The Best Hoe-Repellent Spray is Unconditional Love - Rei

 I wake up to the ray of sunlight through the curtain. Slowly opened my eyes, I inhaled the smell of a clean sheet and the lingering scent of the night before. Raising up on my elbow, one side of the shirt slipped off my shoulder—one that was two sizes too big yet wrapped around my body perfectly. I didn't even bother to fix it. Instead, I sat up and lifted the sleeve ruff to my face without thinking—it smelled just like him, like home.

I put it down immediately. Checked my burner phone on the side table. Forty-three unread messages. Twenty missed calls. Great. Now I had things to do.

I walked to the kitchen as if being lured by the sweet aroma of his cooking. Taiga was humming his usual tune again, his wrist flipping the pan effortlessly, a cutesy kitty apron looked absurd in his broad frame.

“Have a good night's sleep, sleepy head?” Taiga asked without looking back, his eyes focused on the colorful fried rice in the pan.

“It was nice, but I got freaking customers' complaints first thing…ruined my morning,” I grumbled, flopped down on the kitchen chair, grabbing a random hair tie and tied up my messy hair.

“Oh my, what can I help?” Taiga finally turned around, putting a plate of fried rice in front of my face. The steaming rice and seasoning tickled my nose.

“Pretending to be my customer…” I muttered, grabbing Taiga's apron and pulling him toward me before I could think better of it.

He let out a small squeak, trying to steady himself against a chair. I wrapped my arms around his waist and buried my face in his belly, mostly to hide my expression.

His hand patted my head immediately. Like he'd been waiting for it.

The other hand reached down and quietly adjusted the shirt back onto my shoulder—the one that kept slipping, the one I hadn't bothered fixing all morning.

I stayed very still and did not think about that.

“That can wait, let's eat first, ok?” Taiga ruffled my messy hair, and when I looked up, he had that same warm, gentle smile on his face. It irritated me.

He never mentioned the incident.

Breakfast happened in comfortable silence, at least for him. My head ran through hundreds of simulations on why Taiga never questioned anything further, and none of those hypotheses came to a conclusion. Yet the fried rice was delicious, and the coffee was made just to my taste. It made my mind go blank, temporarily, like honey dissolved under his warm gaze.

A blank mind was a defenseless mind.

***

“It was your stupid glass fault. Now I know that my boyfriend cheated on me with my best friend!” Taiga repeated the complaint on my burner phone, his voice high-pitched and exaggerated to match my customer.

“Now you have two less hindrances. If you can't handle connections, don't form them in the first place. Plus, we don't offer a refund if the glass does its intended functions.” I answered back with my deadpan tone as Taiga quoted my replies to the chat.

“I didn't know that running a business could be this stressful,” Taiga said after scrolling down a list of customer complaints, inquiries, and supplier emails.

“Tell me about it,” I flopped my head down the table, the stress from business was doing a good job of distracting me from the beast that is Taiga.

However, those nagging feelings still scratching at me from the inside, made me restless. So, I raised my head up, staring at him straight in the eyes, “Is there anything bothering you right now?”

He made a small huh sound, but other than that, Taiga was still in his relaxed posture, “Why did you ask that? Everything is fine with me. We don't fight. We are happy. Right?”

“Happy…” I repeated the word; it sounded foreign in my mouth like it did in my mind.

“Are you happy, Rei? With me?” Taiga asked, his chin resting on his hand. His gaze was as calm as ever, like the lake surface that my eyes couldn't catch any ripples of uncertainty from.

“I am happy,” I answered without thinking, which ended up surprising even myself, “…very happy,” I added quietly.

“Then why did you look scared?” Taiga continued. He never was that nosy before, now he was like a curious cat poking its paw where it didn't belong.

I could not answer his question, my mouth opened and closed, words mumbled out, trying to get a logical answer but all I drew was blank. Again.

“Sorry, it was a weird question." He held my gaze for just a moment longer than necessary. Then he walked over and patted my head, like the question had never existed, “Don't worry about it.”

The sticky feeling rose up inside my stomach again, up to my throat, making it hard to swallow my own saliva. Taiga handed me my neatly folded and cleaned clothes. He was saying something. His mouth was moving, but all I heard was static.

***

Before I knew it, I was back at my apartment, hardly a living space, messy with lab equipment. It was a stark contrast to Taiga’s. The floral scent of detergent in the clothes he gave me and the delicious aroma of the leftovers he packed for me intensified it even more.

“Why did you look scared?” Taiga's question echoed in my mind like a broken record. What was I scared of? Taiga? Myself? Our relationship? Or some invisible strings that I could not identify?

Or the fact that I could not have an answer at all.

The doorknob twist brought me back to reality. Ryu, my middle school-age cousin, poked his head in. Beside Taiga, only he had the key to my apartment.

“Oh, you're still alive. I expected a starving corpse in this trash.” Ryu didn't even bother to take his shoe off and walked straight to my fridge.

“If you are here just to talk shit then get your ass out, before you force my hand,” I hissed, but Ryu didn't budge, he opened the energy drink can and took a sip out of it.

“Mom told me to check on you by the way. Making sure you didn't drop dead.” Ryu stared me up and down from head to toe, “You look like shit. Did you just break up with that tiger boyfriend of yours?”

I threw him a dead glare, “No, we are not breaking up…instead, things had been going well…too well…”

Ryu paused, he stopped his teasing tone and looked at me seriously in the eyes, like he was studying me. It was like looking at a mirror, genetics sure is fascinating.

“Hoes are such an indecisive bunch. They don't even know what they want.” Ryu dropped that bomb then casually fist bumped me like nothing happened. “See you, cousin, buy more of this energy drink. This flavor is bomb.”

I stayed still on the spot. Dumbfounded. My already messy mind now had another statement to ponder over.

I could never take a break.