somebody pinch me

February 14, 18:35

He wolf-whistles when he sees Seijun lingering in the shoe lockers more than usual, a bright pink envelope dangling from his fingers, just about the exact same hue of Kouya's hair, if but a few shades brighter.

"Someone's popular," Kouya says, somehow wrangling an arm around Seijun's shoulder without so much as a by-your-leave. (He gets an elbow to the gut, for all his trouble.) "Might the lovely lady be someone we know?"

"Beats me. Whoever it is didn't even sign their name."

"But you wanted them to, Seijun?"

"I wanted to lecture them on their grammar, more like." Seijun deadpans, with the slight quirk to his lips that tells Kouya he isn't at all being serious. "Get off my case, Kouya. Surely someone like you has got more of these on his plate than I do."

"Ha! When you're as popular as I am, this is nothing," Kouya quips breezily, disentangling himself from Seijun to toss the small bag of letters and chocolates over his shoulder. "Seijun, I can split the haul with you, if you want."

"Thanks, but no thanks." Seijun says, nonplussed as ever, taking a plain box out from his bag. He takes a chocolate truffle out of it and wraps his lips around it - mint chocolate, if the drizzled color on top was any indication, and no Kouya did not see this because he'd been paying attention to his friend's lips of all things, because that would just be so damned weird and also creepy. Even if his eyes can't help but follow the way Seijun's Adam's apple bobs as he swallows. The hell, Ashihara, the hell.

"Kaoru gave me a bunch of sweets off his own stash to thank me for bringing him to the dessert buffet I reviewed the other day." he says, answering Kouya's unspoken question, and frowns at the look on his friend's face. "Don't look at me like that. You were busy with President's Board duties that day, weren't you?"

"I could've just skipped if you'd asked," Kouya grouses, trying to not sound so distraught, and failing.

"I am not gonna be the reason why Akika-senpai and Ichijodani-senpai kick you out of there." Seijun says, squinting at his friend's face. Kouya doesn't see it from this angle but there's another truffle in Seijun's hands right now, and he's mulling it over, considering its weight. He sighs. "Kouya. Look here."

If Kouya goes all wide-eyed and pink-cheeked then, he chalks it up to the shock of having one mid-sized extremely delicious chocolate truffle filled with strawberry jam shoved into one's mouth without warning, because there is no reason for him to be reacting this way to the sensation of Seijun's fingers pushing the sweet through Kouya's lips, as warm as they may feel.

"Your verdict?"

"It did taste good," Kouya admits, watching numbly as Seijun mindlessly licks his fingers clean of melting chocolate. (Their life is not a shoujo manga. Kouya will not count that as an indirect kiss.) "But I don't see why that was necessary."

Seijun looks almost affronted, if that was even possible, and rolls his eyes. "Since when did you care about what was necessary, Kouya?"

Come to think of it, the hell, Seijun's completely right. Because when Kouya came up with the (genius) plan of planting a sappy love letter (crafted with all the details he'd gotten out of Nanao's admittedly impressive shoujo manga collection) into Seijun's locker, he didn't have to also take out all the other genuine glittery-teal envelopes in there all addressed "to Yuyama-kun". It wasn't even necessary for him to pen a fake letter, if all he needed to know was what Seijun's surprised face would look like when faced with a confession of love.

It wasn't necessary, but he did it anyway, and - in Seijun's own words, not so long ago - why does he even bother?

"If this is your way of making things up to me," Kouya harrumphs, walking off as if his heart wasn't pounding madly in his chest, "Then you should know that wasn't enough. The next time you go off to review that place, it's me or no one."

It's because they're broadcasting partners and really, they should be going on these scoops together. Not because, for some reason, imagining Seijun laughing over sweets with Narugo, imagining Seijun reading some other person's honest-to-goodness words of love, kinda ticks Kouya off.

"Yes, yes, Kouya-sama," Seijun drawls, a healthy dosage of snark in his tone, but he falls into step with him anyway.