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Zenitsu is partial to chocolate donuts.
He eats them on his lunch break, when he’s far away from Kaigaku, who is always making snide comments about his waistline, and his Grandpa, who swore off sweets and life’s little pleasures in the seventies. Zenitsu never had a sweet-tooth growing up, but there’s this little bakery around the corner from the office, with mismatched china, approximately eight hundred different kinds of bread, and Tanjiro.
Tanjiro, who is ridiculous, and beams every time Zenitsu walks into the shop. It’s Tanjiro’s bakery; it has been since most of his family died in an accident with only his sister surviving, when Tanjiro was halfway through university. Zenitsu could understand why Tanjiro gave up a maths degree and a proper career to save this tiny family bakery, but he wanted to know if Tanjiro ever regretted dropping out of the university. He asked, once, over a plate of tea sandwiches Tanjiro had brought him – on the house, because their crusts were wonky, and Zenitsu had looked hungry – and Tanjiro had just shrugged and said that he loved the place, and he didn’t regret it for a minute. Zenitsu was unconvinced, but Tanjiro had just smiled.
Zenitsu had studied business at university, and went on to work in his Grandpa’s company (It was still a mystery to him why his grandpa would even consider him as an heir to the company, even if he is currently sharing the company with his brother Kaigaku) He currently lives in a flat not far away from the office. He doesn’t own a huge flat even though he can afford one, all the empty space in it when he is alone just makes him feel more miserable than usual sometimes.
Tanjiro has the bakery, and a little flat over it; old sweaters worn soft with use that he pulls over his knuckles when he’s thinking, and exchanges for even more worn t-shirts when he’s baking. He has one person in the shop to help him, Nezuko, his sister, a sweet girl with sun kissed skin and beautiful curls. She helps Tanjiro bake the scones, and muffins, biscuits, and different types of bread that they tuck into the glass display case at the front of the shop, and she sings sometimes, when it’s only her and Tanjiro and Zenitsu in the shop, and she has a voice like sunlight and blueberries.
Zenitsu eats his lunch at Tanjiro’s bakery every afternoon, walking down the street from his office building, and eating sandwiches, and donuts that Kaigaku wouldn’t approve of.
“Kaigaku’s on a no-carb, no-sugar diet,” Zenitsu tells Tanjiro, attempting to refuse the blackberry donut that Tanjiro is offering. Tanjiro just hmmphs, and gives Zenitsu the donut anyway, and then watches him like a hawk from behind the counter until Zenitsu eats every last crumb.
“You’re going to make me fat,” Zenitsu grouses, leaning over the counter, and paying his bill, which always seems to come to significantly less than it should (he makes sure to stuff bills in the tip jar when Tanjiro’s not looking to make up for it). “You’re going to make me fat, and that means my brother will have won.”
Tanjiro drops Zenitsu’s change all over the floor and Nezuko scoops it up for him, and pokes him in the ribs, before darting away to finish frosting the carrot cake.
“Your brother?” He asks, and for a minute he looks as white as the bowl of cream cheese frosting Nezuko is slathering on her carrot cake.
Zenitsu frowns. “Kaigaku, yes. My adoptive brother.”
“Kaigaku is your brother.” Tanjiro repeats, and then visibly shakes himself, beams, and hands Zenitsu his change, and a neat square of fudge wrapped in a piece of tissue paper. Zenitsu protests, but Tanjiro shakes his head, and scurries away.
Zenitsu eats the fudge in his office and wonders if Tanjiro cut that square especially for him, or if he’s that generous with all his customers, and, if so, how he manages to pay the rent, and keep the bakery in business.
On the weekends, Zenitsu goes to Tanjiro’s bakery with an armful of files and his laptop. He sits by the window, and makes hushed calls, opens spread-sheets and ignores the way Tanjiro laughs with his regulars. On Sunday afternoons, when the shop empties out but for Zenitsu, Tanjiro puts on his old, scratchy shirt and he and Nezuko bake trays and trays of donuts, muffins, and biscuits for the upcoming week.
Tanjiro wears raggedy t-shirts and an apron. He stirs big silver bowls of batter and flicks flour at Nezuko and bends down in concentration over his muffin tins and Zenitsu stares and stares and stares. Tanjiro always ends up with batter on his cheek and Zenitsu’s hands hurt because Tanjiro is not in them.
The Sunday Zenitsu realizes what Tanjiro has been saying all along, with his big smiles and fudge squares, they’re baking chocolate muffins. The batter is brown and sticky, and Nezuko has it in her hair, and Tanjiro has it on his wrists, and the air grows warm and sweet, and Zenitsu is struck by how much it smells like home.
He doesn’t realize he’s staring until Tanjiro’s eyes meet his. His mouth twists into a warm smile, and he has powdered sugar in his eyebrows. Zenitsu’s flushes, and Tanjiro smiles even brighter. He turns to Nezuko, and hands her a tray of chocolate muffins for the oven. And then he slides over the counter.
Tanjiro is wearing his apron and he beams at Zenitsu who finds that he can do nothing but stare at Tanjiro’s arms and fingers, his impossible cheekbones, and the sugar in his eyebrows.
Tanjiro pulls him up and he’s warm and smells like cinnamon.
“Tanjiro,” Zenitsu starts, helplessly, and as Zenitsu’s hand drifts toward Tanjiro’s face, Tanjiro’s cheeks flush a dust pink “You have…” He touches Tanjiro’s eyebrows. “Tanjiro you’ve got sugar on your face.”
Tanjiro laughs and his breath is spicy and warm on Zenitsu’s wrist. “Zenitsu,” he says, “Zenitsu, Zenitsu.”
It hits Zenitsu the way heat and smell do when you open the oven. Tanjiro looks straight at him. Beaming, kind Tanjiro, who gives him fudge squares; who dropped out of university to run his family’s bakery and bake bread; who wears soft sweaters and who is consistently the best part of Zenitsu’s day.
Tanjiro, who waits patiently until Zenitsu gets it, then shuffles forward and mutters:
“Took you long enough,” and kisses him. He’s been eating batter, and his mouth tastes like melted chocolate.
And Zenitsu wants to kiss Tanjiro every day for the rest of his life, hold his hand and taste the flavours of whatever it is that Tanjiro’s been baking from a kiss. Tanjiro hums against him, wraps strong fingers around Zenitsu’s shoulders, and nips at his lower lip mischievously because Tanjiro delights in teasing Zenitsu.
“When I first saw you,” Tanjiro whispers near Zenitsu’s ear, “I had never seen anyone more in need of baked goods, straight from the oven. You looked so lonely.” He tips his chin upwards and catches stunned Zenitsu in another kiss and his eyes are a stunning magenta and so near and so lovely that Zenitsu has to shut his own. “One of the best ways I know how to help people is through baking. So I made you biscuits and donuts and muffins, even fudge one time, took me hours to get that right… And I just waited for you to catch up.”
“I thought you might give fudge squares out to all your customers,” Zenitsu says, haltingly, and Tanjiro laughs and shakes his head no.
“Just you,” he murmurs, and his smile creeps across his lips, slow as molasses and sweet as honey, and Zenitsu leans in to kiss him and when Tanjiro pulls away for breath his eyes are wide and astonished. Tanjiro huffs and takes a deep breath.
“Nezuko?” He calls, “I think I might close the shop early.”
She giggles, and Zenitsu flushes.
“I’ll close up,” she says, because Nezuko is a saint, and she shoos Tanjiro away from the trays of chocolate muffins waiting for the oven. “And I’ll finish these, too. You go upstairs.”
Tanjiro hops over the counter to kiss her on the cheek, and then tugs his apron off his neck, mussing his hair beyond repair. He grabs Zenitsu’s hand and pulls, taking him through the small, tidy kitchen behind the counter, and up the stairs to his flat.
Tanjiro’s flat is small and crowded with books. There are stacks of cooking magazines at either end of his sofa, creased and labelled, and cheery yellow curtains on the windows. There are potted plants on the floor, and crates stuffed full of records. Tanjiro has his own kitchen up here, and Zenitsu peeks into it for a moment while Tanjiro fiddles with the record player, smiling at the mismatched dishes, the photographs papering his fridge, and the half-eaten loaf of misshapen, home-baked bread on the breadboard. It feels lived in and comfortable, and a little bit of a whirlwind: much like Tanjiro himself.
Music trickles into the flat from the record player, Bob Dylan, something scratchy and warm that Zenitsu would rarely listen to, but that fits Tanjiro perfectly. Tanjiro, who wraps his arms around Zenitsu’s waist from the back and pulls, lightly, guiding Zenitsu into his bedroom, where he kicks off his shoes and flops down on the bed, beautiful and beaming against the bright bedspread. Zenitsu unlaces his shoes with more care, and leans over Tanjiro who sighs upwards, into him.
Later, Tanjiro says that he’s going to cook for Zenitsu, make sure he’s warm and comfortable and well-fed, and not losing his soul in a world of spread-sheets and board meetings.
“I don’t think that that’s going to happen with you around,” Zenitsu says, fondly, cupping Tanjiro’s cheeks with his palms. “You’re going to make me fat, Tanjiro” he jokes, and Tanjiro shrugs.
“Maybe, but you’ll be happy.”
*
(And he is happy. Blindingly so. Zenitsu introduces Tanjiro to his Grandpa and Kaigaku at one of their family dinners, and Tanjiro brings a pie meringued within an inch of its life. Jigoro smiles (lemon pie is his favourite) and Kaigaku grumbles and complains but still eats four pieces of the pie.
On Saturday nights, Tanjiro bakes bread in their flat, filling the air with a warm, yeasty smell. He gets flour all over himself and the kitchen, and he cleans most of it up, although there’s usually still some in his hair when he brings Zenitsu a slice of warm bread, while he is working. Zenitsu brushes the flour out of his hair and makes room for Tanjiro among his papers, and lets Tanjiro tug him off to bed when it gets late.
He sleeps well, and he makes Tanjiro breakfast in bed, and lets him laugh at how he burns the toast every morning as long as Tanjiro doesn’t choke on his tea, and they’re happy.
Warm, and well-fed, and happy. Blindingly so.)