"Happy day~ Happy day~ Happy day~" Hifumi sang as he set the table. Six months exactly since he and Doppo had moved into Jakurai's apartment, and he was determined to make it an anniversary to remember. He had called in favors and traded shifts to have the entire afternoon and evening free. He flicked a tablecloth over the table, smoothing out every stray wrinkle before he set out the nice silver. Champagne flutes were on the counter, and a bottle of sparkling (non-alcoholic) cider was already chilling in the fridge. He lit the flames on the warming trays he'd borrowed from work so that they'd be ready when the food arrived in fifteen minutes. Doppo and Jakurai would be home another fifteen minutes after that.

One last pass through the living room with a dusting cloth to make sure every surface shone. A bouquet of red roses split into smaller vases and arranged artfully around the apartment. That took fifteen minutes, but the food still hadn't arrived. He rearranged his list. Freshly washed sheets on the bed turned down, pillows fluffed, and a chocolate placed in the center of each.

Twenty-three minutes later, the buzzer rang.

Hifumi opened the door to a very sodden delivery person.

"Sorry I'm late. The weather is making a mess of traffic, and there's some sort of problem by the station. Half of the roads were closed."

"Don't worry about it!" Hifumi said, still high on excitement. "There's still time! I'll take these from you. Get home same!"

"Thank you, sir!"

Hifumi took the bags before the delivery person could try to be helpful and track water all over his clean floors in the process. He hurried back inside. Five minutes until Jakurai and Doppo should return, but that was still enough time to transfer the food from the bags to the covered trays on the counter. He finished with thirty seconds to spare.

He straightened his tie, adjusted his jacket, and leaned against the counter to wait.

Ten minutes later, he shifted to the table.

Ten more minutes, and he was on the sofa.

Thirty minutes after Jakurai and Doppo were due back, he was pacing the living room as he checked his phone repeatedly. It was unlike them not to at least send a quick message if they were significantly delayed, and it was even less like them not to answer their phones at all.

"Hi, Sensei. It's me, Hifumi. Just wanted to make sure you're okay; you're really late getting home. Give me a call or something when you get this? Love you. Bye-bye."

"Hey Doppo, it's Hifumi. The office didn't eat you or something, right? Send me a text or something when you get this? And just say the word if we need to come rescue you."

Nearly an hour later, Hifumi's path was showing in the freshly vacuumed carpet, and he was debating the merits of calling a certain member of a rival crew for help when the apartment door opened.

"Doppo, you're late! More importantly, you're soaked! What happened?"

Doppo stared blankly at him, blinked, then shook his head vigorously, sending water flying everywhere. "Someone dropped the month-end expense reports down the stairs by mistake on their way to deliver them. I had to put them back in order before I left. I'm sorry."

"Don't worry about it," Hifumi said, pulling Doppo in for a hug despite the wet. "I'm just glad you're safe. That doesn't explain how you ended up drenched though."

"The train wasn't working. I couldn't hear the whole message, but the conductors said something about an accident with something on the track? I don't know; they said it would be be faster to walk."

"Didn't Sensei send you out with an umbrella this morning?"

"The wind," Doppo said with a shudder. "It's awful; it's like a typhoon out. Sensei's umbrella died before I crossed the street. I'm sorry I broke it. I think I broke my phone too; it's all wet and not working."

"I'm sure Sensei won't care about the umbrella. Give me your phone; let's see if we can save it." Hifumi took the sodden square Doppo offered and carried it into the kitchen. He kept a container of rice in the back of a cabinet for exactly this purpose.

"Oh, you had something planned," Doppo said when he noticed the table. "I'm sorry I ruined your dinner. I'm the worst."

"Seriously, don't worry about it. We can eat later, or reheat it some other night. Sensei's not home yet either. Have you heard from him?"

Doppo shook his head. "I thought he had an early shift today?"

"So did I, but he's not here, and he's not answering his phone either. Something must have come up. Anyway, that should dry out your phone if it can be saved. Now, let's get you out of all these wet things. That can't be comfortable."

"I hadn't really noticed," Doppo said softly.

Hifumi sighed as he slid off Doppo's jacket and let it fall to the floor with a wet thud. For someone who spent so much time in them, Doppo really had no appreciation for nice clothing. If left to his own devices, he'd live in whatever ill-fitting, hideous suit he found on the discount rack at the thrift store. Hifumi knew; he'd quietly shuffled more than one truly atrocious businesswear abomination to the back of Doppo's closet and then out into the donation pile.

He undid Doppo's tie and unbuttoned his shirt. Doppo tried to help, but despite saying he wasn't cold, he was shivering too badly to be of much use. "Stay here," Hifumi ordered as he ran to the bathroom and returned with the biggest, fluffiest towel he could find. He stripped off Doppo's shirt and undershirt before wrapping him up. It was more difficult to get Doppo the rest of the way undressed around the towel, but at least he'd be warm.

"Sit down and let me take off your socks," he said as he ushered Doppo toward a chair.

"You don't have to."

"But I'm going to anyway. You'll feel better when you aren't all cold and soggy. How about we take a nice hot shower together while we wait for Sensei?"

"I think he's almost here," Doppo said as his socks joined the pile of wet clothing. "I just heard the elevator."

Hifumi looked up, and sure enough, he heard familiar footsteps coming down the hall. He jumped up and ran to open the door.

"Welcome home, Sensei--What happened to you too!? You're a mess!"

Jakurai stepped inside, then sagged against the door as he wrestled with his boots.

"Here, let me get those for you," Hifumi said, dropping to his knees. "You rest. You look like you were run over by a freight train."

"Not a freight train," Jakurai corrected. "A commuter train, and not me, a bus that broke down on the tracks."

"Oh, that sounds bad."

"It was. They've cleared it now. We rescued everyone and stabilized those who needed to be brought to the hospitals. The last ambulances left, and it's in the hospitals' hands now. Everyone should be fine; the train crews were moving the damaged train when I left."

“You’re freezing,” Hifumi said, holding Jakurai’s hands in his. “Stay here and get out of all of these wet things.”

He ran back to the bathroom for another towel. When he returned, Jakurai had stripped off his jacket and hung it by the door, but he seemed to be having some trouble with his turtleneck. “Sensei, do you need a hand?”

There was a bit more struggling and muttered curses before a quiet “if you wouldn’t mind, Hifumi-kun. I seem to have been entangled by my hair.”

Hifumi stepped closer and tugged on the stretchy fabric, only to realize that Jakurai had not been exaggerating. Somehow, his hair had managed to wrap around his wrists and trap them over his head.

“Give me a minute, Sensei, you’ve created quite the tangle here.” He pulled the turtleneck back down and tried to parse out which pieces of hair belonged where. It reminded him of the puzzles he had done as a kid tracing balls of yarn to their end. He had always been terrible at those mazes. “Why didn’t you pull it back first or something? Or at least tuck it into your jacket?” Hifumi muttered. “Doppo says it’s like a typhoon out there.”

"I had other things on my mind," Jakurai says, his voice muffled by the bunched up cloth. "And I wasn't wearing a coat; it would have been in the way."

"You're taking a bath," Hifumi announced. "You and Doppo both." After a bit more tugging, he finally managed to free Jakurai and extricate him from his tangled shirt. "I'm going to go start the bath now, and when I come back, I want you out of the rest of your clothes. Here's a towel."

"That sounds lovely, Hifumi-kun. Thank you. Did something happen to Doppo-kun?"

"Just getting caught in the rain. He's as wet as you are."

"Make sure he doesn't catch a chill," Jakurai said. "You know he'll forget to change on his own."

"He's in the kitchen now and already out of his wet things. We were about to take a shower when you walked in. I'll be right back. Get out of your wet pants before you get sick."

Hifumi hurried to the bathroom and turned the tap on almost as hot as it would go. One of the definite perks of Jakurai's apartment over his old one was the bathtub. It was dark marble, and plenty big to hold all three of them together. A wide lip around the edge was perfect for storing toiletries and spare towels, and with the touch of a button, it could be converted into something more akin to a hot tub with water pulsing through jets around the edge. The bath was a little warm currently, but he didn't know how long it would take to herd his boyfriends in the right direction, and he also didn't want the water to chill too much once he dumped two human-shaped ice cubes into the tub.

He left the bath running and returned to the living room. Jakurai was no longer in the entryway, and while his turtleneck was still a soggy puddle on the floor, his pants did not appear to have joined it. Hifumi frowned and turned to the kitchen. There, he found Doppo apologizing for transit delays out of his control and the umbrella he had broken. Doppo was still sitting in the same chair he had been in when Hifumi left. Jakurai knelt beside him, speaking softly and drying Doppo's hair with the corner of his towel. His pants were starting to leave a puddle on the floor under him.

"Sensei, what did I say?" Hifumi said from the doorway.

"I was just helping Doppo-kun for a moment. It seemed more pressing than clothing."

"And now it's bath time. Come on, both of you. Sensei, pants off before I take them off."

With a combination of nudging, pleading, and gentle threats, Hifumi managed to herd his boyfriends into the bathroom, and then into the bathtub. He checked he hadn't forgotten anything, then climbed in after them. He handed a bottle to Jakurai. "Here. Detangler. Use it and leave it in or we'll be here forever. Doppo, scoot over and let me wash your hair."

He grabbed the shampoo and slid in close to Doppo, wrapping their bodies together as he worked stray leaves and bits of mud out of Doppo's hair. He had never figured out how Doppo's hair managed to attract so much random junk. He was convinced it had to be part of the same supernatural magnetism that left flyaway bits no matter how much product he had used to try to smooth them down.

Doppo relaxed into him as he worked his fingers through Doppo's hair. It was a favorite trick of his for relaxing his permanently stressed friend; nothing like a good scalp massage to turn Doppo into a calm puddle. By the time he finished, Doppo was half asleep against him. He propped him up against the side of the tub and hoped he wouldn't slip down while his hands were full elsewhere.

Jakurai's hair was going to take awhile. Not that it didn't always take awhile solely by virtue of its length and thickness, but there was a difference between normal maintenance and the rat's nest it had currently turned into (he really roped there weren't any actual rats in the mess; he hated rats). He picked up a corner of the tangle and started to work, combing out a small section and laying it over the edge of the tub before moving on to the next.

There was something almost meditative about the process. He lost track of how long it had been since it started, but at some point, Doppo began snoring softly behind him. Jakurai was silent too, seemingly lost in his own thoughts. He worked steadily, watching the tangle in front of him shrink under his hands.

When he finally finished, he let his head fall forward. He'd just rest for a minute here, surrounded by the familiar smell of Jakurai's shampoo and cologne.

He must have nodded off, because the next thing he knew, he was being lifted out of the tub and wrapped in a soft robe. Still half-asleep, he pushed against Jakurai's chest. "I can do it myself," he mumbled.

"There's no need for that. You've earned your rest."

Hifumi tried to fight it, but the fingers gently brushing his hair away from his face were too compelling, and he drifted off again. It was safe here curled up against Jakurai's chest. Suddenly, they were moving, and he clung on more tightly until they stopped and Jakurai uncurled his fingers from the fabric. He whined at the sudden loss of warmth.

"I'll be right back," Jakurai promised. "I'm just getting milk for you and Doppo. Milk is good after a bath."

Hifumi let go reluctantly. He pulled his robe closer too him and looked around, still trying to clear the sleepy fog from his brain. Doppo looked equally forlorn sitting in the chair next to him. Without thinking, he slid his chair around the corner of the table and pulled Doppo onto his lap. Luckily, Doppo seemed to be just as in want of cuddling as he was.

Hifumi heard Jakurai's warm laugh behind him when he returned. "There have to be more comfortable places to sit than that," Jakurai said.

"It's fine," Hifumi replied, but Sensei clearly wasn't convinced, because he picked up the both of them and carried them to the sofa. Then, he wrapped them both in blankets before carrying over their mugs of warm milk and settling himself between them.

"You're both such good boys," Jakurai said softly. "I'm lucky to have found you."

Hifumi leaned against Jakurai's chest, surrounding himself with Jakurai's familiar scent. "We love you, Sensei," he mumbled.