Chapter Text
It’s a little bit of an odd place to meet, Shintaro thinks- but then again, Konoha’s an odd person, and there’s really nowhere he can’t look at home.
Not even here; a small, colourful milkshake bar on the outskirts of Sector Seven, walls and ceiling covered almost entirely with bright posters of rather retro-looking cartoon characters and home to ‘the Sector’s largest collection of Ancient Art’ in a small, stuffy room at the back. Like everything in this city, it’s well-lit and friendly-looking, and like everything, it’s expensive.
"Are you sure this is okay?" he mumbles, sinking beneath his menu. Konoha doesn’t seem to hear him. His expression is one of pure bliss, fixed on the pictures beside each listed food.
"Ah… Shintaro… I want to try this one…"
Shintaro can only sigh. He and Konoha have been dating for three months now, and friends even longer. He knows the android well enough to realise they may be here a while.
"Move over, I’m going to come and look."
Konoha shuffles up without comment and Shintaro drags another stool to sit beside him. Unhelpfully heavy, these things. It makes his arms ache, and for a brief second, he wishes he still had someone to do the job for him- but a glance at Konoha’s serene face is enough to snap him out of it.
"So, uh… what were you thinking of?"
"This one. It says it tastes like banana… Shintaro, what is a banana?"
"It’s a fruit. I think they’re pretty rare, but you get the flavour in stuff like, uh, candy? My sister likes banana popping gum, it tastes sweet and sort of mellow."
Konoha’s eyes only get wider and wider. Shintaro’s fairly sure he’s about to start drooling.
"Ah. What’s this one, then?"
"That’s vanilla. You’ve probably tasted that before, it goes in cakes or, like… coffee, sometimes."
"I’m not supposed to drink coffee. Mr Tateyama said it would be bad."
Mr Tateyama, Shintaro thinks, would probably say a lot of things were bad. Like having a human boyfriend, and taking him to milkshake bars. He says nothing.
Really, even more than their relationship (though the way Konoha insisted they held hands on the way in did them no favours), what’s drawing attention is the fact Konoha’s here at all. It’s rare for androids to eat human food- it’s usually a privilege reserved for the highest-ranking officials in the military, and even they are known to refuse, believing their strength to come from the purity of their otherness. A young, commercial android like Konoha is clearly not supposed to be eating here. Only an android without an owner would brave a Seventh Sector bar.
Which, unfortunately for Shintaro, is exactly what his boyfriend is.
Dating an android at all is bad enough. Generally, they’re considered either the sport of losers and rejects, or the prostitutes of the rich and desperate. Shintaro is, double unfortunately, all four of these things. Maybe, at first, that was what drew him.
Yet Konoha is something he’s never known before. This isn’t a mannequin or a soldier. He’s- well, human, down to the birth marks on his face and the warmth of his slender hands. Maybe a human boyfriend couldn’t punch through a wall to see him, and maybe a human boyfriend wouldn’t feel the need to store a fridge full of packaged noodles at his house, but when they lie together, the only difference he can really make out is the slight echo of Konoha’s breathing, as if his lungs are reluctant to let each breath go.
They go over everything on the menu, item by item. Most of them Konoha already knows, but the more expensive ones trip him up; he’s fascinated to learn that the word ‘raspberry’ means more than just a silly noise to make on Shintaro’s tummy, and when he learns that blueberries aren’t actually that blue he looks so shocked that Shintaro laughs in his face. It takes a while, but the bar is slow today. They have the time.
Eventually, Shintaro decides on a simple chocolate shake and pulls out his phone to tap out all of Konoha’s choices on a note. Looks like has an email from Ene. It’s flashing with the ‘urgent’ sign, but knowing her that probably just means she wants to tell him about a video she found online. He calls over a waiter, and Konoha watches his lips as he reels off their order.
The waiter leaves, and Shintaro is just about to move back to his own seat when Konoha grabs his hand.
"Shintaro. Why is that man watching us?"
The hair on the back of Shintaro’s neck rises and he shudders before he’s even had a chance to look. He tries to keep his voice light, but it comes out sounding strangled.
"What… what man? D-don’t point!" he whispers hurriedly, and Konoha, who had been raising his arm, stops in clear confusion.
"Behind you. He has weird glasses on."
…Well, we do stick out a bit. He’s six foot tall and wears neon, for crying out loud. Yes. That’s all it means. Honestly, this paranoid streak is going to be the death of him.
"H-he might just think we look weird," is what comes out of his mouth, and Konoha looks as confused by that as he did by the idea of non-blue blueberries.
"Weird…? Are we?"
And, to Shintaro’s utter horror, Konoha lifts a hand to stroke his face.
He doesn’t move. Fuck. If he pushes Konoha away, there’ll be trouble later, but if he lets him continue, there could be trouble now. He tries to speak, but Konoha gets there first:
"We don’t look weird. Shintaro is too pretty. That’s what that man must be thinking, too." Konoha has an odd look on his face, now. It’s pensive, thoughtful on a deeper level than usual. He gets like this about only two other things that Shintaro has noticed: snakes, and hospitals. It looks cute this time. It doesn’t usually.
Then Konoha kisses him.
It’s sweet, and slow, and he’s almost certain he can feel purpose behind it, intent of a different kind to lust. It slowly dawns on him that his boyfriend might be jealous. A horrible thought, though- disgusting of him to have it, to assume, and disgusting if it’s true, because who- for him-? They’re in public, too, and he’s- he’s being kissed by (kissing) an unregistered android, whose hands are twining once again with his own, and whose lips taste of mayonnaise and chemicals and home-
He can’t say it- and he definitely doesn’t want the man by the bar to know it- but he’s happier than he’s ever been in his life.