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“I smell something oddly fishy around here!” Jouno exclaims as he walks down a different hallway from his usual, hand holding his cane as it helped him around. He turned a smile towards the person that smelled “fishy.”
The “fishy” person took out the lollipop that was rolling around in their mouth and straightened their posture from where they had a leg propped up on one of the lockers. “On the contrary, I don’t smell like fish! I believe I smell quite nice actually.”
“No, Ranpo-san, I don’t think so.” Jouno replies from where he was standing in the middle of the hallway.
Propping down his foot and having both of them on the floor, Ranpo walked forward until he was pushing Jouno into the parallel lockers; bracketing the silver-haired boy between his arms. “Oh yeah? Try me.”
Jouno, not particularly concerned with the current situation, merely looked down cooly at the shorter one. His closed eyelids met Ranpo’s glowing emerald ones and the tension grew thick.
The whisperings of the other students were quiet and tense. The whole hall muttering behind their hands at another one of their class presidents’ tactics.
“Do you think they’re dating?”
“If you ask me, I think they’re f-”
“Don’t complete that sentence.”
Leaning forward, just enough that his red-tipped ear slipped from where it was tucked behind pierced ears, Jouno parted his lips; his artillery of words practically dripping with sugar as he drawled, “But, Ranpo-san.”
Jouno wiggled one of his hands; the one that wasn’t carrying the strap of his cane; up until he gripped Ranpo’s chin. He held it between his thumb and pointer finger softly, enough that Ranpo could wiggle out whenever he wanted it.
With his hand gripping Ranpo’s chin and forcing the shorter man to strain his neck and look up, Jouno continued, “How on earth am I supposed to try you when you’re nearly twenty centimeters shorter than me?”
Ranpo grabbed Jouno’s collar, pulling the other man down to meet his face as the whispering got louder. Bringing his lips to Jouno’s ear, Ranpo hissed, “You get on your knees.”
“But I don’t want to crinkle my pants.” Jouno replied.
“Sissy.”
Jouno just shrugged, before straightening himself up from where he was slightly bending his knees to accommodate Ranpo’s height. “I’m not a sissy.”
Moving to the side to let Jouno out, Ranpo pulled another lollipop out of his pockets, “That’s what all the sissies say!”
“Mhm… See you later, then.” Jouno replied, turning the corner and exiting the hallway.
Tanizaki stared at his senior in mild concern as he looked at the ingredients. Or more accurately, the lack of ingredients. “Ranpo-san…” He gingerly (no pun intended) asked.
“What is it. I'm busy.” Ranpo replied, not looking up from where he was preparing his mixture.
Standing still for a moment, as he tried to form a question that wouldn’t paint either of them in a bad light, Tanizaki asked, “Where’s your sugar?”
Ranpo heaved a great sigh at the incompetence of his junior, before slowly answering, taking the time to give pauses between each word, as if he was explaining to a little kid, “The person I’m making it for doesn’t require sugar.”
“Won’t it…” Tanizaki waved his hands in the air in desperate search for a word, “... be bland?”
“Mhm!” Ranpo answered, clapping his hands to get rid of the flour, “Finally, you understand!! It’ll be bland! Much like a certain someone’s fashion taste!!”
“Uum, well. Well. Good luck, then.” Tanizaki stammered out as he nearly tripped over his feet in an attempt to get away quickly.
“Thank you!” Ranpo replied quickly in a hurry to get back to his “baking.”
At one of the other tables, Jouno was pestering Tecchou. “Can I have some more sugar.”
“HOW MUCH MORE DO YOU NEED?!” Tecchou shouted. And mind you, Tecchou rarely shouted, but when you were pressed for more sugar every five minutes, it wears down your patience.
Jouno, unperturbed by the yell merely said, “This has to be the sweetest thing on the planet!”
“WHY?!”
“So that person has no choice but to bow down to me!” Jouno shouts back, swiping the sugar and putting another cup in.
“WHY?!”
“BECAUSE!”
Taking a deep breath, Tecchou turned to his friend, and started, “Look. I get feelings are hard to comprehend. But confessing your lo-”
“I AM NOT IN LOVE WITH HIM.”
Turning back to his cake that he was decorating, Tecchou just shrugged and proceeded to ignore his friend.
“Right! Bring your pieces up and exchange them with the person you had in mind while baking it!” The teacher called out after the series of beeps could be heard, signalling baking was done and they had waited 20 minutes for the treats to cool down.
Ranpo skipped towards where Jouno was standing. “Why, hello, my dearest rival!” He chirped.
A smile crept onto Jouno’s face, all teeth and such, “Why, greetings, little gremlin, that constantly keeps me on my toes.” He coughed, “Pardon! I mean, keeps my knees bended.”
Ranpo’s smile was starting to hurt his cheeks, as his green eyes shone. “Here are the blandest cookies possible. A token of my appreciation for you!”
Jouno smiled fondly at the bland cookies in his hands, ignoring the roaring of his heart as he held them. But then his mind caught up to the rest of Ranpo’s statement, “Token of ap- what?”
Standing frozen as he realized that he had just slipped, Ranpo tried to find a way out of this, so he decided to go the safe way, “What.”
Lifting an incredulous hand, Jouno said, “You called this a token of appreciation.”
“And what of it?” Ranpo raised an eyebrow staring down at Jouno, though he was the much shorter one. (It’s his power, folks. He’s powerful like that.)
Standing there for a bit as he tried to make sense of what was going on, the tension grew thicker again.
“I appreciate you. Anything wrong?”
Choking out a response, “Is this your way of a confession?”
“What’s a confession.”
“I-”
“I’m joking.”
Deflating again, “Alright.”
“You accept?” Ranpo perked up again.
Jouno gave his cookies in response, “Then, ugh. These are my tokens of appreciation.” His eyelid twitched as he said the last word.
“What just happened?” The class whispered.
“I saw them snarling at each other this morning…”
“Oh, same.”
“And now they’re confessing their appreciation?”
“What the hell.”
“Wow, thanks Saigiku! I like you, too!” Ranpo exclaims as he pulls a cookie out of the bag.
Jouno stood there dumbfounded at how fast Ranpo was moving through emotions, and he swore his heart skipped a beat, “I LITERALLY JUST SAID, I APPRECIATE YOU.”
Upon being yelled at, Ranpo immediately decided to assert his dominance and yell louder, “AND I JUST SAID I LIKED YOU!”
“WHAT THE HELL, RANPO-SAN!” Jouno shouts.
Looking up at Jouno, Ranpo said in a normal voice, “Bro… can we hug now, bro?”
“NOW YOU’RE CALLING ME BRO?!” Jouno shrieks as smoke comes from his red-flushed ears.
“Can we hug?” Ranpo asks again, softening his voice until it was softer than a feather.
Jouno stammered in an attempt to get the conversation back on track, before he quickly lost the motivation to after realizing that Ranpo was dead-set on getting a hug. The whiplash of feelings left his stomach in a nervous jumble of emotions. “I..haaah, fine. C’mere.”
“Now they’re hugging?”
“Ohmygod, what is happening between those two-”
Ranpo skipped until he was safely in between Jouno’s open arms, wrapping his own arms around the other’s waist. Jouno, not one for prolonged touching, gave awkward pats on the other’s back as he fought the urge to bury his nose into Ranpo's hair.
Tucking his nose into the material of Jouno’s shirt, Ranpo muttered, “Bro…”
“Shut up.”