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Athena huffs, blowing some loose strands of hair out of her face as she places her hands on her hips. “Your stuff is heavy, Simon,” she complains, pouting at him. “Couldn’t you have waited until Nahyuta got here so you could make him do all the heavy lifting?”
“What, are you too feeble to lift some boxes, lass? Simon asks, smirking at her. “Why on earth would I trouble my poor delicate prince of a lover with physical labour when I have a perfectly good little sister to do the heavy lifting?”
“Him? Delicate?” Athena scoffs. “He’s no lightweight! And he’s certainly not above carrying things around! I’ve seen him pick up Apollo and move him when he gets in the way.”
“You say that like Justice-dono is particularly large or heavy.”
“...Point taken,” Athena concedes. “But seriously, c’mon, Simon, did you really have to get me to come over first thing just to haul your junk up the stairs?”
“You volunteered to help,” Simon reminds her, giving the box a shove with the side of his foot. It barely budges, but it’s enough for him to discount it as out of the way. “Come on, there’s more to bring up. I’m getting as much use as I can out of you before the afternoon.”
Despite her complaints, Athena comes trotting down the stairs after him, following him out to the rental truck that’s parked on the side of the road. Simon throws the back open, lugs a box forward, and pushes it onto Athena for her to struggle with it for a moment while he closes the truck before helping her with the weight.
“What do you even have in here?” Athena demands, carefully backing up over the step.
“Dunno, honestly. I think this is one from the storage locker, so Aura would’ve packed it up years ago.” Simon winces as he bangs his elbow against the doorframe, but resolutely does not let the box drop as they enter the apartment building. “Nahyuta and I can go through it.”
“Oh, sure,” Athena says, hefting her end of the box so that she can support it better. “You make me carry the thing, and then you and Nahyuta get to do the fun part.”
“I’m not sure what you think is so fun about rummaging through old odds and ends.” Simon carefully directs her up the last part of the stairs, and into the apartment. “Just set it wherever. Not on my feet.”
“On your feet, you say?” Athena asks playfully, but they manage to avoid crushing anyone’s feet in the process of setting it down. “How much do we have left to move?”
“A few more boxes, I think, and then the furniture. That’ll be all we have for now.” Simon straightens up, bracing his hands against the small of his back. “We’ll have to top the place up over the next little while. Nahyuta wants to have some things shipped from Khura’in. Rayfa insisted on sending us a housewarming gift, so that’ll arrive at some point, too. Whatever it may be.”
The apartment might look a little bare at the moment, with little more than the preinstalled amenities and the boxes that they’ve moved up to date, but it’s a work in progress. What they have today will fill out a good portion of the empty space, and it’ll start to feel a little more lived-in after a while. It’s still brand new, and Simon honestly feels a little strange to be standing in this empty space.
He and Nahyuta had found this place after a good deal of searching. It’s located well, at a price that the two of them can afford on a prosecutor’s salary. Nahyuta had offered him many grand things when they’d first started discussing moving in together -- a house in the city, beach property, a manor and a palace wing in Khura’in -- but what they’d decided on was something a little simpler. An apartment to share for the time that they spend in the same country.
It’s the first time either of them will be really moving into a place on their own. Simon had grown up living with Aura, and, after his name was cleared, Athena had found a two-bedroom place for them to split the rent on. Nahyuta had gone from living with his father’s group of rebels to inhabiting the royal palace, spending his time in America living out of a hotel room, or on his brother’s couch, or, more recently and to Athena’s annoyance, Simon’s bedroom. It made sense, after a certain point, to take that step and move in together, for at least part of the time. Nahyuta may still have his travels, but he’s been spending more and more time in America of late, and Simon is more than happy to give him a place to stay during that precious time.
With Nahyuta on his mind, Simon is about to collect Athena and head down for another box when the object of his affections makes his appearance, breezing in through the open door with his long braid swinging. “I see you’ve been busy,” he greets. “Good morning, Athena. Good morning, my dear panda.”
“Morning, love,” Simon answers, proffering his cheek for a kiss, which Nahyuta promptly delivers. Athena thinks it’s too sappy, she giggles at them every time, but Simon thinks it’s sweet, dammit. He’s got a pretty boyfriend who wants to kiss him, who is he to reject that most excellent opportunity? “Were the roads alright for you?”
“As well as they usually are,” Nahyuta replies. “Traffic is traffic, even this humble servant of the Holy Mother is beholden to it.”
“Poor thing, aren’t you, having to sit in traffic like the rest of us mere mortals,” Simon snickers, leaning in to kiss him back. With his lips pressed to Nahyuta’s cheek, Simon can feel it when he smiles.
“What is truly lamentable is that I was not here to help you from the beginning,” Nahyuta says, shaking his head slightly. “I suppose you and Athena were hard at work, though.”
“Simon is making me lift all his heavy stuff,” Athena reports.
“I’ve packed everything I own into a van, do you expect the containers to be light?” Simon asks her wryly. “Perhaps I should have used several smaller boxes so you could complain about having to go up and down the stairs so often instead of the weight, hm?”
Nahyuta fixes him with a mock-stern expression, but Simon can see how his shoulders are shaking slightly as he attempts to maintain his put-upon composure. “Now, panda, don’t be mean to your sister.” His expression grows genuinely serious for a moment. “I do hope you were careful with the heavy lifting…”
“I’m not gonna let Simon get hurt!” Athena assures him quickly. “Mr. Wright has a bad back, so I know how to help keep him from hurting himself. Same thing applies to Simon.”
“Did someone forget to tell me? Am I about to fall to pieces?” Simon asks of no one in particular. “I wasn’t aware that I was so fragile.”
“Thank you, Athena,” Nahyuta says, ignoring him completely. “He needs someone to look after him, after all.”
“Oi!” Simon protests. Neither of them pay him any heed.
“Between the two of us, he’ll be in good hands,” Athena agrees cheerily. “Alright! There’s more to be moved, so let’s get to it!”
The three of them are able to move things more efficiently. There is less opening and closing of doors when they’re able to spread themselves out a bit more to watch their entrances, both to the truck and to the apartment. The boxes need to be followed by the furniture, which requires a little more manoeuvring to get up through the stairwell. With Athena’s help directing, Simon and Nahyuta are able to haul their furniture up the stairs with minimal incidents. They maybe bang the corner of the dresser into the doorway on the way through and Nahyuta maybe almost slips and breaks his head open on the stair when they’re coming up with the bookshelf, but by the time they’ve gotten the bigger pieces into the apartment, no one is bleeding and nothing is missing any significant pieces.
They have a bed in their bedroom and a table in their kitchen and a couch in their living room. With even that much in place, things are starting to feel like they’re coming together properly.
There’s a few other pieces that wouldn’t fit into boxes but are light enough to be carried alone, like Taka’s perch and Nahyuta’s altar, so they can come up in the arms of a single person. These things help to fill out the space, too, working around the boxes to make it seem a little more like someone actually lives in this place. Two someones, in fact.
Once the van is emptied, they can start cracking open the boxes. Simon had done his absolute best to keep things as organised as he could, so it’s not too terrible to sort through things. Nahyuta opens a box of kitchen supplies, and Simon can hear him singing to himself absently as he works, filling their new cupboards with the contents of the box. Simon finds bed linens in the top of the box he opens, so he sets about putting them up in the closet, glancing over his shoulder at Athena, who is poking around at what’s been left in the box that Simon had opened.
“I know you checked over this the first time, but if there’s anything you need here, you need to claim it,” Simon tells her, unfolding and refolding a sheet that has ended up rumpled. “I’ll buy you duplicates if you need them urgently, but it would be better if we could avoid that kind of need.”
Athena just shrugs her shoulders absently, pulling out the folded curtains that have been tucked inside the box. “I’m pretty sure we’ve been over everything. Junie has stuff, too, so if I end up not having something, there’s a good chance that she already has it,” she points out. “The only shame is that I can’t make you haul furniture for me to make up for today…”
Simon laughs, coming over to ruffle her hair. “You said I could keep the furniture we bought, chickie. If you wanted it, you should have said so.”
“I don’t want the furniture,” she clarifies. “I just want you to have to move heavy stuff for me!”
“I’m afraid you may be fresh out of luck on that count,” he tells her wryly. “Unless you want to go to the trouble of finding some nice, heavy rocks to weigh your boxes down, there’s not going to be much in the way of heavy things.”
“Rocks, good idea,” she says playfully, bumping their shoulders together. “I’m gonna go look for rocks this afternoon, then!”
“Good luck with that,” Simon tells her, lightly pushing up against her to return the gesture. “Though I’m quite certain that you’ll be here for lunch first. Nahyuta will get to use treating you as an excuse to go out and get burgers.” He smiles at the thought of it. Nahyuta is a man of opportunity, if nothing else, he supposes. “Your rock hunting will have to wait until after.”
“I can put off rock hunting if it means I get free lunch,” Athena says agreeably.
True to Simon’s prediction, when noon arrives and they’ve put a dent in the contents of their boxes, Nahyuta proposes that they break for lunch, and “shouldn’t we treat Athena as payment for helping out, panda?”
Simon can only smile at him, making the suggestion he knows is to follow before Nahyuta can even propose it. He goes a little pink in the face at being caught out so easily, but he’s still amenable to the idea, and they end up eating over the bare kitchen table. Simon isn’t a big fan of hamburgers, but he will happily steal Nahyuta’s fries while Nahyuta oh so kindly pretends not to notice.
They lose Athena’s company in the afternoon, as she has promised her time to Trucy and now has rock hunting on her itinerary as well, but Simon and Nahyuta still have boxes to go through once the table has been cleared. There are several small items that are to be tucked away in cupboards or cabinets or closets, and a few larger items that need a more prominent display, like the ostentatious table lamp that Nahyuta finds packed inside one of the larger boxes.
“How hideous,” Nahyuta says, his voice absolutely dripping with fondness. “I love it.”
Simon laughs. “I’m pretty sure that’s what Aura said when she bought the thing in the first place,” he tells him, shaking his head fondly. “When I was in, oh, elementary school or so, she used to like to go to yard sales or secondhand stores to see what sort of oddities she could find for cheap. There’s nothing particularly outlandish about this lamp except for how ugly it is.”
“We are putting it in the living room,” Nahyuta decides immediately. “Everyone should be forced to behold this thing.”
Simon laughs at the suggestion. “Why not? I’m sure there are more tasteful options out there, but this one works as well as any other.”
The lamp promptly gets installed on the end table next to the sofa in all its garish glory. Simon can’t help but to smile at the sight of it. It’s a ridiculous thing, really.
They keep digging through the boxes, putting things out as they find them, and Simon is next to find an object of note. A vaguely cylindrical object, brown and shiny in colour, and Nahyuta squints at it in absolute bewilderment until Simon cracks and starts laughing.
“It’s a cat,” he explains, turning it around to show him properly. “See the ears, the tail? And the little carved whiskers. And the weird bulging eyes, those too. It’s a glazed clay cat. Of sorts.”
“And why do you own such an object?” Nahyuta asks, raising an eyebrow.
“Thena made this thing for me when she was eight,” Simon declares, holding up the misshapen cat-thing. “It’s a… piggy bank. Or rather, a kitty bank, I suppose. For collecting change.”
“Are all coin banks shaped like animals?” Nahyuta asks, amused.
“They can be shaped however you want,” Simon tells him, examining his prize. “Thena made this one when she took a pottery class that one time over the summer. It looks completely and utterly deranged, but I kept it on my desk and I put my change in it, as intended.”
“How sweet,” Nahyuta teases gently. “What a precious gift she made you, a demented clay cat to hold your coins.”
“I’m gonna put it in the living room so she can see it the next time she comes over,” Simon decides, snickering to himself.
“It will go very well with the decor,” Nahyuta says, amused.
“What decor? The cardboard boxes on the floor? The ugly lamp?” Simon asks playfully. “I think a misshapen pottery cat fits right in with that sort of decor.”
“As I said, it will go very well,” Nahyuta repeats, a smile tugging at his lips. “We will have to decorate more as time goes on… but we can coordinate to the theme of misshapen cats, if you like.”
“Wouldn’t that be a sight,” Simon says, amused. “We could collect strangely shaped cat media. A good and useful pursuit for men of our age and standing.”
“Of course,” Nahyuta agrees, equally amused. “If I spread the word in Khura’in, I could probably have custom-made misshapen cats commissioned for us.”
“Ah, yes, the country’s best artisans are ready to fulfil the wishes of the noble prince! And what does His Holiness ask of them? Weirdly shaped cats!”
Nahyuta laughs, easy and bright, and the sound of it warms Simon’s heart. “Is that not exactly what a prince’s power should be used for?”
“Hmm, I think you’re right. Perhaps you should be giving Rayfa lessons on royal conduct. She should be asking for more misshapen cats.”
“Perhaps Athena can offer her one of her own as a gift to get her started,” Nahyuta suggests, eyes sparkling mischievously.
“An excellent idea,” Simon proclaims, inclining his head. “In the meantime, I will go find a spot for our guest of honour.”
The poor misshapen cat bank gets a place in the living room, and they continue on with their unpacking. When Simon finds the box of books, he has Nahyuta pass them to him while he fills the bookshelf. The paperbacks themselves go onto the shelf just fine, but Nahyuta locates something else at the bottom of the box.
“A photo album?” Nahyuta asks curiously, withdrawing it flipping open the cover. The binding makes a creaking noise, having sat undisturbed for many years. “Oh, Simon, how cute,” he coos, enthralled by the images before him. “This must be Ms. Aura with you, yes?”
“It is indeed,” Simon confirms, peering over his shoulder. “This must be old… From before our first move. I’m surprised that it’s made it this far, honestly.”
Nahyuta is utterly fascinated by the photo album, and they get sidetracked again, as Simon walks him through the photos as best as he can remember. Most of them are very old, pictures that his parents must have taken. There are a few tucked in loosely between later pages that would have been from when Aura was his primary caretaker in life, with the last photo at the back of the album being the day that Simon graduated from law school. With his little cap over his mess of thick wavy hair, he looks a little bit ridiculous, but the day is documented for forever, and Nahyuta seems to think that it’s cute, so he’ll take the praise.
They spend a short while longer looking over the photo album before it gets lovingly tucked into the bookcase, and they return to their unpacking. Nahyuta pauses to clear out the emptied boxes, rummaging around in the ones that have already been opened while Simon sinks down onto his haunches to examine the contents of the mostly empty box that has been kicked aside against the wall.
“Oh, Simon, I’ve found something quite lovely,” Nahyuta says, his footsteps approaching.
“Hm? What is it?” Simon asks, turning to face him only to have a kiss firmly planted on his lips. Simon makes a startled noise, nearly losing his balance, and Nahyuta beams down at him with all the warmth of the sun as he pulls away.
“You,” Nahyuta tells him, his eyes dancing with mirth. “I’ve found you, and aren’t you just lovely?”
Simon’s brain fails him for a good three seconds, at which point he makes a distressed noise and hides his face in his hands. “You can’t pull that on me so suddenly!” he protests, feeling the heat rushing to his cheeks.
“Oh, but it’s the truth,” Nahyuta assures him, amused by how profusely he’s blushing. “You are by far the most precious thing in this whole apartment.”
Simon smacks his own cheeks gently, trying to will back the blush and refocus himself. “That simply can’t be true,” he says, forcing the words out despite the embarrassment. “Because anyone could see that you’re the treasure of this house, my dove.”
It’s Nahyuta’s turn to flush, his ears and cheeks tinged with pink. Simon twines their fingers together, giving his hand a little squeeze.
“It will be so good to make a home with you,” Nahyuta says softly, squeezing his hand back. “Know that I am glad to have you, always.”
“Always,” Simon echoes. “I’ll be forever glad to have a portion of your always.”
“I’ll give you as much as you could want,” Nahyuta promises, leaning in to kiss his cheek. “A lifetime shared is an eternity of happiness, after all, and what better place to share it than in the home?”