bk_forever | FAKE Ficlet: House Rules

Title: House Rules
Fandom: FAKE
Author:

badly_knitted
Characters: Dee, Ryo.
Rating: G
Setting: Throughout the manga, including Like Like Love.
Summary: Dee and Ryo have very different ideas about running a home.
Word Count: 592
Written For: My own prompt ‘FAKE, Ryo/Dee, Ryo's house rules differ from Dee's,’ at fic_promptly.
Disclaimer: I don’t own FAKE, or the characters. They belong to the wonderful Sanami Matoh.

Right from the start, Dee noticed that Ryo's house rules were very different from his own, which he supposes isn’t so surprising considering the differences in their personalities. For a start there’s the whole taking your shoes off at the door thing, a habit Dee has since adopted in his own home because it makes a kind of sense. The floors stay cleaner that way, and going barefoot, at least in warm weather, is kinda nice.

Ryo’s other rules Dee isn’t so keen to adopt, like sitting at the table for meals. Dee almost never does that at home, preferring to lounge on the sofa watching TV while he eats. Then again, when he’s at home, breakfast is usually grabbed on the run unless he has the day off, and his evening meal is takeout or a frozen TV dinner more often than not. Ryo, on the other hand, spreads the table with dishes of various things for everyone to help themselves from, so it’s common sense to sit in the kitchen where the food is instead of trekking back and forth to get more, or carrying the whole lot through to the lounge.

Being what you might call house proud, Ryo has a place for everything and expects things to be returned to their places when they’re not being used. Dee tends to be more casual; his place looked lived in because it is. Not that he lives stuff lying around all the time, he puts things away when he remembers to, but what’s the big deal if he doesn’t? He can find them again easily enough when he wants them; his apartment isn’t that big. As for the dishes, if he doesn’t feel like washing them for a few days, he has plenty more in the cupboard. They’ll get done eventually. Ryo, on the other hand, does the dishes after every meal, without fail, and puts them neatly away, plates and dishes in the kitchen cupboards, pans on the rack, and cutlery in the drawer.

It’s the same with laundry; Ryo does several loads a week, and irons everything afterwards before putting it away, while Dee does his whenever he’s running low on clean clothes, and irons things, if they need it, usually just before he puts them on. He’s not like some of those slobs who’ll dig through the laundry hamper and wear things again before washing them though; that would be gross. Then again, his laundry doesn’t always get as far as the hamper. Mostly it does, but he’s always finding odd items that he’s missed, from when he’s gotten changed in a hurry, or just been so tired he’s shed his clothes, leaving them wherever they fell, and crawled straight into bed.

Ryo’s also big on cleaning; he dusts, polishes and vacuums so often that his apartment always looks immaculate. He even cleans the tops of cupboards and doorframes, and under the furniture. Dust bunnies don’t stand a chance with him, while Dee knows there are probably more than a few lurking at his place, under the bed and behind the sofa. It’s not down to laziness on his part, when he does get going on something he’ll do a thorough job, but mostly he does the housework when he has some free time and can be bothered to, and that’s okay, because a bit of dust never hurt anybody, although he has a feeling Ryo would disagree.

One thing’s for sure; with their wildly different ideas on housework, living together is definitely going to be interesting!

The End