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“Welcome back Kuroo,” Akaashi calls, pulling another tray of cookies from the oven. Placing the tray on rack he leaves the cookies to cool as he turns to greet Kuroo.
The black-haired man was in the process of taming his bedhead, the black strands splaying everywhere. Akaashi snickers to himself—he’d missed Kuroo, even though he’d probably never admit that out loud. “Hey, Akaashi. How’s the place been without me?” Kuroo wiggles his eyebrows, golden eyes gleaming with renewed energy.
“Oh, you know, not too bad. I just had my best baker ditch me for a week to go on a last-minute trip to Hakone.” Akaashi turns to check on his batch of muffins before adding, “So, it’s been just the tiniest bit busier.” They looked a little more done than he liked, perhaps he’d take them out of the oven early.
“The honeymoon was great by the way!” Kuroo shouts from the lockers. Akaashi rolls his eyes before opening the oven. The blast of warm air wafts through the air, the scents of melted butter and blueberry mixing with the rest of the delicious aromas floating around the bakery. Emerging from the locker room, Kuroo dons an apron over his white attire. “I’m ready to go boss. Your lead baker, refreshed from his vacation, enlightened by marriage, and ready to please the people.”
Akaashi chuckles at Kuroo’s dramatic pose. “Alright, oh enlightened one, how about you bless me with some of your danishes and croissants,” raising an eyebrow as he pointed towards the seating area, “Before opening time?”
“First day back and you’re already putting me back to work. Sheesh Akaashi, you really are a slave driver.” Kuroo turns towards his counter, flouring the surface before heading to the fridge to find the pastry dough Akaashi had made the night before.
“You’ve always been better with pastries than I have,” Akaashi reminds Kuroo. “God, I swear I almost just took them off the menu because they were turning out all kinds of weird without you here.”
“Mhm.” Kuroo mumbles in response, already focused on rolling the dough into the buttered layers Akaashi knows will turn into golden and fluffy pastry under Kuroo’s talented hand.
Akaashi taps Kuroo on the back. “Hey, congratulations. Really. I’m so happy for you and Kenma.” Before he can turn back to his own work, Kuroo grabs his wrist.
“See, that’s the thing. You call my husband,” Kuroo says while grinning widely, “by his first name because you two have been friends since childhood. Now that I’m married to Kenma, shouldn’t you also call me by my first name? You know, what’s Kenma’s is mine, including being on a first-name basis with you.”
“Kuroo I swear–”
“And in the spirit of helping change the habit, I will only–”
“–be responding to ‘Testurou.’ Yes,” Akaashi sighs in exasperation. “Kenma warned me about it when you two got back last night. I was just seeing how long I could push it before you actually insisted on this ridiculous idea.”
“Oh betrayed, by the man I just married! How can I ever recover?”
“Could you please focus on baking your damn pastries Ku–Tetsurou?”
“Of course, Keiji.”
“You are a conniving bastard Tetsurou, I hope you are aware of that.” Kuroo laughs at that, before returning to his pastry.
Things only really went south once the bakery opened. Between stuttering over Kuroo’s (No, Testurou’s, he reminds himself) first name and coming in an hour early instead of two to bake in Kuroo’s place, he was flustered. It didn’t help that Tetsurou’s brief vacation had allowed Akaashi to forget about his constant snarking, but now that the lanky baker was back, he’d have to get used to it again.
“So, Keiji,” Keiji pinches the bridge of his nose, hoping that at some point it won’t feel weird to call his employee by first name. “Anything happen while I was gone?”
“Nothing much, other than my failure to re-create half of the pastries we sell.”
“C’mon Keiji, you may be better at dessert stuff, but you’re way better than a lot of other pastry chefs out there. I saw how you do pastry in school, and trust me, student you could outclass half of the other bakers on this street.”
“Alright, my perfectionist self was not satisfied because my amazing pastry lead was off on his honeymoon. Other than that, it’s been a perfectly normal–”
“AKAAAAASHI!” The two bakers hear the short before they hear the auditory carnage of the door being pushed through their windchimes to slam against the wall.
“Crap. I forgot,” the green-eyed man hissed as he ran for the front of shop. “Bokuto-san! I’m over here!”
Kuroo peeks out from the back, hoping to catch a glimpse of the person who might owe them a new set of windchimes, and potentially a new door. A white-haired man approaches the counter. “Bokuto-san, what have I said about the door?”
“Sorry ‘Kaashi,” mystery man suddenly looks sheepish, “I missed our coffee dates. I’m not mad or anything, I mean I get it, you were missing your head baker, it’s like if I was missing one of my baristas, but I thought we said we’d meet up today?”
“No, it’s my bad. I guess I got so used to coming straight to work that I didn’t stop by your place today.”
“Hey, hey, it’s fine ‘Kaashi. I even got you your favorite.” Kuroo eyes this ‘Bokuto -san’ with interest as he raises up a carrier. “An iced black coffee with agave.”
“Why don’t I take a half-hour off. We can just sit in the corner here and have our date Bokuto-san.” Akaashi gestures to the table in the corner, “I’ll be right back with some pastries.”
The white-haired man suddenly bursts into a megawatt smile. “Thanks ‘Kaashi!” he says, pressing a quick kiss on Akaashi’s cheek and zooming away towards the back corner table.
Turning around, Akaashi gestures for Kuroo to come out of his hiding spot.
“Is that? Are you two? How?” Kuroo grabs Akaashi by the shoulders. “Why didn’t you tell me you had a boyfriend?”
“I mean, it only became serious a few weeks agao. We took things slow–”
“Keiji, as your head baker and best-friend-in-law I am incredibly hurt that I did not know you had found yourself a man–”
“A man that is waiting for me to bring him our breakfast, now if you’ll excuse me Kuroo. I’ll be back in about half an hour, I’m sure you can handle things until then.”
“Oh hush, there’s no one coming in for a while, now that opening rush is over. I think I’ll go say hello to your boyfriend.”
Akaashi glares at Kuroo, a slight blush tinging his cheeks. “Fine, you can meet him, but I expect you to be manning the counter and checking stock after five minutes.”
“You got it Keiji,” Kuroo replies, shooting finger guns at his flustered boss.
Keiji reaches into the display case and snags two of the blueberry muffins he baked from his batch in the morning. Slipping them onto a plate, he turns to leave the counter but is stopped by Kuroo.
“Woah, woah. Aren’t you going to put that in the register? Pay for the goods?” Kuroo knows Akaashi is serious about not giving out freebies until closing. Heck, half the time the man charges himself if he snags a cookie between rushes.
“Nope,” Akaashi replied while walking towards Bokuto. “He gets them for free, on the house.”
“Bokuto-san, this is Kuroo Tetsurou, my head baker. He wanted to…meet you. Tetsurou, please…just don’t be an idiot,” Akaashi introduces the two, sits down and prays that the two will get along without embarrassing him.
“So, how did you and my boss meet?” Kuroo asks. “And what on earth did you do to him? I’ve never seen him give out free goods, even to me, his head baker and pastry savior. If I snag a piece of bread he’ll take it out of my paycheck.”
“Oh, we have a deal!” Bokuto replies, handing Akaashi his coffee.
“Ohohoho, what kind of deal? Does it involve anything…interesting?” Kuroo wiggles his eyebrows.
“Oh it’s nothing like that,” Bokuto replies. “’Kaashi and I are taking it slow. I just bring him free coffee, so he gives me free baked goods and pastries.”
“You forgot the part where you chased me down the street screaming about free coffee when you tried to ask me out,” Akaashi teases.
Kuroo looks at Bokuto confused. “Oh yeah, I forgot to mention, I own the coffee shop down the block, Fukurodani. ‘Kaashi had been coming around for coffee for a while and I thought I might try to bribe him into a first date with free coffee.”
“Which I thought was an unfair trade so I brought some of our pastries to that date,” Akaashi adds. “I’ve been getting free coffee from Bokuto-san ever since.”
Kuroo is silent, staring at the couple. “’Kaashi, is he okay?” leans in to whisper, looking at the baker with concern.
“Keiji, what about Lacy? What did you do with her?” Kuroo asks, looking at Akaashi with pleading eyes.
“She’s still sitting in my kitchen, pristine as the first day I put her there.”
“So you mean…you mean. You haven’t used her? AT ALL??” Kuroo wails. “Keiji, how could you? This is Lacy we’re talking about!”
“Yes, but Bokuto-san actually knows how to make coffee. And I find his coffee much better than Lacy’s.”
“Why? How could you do this to me?” Kuroo flails his arms before storming into the back.
“’Kaashi?” Bokuto says, eyes flickering between Akaashi and Kuroo. “Who’s Lacy?”
“Lacy? Oh, that’s the ridiculous name Kuroo came up for the Keurig he bought me a few months ago. The guy invested a lot in that present, trying to get my ‘blessing’ to marry Kenma.”
“Oh, your best friend from high school?”
“Yup. Just…ignore Tetsurou for now. I’m sure he’ll come around.”
“I heard that Keiji!” came a shout from the kitchen. “And I feel very betrayed right now!”
“Like I said Bokuto-san, just ignore him. Besides,” Akaashi smiles, “we have some coffee and pastry dates to catch up on.”