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He has no interest in tobacco, save in those quiet moments after they have both spent themselves and they lay together in Holmes’s bed, watching the afternoon sunlight play across the wall. It happens the same way every time: Sherlock reaches for his pipe on the nightstand, barely bringing it to his lips before he feels the fingers brush his knuckles in an unspoken request. He obligingly passes it over, and Ryunosuke takes a tentative puff, then a deeper one, breathing out in a long rib-shaking exhale as smoke wafts in broken curls over their heads.
“We shall turn you into a proper Londoner yet, Mister Naruhodo,” Sherlock murmurs near his ear, accepting the pipe back in due course. He partakes as well, humming appreciatively at the slight warmth still left around the lip of the mouthpiece. “Perhaps next you’ll develop a fondness for fish and chips.”
“No, thank you,” Ryunosuke says, carelessly blunt in that way Sherlock finds ever so amusing. A mind as cunning as a blade, or as unassailable as a brick wall, depending entirely on his mood. He gestures for the pipe again, and Sherlock of course provides. “It simply tastes different, after…”
He trails off, as he always does. That mustachioed Mr. Natsume may have had the right of it with his assessment of the Japanese national character. Or perhaps Holmes simply finds himself drawn to bashful men.
“Hmm.” Sherlock adjusts against the sheets, wrapping more of himself around Ryunosuke’s wonderfully athletic body. Where the man finds time to maintain such a fine physique amidst his studies is a mystery even to the great detective, although not, at the moment, a pressing one.
Sherlock tsks when Ryunosuke leans away from his nuzzling cheek. “Eastern men make such rotten lovers,” he declares, snatching the pipe back. He rolls onto his back amidst a pile of pillows, puffing obnoxiously, for the show of it.
He awaits Ryunosuke’s cutting retort, but it does not come. There is a particular variety of silence which settles around Ryunosuke instead, a sign that he is deep in thought. A concerning response to what Holmes intended as a playful jibe. Before he has an opportunity to clarify, Ryunosuke is asking him something.
“On what do you base that, sir?”
“Ah…” Sherlock examines the coal in his pipe, feeling Ryunosuke’s gaze bearing down on him. Not accusatory, not yet -- rather, questing, on the hunt for some tell in the detective’s demeanor, ever the apt pupil. “…I misspoke. My apologies.”
“Do you -- make a habit of--”
Sherlock springs up, touching a hand to Ryunosuke’s shoulder. “My good man, no,” he avers. Of all the many directions his companion could have misconstrued his meaning, this is not one he anticipated. “That is to say, there was one, once, a countryman of yours, but I never meant to suggest--” Damn it all, this is already so much more than he ever intended to let on; he must respect Mikotoba’s privacy, even if he is so often shameless with his own. “I assure you my tastes are actually quite cosmopolitan.”
“That’s not -- first of all, you do appreciate that saying it like that doesn’t, in fact, make it better?”
“Whyever not?”
“Because you--” Ryunosuke makes a noise akin to a horse dying from consumption. The tender-hearted lawyer doesn’t have to forgive these blunders of his, but somehow, he always seems to. “Second of all, I don’t want to hear about who else may have graced your bed.”
“I believe you’ll find it was you who broached the subject.”
“Only because you implied--”
“A poor attempt at humor, which shall not be repeated,” Sherlock assures him, and means it. “Forgive me.”
Ryunosuke purses his lips. The question still lurks behind his eyes, a candle flame of curiosity that -- Holmes knows from extensive personal experience -- never extinguishes once lit. Decorum will stay his tongue awhile, but eventually Ryunosuke will wring the truth from him. He is much too competitive to leave the matter alone; he will naturally want to know how he compares to this rival he has invented in his head, and from there he will insist on demonstrating to Holmes his superior abilities, perhaps even seek to claim the charming and handsome detective all for himself…
“You’re incorrigible,” Ryunosuke sighs, and means it. Sherlock never understands how it is that his thoughts can be so transparent on this subject and this subject alone. It really must be looked into.
But later. At the moment, he feels compelled to show Ryunosuke just how incorrigible he can be.