overlord's ability burns away even the effect of triggers

Posted originally on the Archive of Our Own at http://archiveofourown.org/works/47049355.

Rating: Not Rated

Archive Warning: No Archive Warnings Apply
Category: Gen
Fandom: Cardfight!! Vanguard
Relationship: Kai Toshiki & Sendou Aichi, Kai Toshiki & Miwa Taishi, Kai Toshiki &
Sendou Emi, Kai Toshiki & Katsuragi Kamui, Kai Toshiki & Katsuragi
Kamui & Sendou Aichi & Tokura Misaki, Kai Toshiki & Kourin Tatsunagi
Character: Tatsunagi Kourin, Sendou Aichi, Sendou Emi, Kai Toshiki, Miwa Taishi,
Katsuragi Kamui, Tenchou Dairi | Sub Manager | Assisticat
Additional Tags: Domestic Fluff, Playing twister; cooking, eating dinner together your
honour, Kamui cannot be trusted with seasoning, Kai is their teacher
Language: English
Stats: Published: 2023-05-08 Words: 1,525 Chapters: 1/1

overlord's ability burns away even the effect of triggers

by Balustrade

Summary

Hi, I heard that you guys were starving, so I'm here with food - *proffers a basket of
cheese*. Anyways, this is a fluffy fic set post-legion, in the liminal space before Kai goes to
France, and there is NO trauma whatsoever. Just people cooking suspiciously Chinese food
(try the recipe! I promiss it's good) and eating dinner.
For @khainovo on Tumblr

Notes

See the end of the work for notes

love is pressed and not new, worn into you by the stares from behind your back and the light
reflected from their watch on your hand, threads enveloping you like a faded blanket.

love is preused.

"Take two tablespoons of salt and dump it in with the clams." he instructs, moving around the teak
counter to Aichi's side. "Good. Rinse it six-twenty times, using the sieve, and leave it there for half
an hour." Kourin, her garnet apron flowing, carries a tray of crushed garlic over to the counter.
Paced steps, level, light, cheery. A beacon with her lemony hair creamed by the warm light of the
late afternoon. The garlic, white shreds oozing a subtle smell of wispy hellos, will be placed under
Misaki's watchful care so Assistant Cat does not take it and dump it over the floor, speckles of lilac
and aubergine skin that should be fried together with the clams. They are sitting in Miwa's lap now,
the clams, shells overlapping with keratin in complex formations that would look like staircases to
an ant that was shrunk down to be smaller than an ant, Aichi fancies as he replaces the salt canister
in its pullout drawer, metal scrubbed until the reflection itself shines. Kai is a fastidiously territorial
cat, and it means so much unspeakable trust that he has finally let them into his kitchen, albeit
under some cautious guidance.

They play a game of Twister whilst waiting out the half an hour - all except Miwa, who still had to
hold the clams for fear the real cat will eat them raw. He gets to hold the remote control for Kai's
mini television, though, and amuses himself with the soft strains of a Korean drama as he hangs
over the back of a chair. He looks for all the world like a white blobby sweater, left there to dry.
Muslin waiting patiently to be ironed and laundered. Morikawa wins somehow - Misaki doesn't
stand a chance in those tight clothes, Aichi has two left feet, Izaki gets exhausted fast, Emi and
Kamui are too short. Kai has some semblance of dignity to maintain and remains a spectator, much
to Kourin's pitying disapproval (she is the emcee. Perhaps she missed her work more than she
wanted to say.)

"Put the bok choy in to simmer with the clans." Misaki is in charge of this part. She has no sleeves
to roll up, dressed in that revealing azure top, but that's the feeling he gets when she enters the
kitchen. Unlike Aichi, she has nerves of steel, and doesn't flinch at the roiling bubbles or
practically throw the clams in, unleashing a spray of savage 'feedback'. Her fingers are calm, a
strong quality in a chef, a good metal to add to an alloy. Kamui dislikes waiting, and being
confined to the sofa even more so, but there is no help for it when he will insist in adding in an
inane amount of seasoning. The human consumption of salt is not quite so advanced; it is a good
thing he does not cook at home, or perhaps that is the reason he does not cook at home. He still
yells instructions, however, confusing Izaki, who is in the middle of a Vanguard match with him.
"Guard - watch out for that geyser, Emi-san!" Misaki deflects it with the spatula, earning a shower
of applause from Emi. They strain the clams and bok choy, add it into a large soup pot.

"Add some more water. Once boiled, slowly add fish paste and continue to stir the pot." This part
is lighter work, but Aichi seems to take it as seriously as he does everything else - the only one
who could be more serious is perhaps Gaillard, but then the fish paste would turn into fish cream.
The way his pale hand trembles with the effort to disperse the stubbornly sticky white paste
through the soup, yet avoid coating the leafy dark greens with it? That's something to behold, the
pensive jolt of his chin a hint at his inner frustration. (It's a frustration that will dissolve when even
Emi praises his work. The wooden spatula splatters everyone with watery paste when he lifts it up
and pumps his fist a little.)

The cooking of the chicken thigh meat is taken over by him - this is the most delicate part, and it is
only a little factor that they gasp in awe as he tosses it expertly, with dextrous hands born from a
curation of experience, with rice soaked in ginger puree, Shaoxing wine (a Chinese wine) and
sliced Chinese sausage, handled by Emi earlier. Her chopping board was placed next to their
workstation as she went through the mounds of preserved red meat with a deftness Kai approves of
silently.

Bird's nest to pair? Or the frosted carrot cake he bought from the bakery? Honey spice cake? A
chocolate cream? He wonders about dessert before the thigh meat has even browned and started
smelling of the signature readiness, but when he notices, it's a inhalation of deep satisfaction that
goes all the way down to the ribs and causes his chest to rise like dough. The warm flames of the
stove erase all memories of anything but the fulfillment of a meal together, even after the stove has
been switched off. They burn away the effects of all which previously triggered conflict, leaving
their rowdy banter without any sting. The hearth of a previous inferno, embers now harnessed to a
kinder task and the soothing of cold aches - who needs therapy when there is a hot plate of rice,
chicken and clam soup with all the dinner places set and napkins at the ready? Good conversation
flows over good food - this is one competition he cannot lose, one that no one can when there is no
competitor; only friends, only the filling of a basic and imperatively essential need that joins them
all together. Nutrition for those who lived on empty stomachs before they knew one another - or
who lived off someone else, some-thing else. To rely on something that cannot betray them is a
blessing, and he finds that he is smiling a small, private smirk.

He never used to smile.

Sometimes he needed proof, tactile proof that he loved them, was not coming up with a fantasy,
and he remembered his old days, darker than he could shake, when his mouth hurt when he smiled.
Those red tears streaked their fingernails gently down his cheeks like knives to a wrist, and he cried
himself to sleep every night, when he scratched lines down his hands and into others' hearts, when
he didn't want to love anyone around him, when he didn't care if he did the right thing anymore,
when he lost his conscience.

When he couldn't close his hand into a fist, because the only thing he wanted to do was scratch and
claw at the emptiness that he couldn't leave behind even with the jangling creak of coffee in his
capillaries.

He never used to be able to do this.

He smiles at Morikawa's boasting (he was "responsible for the great meal", nevermind that he
didn't lift a finger) unconsciously, a pattern of familiarity, and so what if he had practiced it into
himself? Kai didn't use to be able to bring himself to do it.

With them, he sincerely believes that the world is kind, that the fire is faithful, that there is such an
existence of hope.

They made him believe in love when he had forgotten how it felt. The sun is concurrently
exhausted, depleted from the busy day; at night, they demanded nothing of him besides his own
self to shine through, even as a reflection, and that made him love them, he is still so grateful that
they understand him in a place no one ever could. the rigidity and demanding poise required to
walk the line he has been racing - they knew it never stops, and he had desperately needed a reason
to hold onto the people in front of him; he wanted to love them, but he needed reminders. He
needed a map, needed them to lift him up when he was down, too, some proof that he wasn't not in
this alone. That a hand could reach through his flames unhurt. He needed them to reciprocate and
believe in him even when he let them down, people who were willing to forfeit their present for
him later, someone to stay with him. And whether or not he asked, they were always going to be
those people.

They, although so rough, calloused by their own traumas, loved him gently, like burn marks, like
fresh wounds, like scars if that makes sense.

Kai doesn't want to hide anything bad or good from the 'them' he trusts his whole being to, he
"won't hold anything back from you."

Let me love you, he wills to himself as water floods his moist throat.

Let me love you.

Some people Kai can never get back and he wants to make the most of all he has to give.
End Notes

I hope u like the food and didn't get grossed out. It's much better than it sounds I promiss

glossary -

Bok choy, also known as pak choy or pok choi, is a type of Chinese cabbage, that has
smooth, wide, flat leaf blades at one end with the other end forming a cluster similar to that
of celery. May be eaten cooked or raw.

Puree – Pureed ginger (also known as ginger paste) is made by blending or grinding fresh
peeled ginger into a fine puree. Some water (or occasionally oil) is used to create a smooth
consistency.

Shaoxing wine (Shaohsing, Hsiaohsing, Shaoshing), also called "yellow wine", is a

traditional Chinese wine made by fermenting glutinous rice, water and wheat-based yeast.

Chinese sausage is a broad umbrella category encompassing many types of sausage, both
air-cured and smoked, from all parts of China as well as Vietnam and Thailand. It can be
made from fresh pork, pork fat, livers, and, sometimes, chicken, and tends to be as sweet as
it is savory, with a rich, dense, emulsified texture.

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