Well… let's just say my schedule's been cleared," Shinomiya replied.

"Ah, so that's what alcohol does to you," Yukihira said, a slow smile spreading across his face. "It makes you honest."

"Idiot, stop changing the subject," Shinomiya scolded. "Say something."

"Something."

When Shinomiya's facial expression turned into a glare, Yukihira yielded.

"Fine, fine. I like you too, though that was already obvious."

There was a long silence which passed between the two of them, Shinomiya going bright red with embarrassment while Yukihira remained somewhat nonchalant, a lazy smile resting on his lips. Shinomiya hated how Yukihira was able to remain so cool, so collected. Then again, it was practically embedded in his nature. Shinomiya had always been hot-headed. Passionate. It made sense that he was finding it hard to remain calm.

It also didn't help matters that Yukihira looked really fucking attractive right about now.

"So… uh…" Shinomiya stammered. "What happens now?"

"Dunno." There was a mischievous flash in Yukihira's eyes as he took a step towards Shinomiya, teeth flashing as if he were a predator approaching its prey. "What do you want to happen?"

Shinomiya shrugged his shoulders. "Well… maybe we could cook something together."

"You're still thinking about food?"

Shinomiya blinked back at Yukihira. "Well… yeah? I am a chef, dunce. Why? Did you have something else in mind?"

"Well, yeah."

It was then that Yukihira's lips slammed against Shinomiya's, the force of the kiss forcing Shinomiya right up against the wall. Shinomiya's lips had been cold, but now they were being engulfed by the warmth of Yukihira's lips, drowning them in the taste of rosy red wine.

The kiss had barely lasted a few seconds before Yukihira pulled away, golden eyes twinkling with a boyish flair as he gently bit down on Shinomiya's lower lip. A gasp was dragged out from Shinomiya's mouth as Yukihira teased his teeth down just a little more before releasing Shinomiya, taking a step back as he ran his eyes up and down Shinomiya's frame.

"Better," Yukihira said. "Much better."

"I…Idiot," Shinomiya stuttered out, aware that his heart was pounding in his chest. "You can't… you can't just… you…"

"What? You wanted more?"

Shinomiya was too embarrassed to respond.

"Well," Yukihira said after a pause, "maybe tomorrow I'll be willing to kiss you for a little longer. Your lips are pretty inviting, shishou. Though… I guess I'm the shishou now, aren't I?"

"W—Whatever," Shinomiya grumbled.

Yukihira smiled before turning in the direction of the lift once again, stepping through the open doors. Shinomiya's eyes followed his every move, one hand resting at his side while another was on his lips, ascertaining that Yukihira had indeed kissed him. By the time the lift doors had shut, removing Yukihira from his sight, Shinomiya was allowed the gift of thought once again. His train of thought had been halted by that kiss, but now that it was running again, he knew three things.

One: he liked Yukihira. A lot.

Two: Yukihira liked him. A lot.

Three: horoscopes weren't bullshit.

It pained him to admit that third thing. After all, there was no guarantee that Yukihira would be his 'true love'. But… Shinomiya's love life had been completely uneventful until Hinako had given him the gift card. The timing was way too convenient for it to be a coincidence. It wasn't a coincidence.

The stars had decided his fate, and that fate had led him to fall for Yukihira Souma.