Work Text:
Shu isn't typically one to get distracted easily.
He'd gone years through middle and high schools ignoring his peers mocking and sneering and joking about while he worked diligently at his sewing. Even when he'd moved to Paris, he found it incredibly simple to drown out the hustle and bustle of the streets below his balcony as he'd finish lacework detailing on his projects. And when he'd moved back to Japan, he'd had no problems picking back up his usual precision for his work.
Today seems to be an exception to his usual diligent focus.
He sits in his usual spot - a comfortable chair in the sewing room of him, Mika and Arashi's shared apartment - finishing some hand-embroidered details on the collar of a costume for a new Knights stage. He'd accepted the project at Arashi's very polite request after weeks of silently and secretly designing prospective costumes for his girlfriend's unit in a fit of inspiration and he was determined to finish the detail work by tomorrow at the latest, which meant he'd really need to pick up the pace on this embroidery.
However, he couldn't help but find himself unusually distracted by a continuous sound from the kitchen a small ways down the hall from his sewing room - a melody carried down the narrow corridor, making him pause his needlework. He couldn't quite make out the tune itself, but the two voices carrying the tune were very familiar to him. A smile crosses his lips as he listens in for a moment longer, trying to make out more of the melody, before he decides that it's pointless stalling himself longer to decipher the music coming from his kitchen and takes his embroidery kit in his arms, quietly padding down the hall towards the room causing the offending noise.
He pauses for a moment, standing silent in the doorway as he watches Mika and Arashi, their backs turned to him, singing together - an older Knights song, he realizes - as they work together to cook dinner. Mika stands at a cutting board, chopping and prepping ingredients and harmonizing with Arashi as she stands over the stove, mixing and adding the prepped ingredients to a pot, occasionally stopping to perform a piece of choreo here and there, which gets a giggle out of Mika. Shu smiles, watching them, thinking how lucky he is to have been distracted from his work to witness this moment between his two wonderful partners.
His mind wanders to a darker path momentarily as it's prone to do - wondering how many of these small moments he must have missed in all his diligence with his work. The three's relationship was hardly half a year old, but who knows how many of these fleeting moments he'd missed in that long of a period alone? If he missed things like this, how many smaller things had he missed as well? Just as he'd ignored the warning signs from Rei and Kuro about Valkyrie in the past, just as he'd overlooked Nazuna's discomfort? His chest tightens at the thought, icy static threatening to overtake the warmth of the moment when his stream of panic is interrupted by voice turning it's attention to him.
"Ngahh, Oshi-san! I thought you were workin! How long were ya watchin us?"
"Not long at all. I couldn't miss your performance, after all," he smiles at the two of them, dismissing his panic for some other time as he takes his embroidery kit to one of the chairs of the connected dining table, sitting to continue his work in closer proximity to his partners.
"Oh my, Mika-chan, it seems we now have an audience to perform for! Let's take it from the top, shall we?" Arashi laughs as she turns back to the pot on the stove, picking back up the melody from the beginning. Mika picks the harmonies back up quickly, switching between chopping vegetables and copying Arashi's choreo pieces from earlier.
The ice of panic is completely forgotten, pushed aside by Arashi's laughter as Mika fumbles through a half-remembered dance move, by Mika's gentle harmonies to Arashi's song, by the comfort in knowing that, when they finish cooking, the three of them will eat a delicious meal together, and that later they will slowly pile into bed alongside each other, peaceful in one another's arms.
Despite bringing his embroidery project along with him, Shu can't bring himself to not be distracted by the two's impromptu performance and the warmth swelling in his chest.
He supposes he can finish the detail work tomorrow.