Chapter Text
Prompt: Joe & Cherry are walking at night in Okinawa and they stop to get something sweet at Blue Seal. What do they get and what do they say as they walk and eat?
“What are you gonna get?” Kojiro asked.
“Don’t rush me,” Kaoru snapped. “I’m trying to decide.”
“What’s there to decide?” Kojiro pressed, looking back up at the menu. “It’s the same as last time and the time before and the fifty million times before that—”
“It’s hardly been fifty million.”
“Fine, but fifty isn’t probably far off,” Kojiro countered. “My point is, you know what you want before we even get through the door. So what is there to decide?”
“Because I know what I want but have to narrow it down,” Kaoru said haughtily.
“Of course,” Kojiro said with an eyeroll.
“I have two hands,” Kaoru reasoned. “Maybe I can get two ice creams…”
“Can you eat two before they melt all over you?”
“You have two hands,” Kaoru reconsidered. “So maybe I can get two and have you hold one…”
Kojiro laughed in spite of himself. “C’mon. What is it gonna be?”
“Why are you so annoying?” Kaoru whined, pulling his lip ring through his teeth as he agonized over his decision.
“What are you trying to decide between?”
“Why?” Kaoru asked skeptically. “Are you gonna get the other so we can share?”
“Absolutely not. It’s so I can flip a coin for you and get this over with.”
“Welllll, I can’t decide between Okinawan Salt Cookies and Blue Wave. I guess…” Kaoru sighed dramatically. “Guess today is Blue Wave day.”
“Well it’s not like you can’t get Salt Cookies next time,” Kojiro reasoned. “Or that you haven’t had it a million times before.”
“Seven,” Kaoru corrected. “I’ve had it seven times before.”
Kojiro looked at him, biting back a smile. “You actually keep track?”
“Yes? Don’t you?”
With an eyeroll Kojiro stepped up to the counter, holding his hand back in Kaoru’s direction.
“What?” Kaoru asked, looking at Kojiro’s open palm. “You lost; you’re paying.”
“Why do I even hang out with you,” Kojiro grumbled.
“Well I only hang out with you because you owe me ice cream,” Kaoru muttered under his breath.
“I didn’t lose, you cheated,” Kojiro said, digging out his wallet.
“Since when are there rules?”
Ignoring Kaoru, Kojiro gave his order to the lady at the counter. “One Blue Wave cone and—”
“Wait, maybe I hadn’t decided!”
“—one Okinawan Salt Cookies cone, please.”
“You’re gonna give me a taste, right?” Kaoru asked once they were back outside.
“No,” Kojiro answered, taking a bite.
“Stingy.”
“I paid!”
“Still stingy,” Kaoru insisted, sticking his tongue out with a sneer before taking a big lick of his ice cream.
His own cone half-forgotten after the first bite, Kojiro watched out of the corner of his eye as they walked. Kojiro wanted to get annoyed with Kaoru, believe he had to be doing this on purpose and read something into it but he knew better. Kaoru had always eaten ice cream like this, licking big swaths with the flat of his tongue, spinning the cone to get the ice cream smooth and round like he wanted then using the tip of his tongue to carve a furrow that he could smooth out again.
In all these years Kojiro hadn’t quite decided if it was some sort of compulsion or performance art but Kaoru had done it the same way as long as Kojiro could remember. And had not taken kindly when five-year-old Kojiro had blurted, “Why do you eat so weird?”
He’d gotten kicked in the shin for that one.
(And again at ten when he’d asked, “Why do you keep eating it if you get such a tummy ache every time?”)
So no, Kojiro had to remind himself that Kaoru was not intentionally eating his ice cream cone as lewdly as possible, not purposefully being uncomfortably suggestive and that this was how he’d eaten it forever. He definitely had no clue what it looked like or did it to taunt Kojiro who had grown increasingly susceptible to this sort of thing.
Especially from Kaoru.
Kaoru glanced over and Kojiro panicked that he’d been caught staring. But then Kaoru’s eyes slid away a moment later, settling into a startled scowl.
“You’re melting,” Kaoru said.
“Huh?”
Kaoru rolled his eyes, exasperated, foregoing attempting to explain and opting instead to just grab Kojiro’s wrist, licking up it to catch the dripping ice cream, over his thumb and up the cone in one smooth motion.
“You were melting,” Kaoru said, thumbing at the corner of his mouth and drawing Kojiro’s attention there.
Like he needed any additional encouragement when he could still feel Kaoru’s tongue across his skin.
“Do you not want it?” Kaoru asked, resuming work on his own. “Give it to me, I’ll eat it.”
“No, I, uh, want it,” Kojiro said quietly, trying to focus on Kaoru’s eyes and not his mouth as he leaned in.
Kaoru stared back at him, lips parted in anticipation—
And Kojiro dipped down and took a large bite out of Kaoru’s cone.
“W-what—” Kaoru stammered, floundering for a second as he recalibrated. “What the fuck did you do that for? I finally got it down to the best part!”
Kojiro laughed, tongue darting out to lick the excess from the corner of his mouth as he dodged Kaoru’s kick.
“You got a bite of mine, it’s only fair!”
“It wasn’t a bite it was a lick and that was only because you’d let yours get all drippy. That was not an equal exchange at all!” Kaoru argued.
“Fine,” Kojiro said. “You want a bite of mine to make it even? I’ll eat it down so you get a bite of cone to replace yours.”
Kaoru frowned skeptically, eyeing Kojiro’s slightly lopsided ice cream. “But you shape yours wrong. You’re gonna get it all drooly and slimy.”
“I don’t want to hear that from someone who licked my hand two seconds ago.” Kojiro rolled his eyes, eating his ice cream a little too fast to get it flush with the top of the cone. And to keep it from melting (more). “Wanna bite?” he asked, tilting it toward Kaoru.
Warily, Kaoru wrapped his fingers around Kojiro’s wrist, ostensibly holding him still.
“I’m not going to smoosh it in your face,” Kojiro sighed.
“I don’t believe you,” Kaoru said haughtily, digging his tongue in deep to scoop out the ice cream.
“Hey!” Kojiro protested a second belatedly. “I didn’t do that to yours!”
Kaoru just grinned, fingers tightening around Kojiro’s wrist as he took a giant bite, stealing half the cone with a loud crunch.
“That’s way more than I took! What happened to equal—”
“I charged interest,” Kaoru said around a mouthful, beaming smugly.
Kojiro barked a laugh in spite of himself. “Nerd.” He offered his dilapidated cone. “You’ve eaten most of it at this point anyway, you want the rest?”
Kaoru grinned, taking it with a satisfied smile. “You are not sneaky, you know. You could’ve just admitted you were gonna share.”
“Nah.” Kojiro shook his head. “I just figure if you want to beef tonight with double the bellyache, that’s on you. It’ll only work to my advantage.”
“As if.” Kaoru scoffed, popping the last bit of cone in his mouth. “You still won’t beat me.”
“Oh whatever!” Kojiro gave him a push in the shoulder and Kaoru retaliated with a punch to the ribs.
“Let’s bet on it. Only if I win, you have to buy me three ice creams next time.”
“How are you going to eat three before they melt?” Kojiro protested. “And wait—I didn’t buy you two this time! One of those was supposed to be mine!”