Work Text:
Trailing after your friends, you let their conversation drift over you mindlessly. You weren’t stoked about visiting some cosmetics shop right after school but they had insisted. You clutched your school bag strap tighter, wishing to get this over with already. But knowing your friends, they were going to take ages just looking around before maybe purchasing one thing.
The thought alone could make you cry.
As the four of you walked through the doors of Tamatina Castle a pleasant chime rang overhead before a frankly alarmingly loud, “WELCOME!!” echoed through the small store.
Your friends and you all jumped with surprise before they giggled nervously and moved as a pack further into the store, disappearing down one of the aisles that didn’t have the four workers standing in it. You blinked. Was that a panda?
It tilted its head at you and you copied the motion. That was an impressive panda costume, you thought. Pointing at it, you asked aloud, “Is that the shop mascot?”
A woman in glasses and a ponytail snorted. “No, it’s just Panda.”
“Hello!” the aforementioned Panda greeted with a wave. Dazed, you waved back. Its mouth moved?? How was that possible…
Another worker stepped closer with a pleasant smile, though he had dark bags under his eyes. “Do you need any help?”
“Come on,” the woman said, grabbing the arm of the Panda. “Let’s go clean or something.”
“Uh, no,” you replied nervously. “I just came here with my friends, I’m not really looking for anything.”
“Ah, that’s okay! Just let us know if you need anything. I’m Okkotsu and this is Inumaki—” He gestured behind himself at the last worker, a light-haired boy wearing a black face mask.
“Salmon,” he said.
Salmon?
Okkotsu caught your eye again same small smile still on his face. “If you’d like we could show you some things?”
“S-sure!” you agreed readily.
Which was how you found yourself standing there, nodding along as Okkotsu presented you with various products. Still, even as you tried to pay attention, your eyes kept flicking towards Inumaki. He only spoke in a few words, and all of them were so random?? Yet Okkotsu didn’t say anything so you didn’t want to bring it up…
“Tuna tuna,” Inumaki said, pointing at something on the shelf.
“Ah! You’re right, thanks Inumaki.” Seeing your likely confused face, Okkotsu looked surprised before he chuckled.
“Inumaki only talks in onigiri ingredients,” he said as if that was any kind of explanation.
You looked back at him to see violet eyes staring back at you. It made your heart skip a beat. “Is that your favorite?” The words were out before you could think about it, and you pinched your lips together. Why did you ask that?!
Inumaki’s eyes widened just a little before he relaxed again, looking perfectly neutral. “Salmon.”
“He said yes,” Okkotsu translated. “Tuna mayo onigiri is his favorite.”
The sound of footsteps broke the moment as a hand tugged at the back of your shirt. “We’re checking out now, did you find something?” one of your friends asked.
Silently you shook your head before glancing back at Inumaki. He and Okkotsu had shuffled off to the side to make room for your group of friends and the other two employees as they went behind the counter to bag up your friends’ things.
As your little group left, you shot one last look over your shoulder. Inumaki held his hand up in a wave and you smiled wide, waving back.
The next time you visited the cosmetic shop, you weren’t as downtrodden about it. Instead, you were leading the pack. This time it was just two others, a different group of friends from the first. Your friends had been discussing the trip at lunch today and you had offered to bring the ones who hadn’t gone the day before.
Opening the door with your heart in your throat, you immediately relaxed when you heard another screamed, “Welcome!”
This time, because you were actively listening for it, you heard a lower “Kelp.” You smiled.
“Weren’t you just here?” the girl from before asked with disdain.
“Maki!!” Okkotsu hissed. Ah, Maki must be her name then.
“Hi again! I’m bringing my other friends, they were interested after we were talking about it.” You held the door open for them to walk in. One of them instantly zeroed in on Okkotsu, as you assumed she would. “Okkotsu was really helpful!” you added cheerfully as the boy jolted with surprise.
“W-was I?” he asked bashfully. You nodded as your friend stepped forward, like a shark who had smelt blood in the water.
“That’s great!” she enthused. “Show me around!” You suppressed a snort. Count on your friend to immediately grab up the tired emo looking one. But that worked out well for you.
Shooting a smile at a familiar pair of violet eyes, you wandered closer to ask, “Would you show me the rest of the store Inumaki? I only got to see a bit of it yesterday.”
“You want Inumaki to show you—ouch!!” Maki glared at Inumaki who stepped forward with a nod. His hand had moved too fast to see but you thought maybe he pinched her?
“Salmon roe.” He moved you to another aisle. When you both were standing there together, he looked at you expectantly. Your mind was blanking hard but when you finally caught up, you squeaked with embarrassment.
“I-I was thinking of something for my hair?” you said, hoping that was what he wanted.
Inumaki nodded and you sighed with relief as he started walking. Directing to you a section, you glanced without seeing anything before looking over. “How was your day?”
He shrugged the motion a little overexaggerated. “Nothing interesting, huh?” Inumaki shook his head.
“Tuna mayo?” he asked, pointing at you.
“My day?”
Inumaki nodded, eyes intense on your face.
“Ah.” You scratched at your cheek awkwardly. “It wasn’t that interesting! I just went to school you know.” You gestured down at your uniform. Thinking about it, you realized and asked, “How old are you?”
Inumaki held out all ten fingers spread wide before closing one and showing you an open palm. “Fifteen?” you guessed, and he nodded.
“Salmon.”
“Same age as me!” you said with excitement. He tilted his head before holding out his hand closer to you and you stared for a moment before you slapped his palm in a high five. You giggled and his eyes crinkled with a hidden smile. He was still wearing a face mask today. You longed to see what he looked like without it, you bet he was handsome. Or well, more handsome than he already was.
“Wait, and you’ve already got an afterschool job?” you asked with a sudden frown. Inumaki stared back passively. “Why? Did you need the money for something?”
He tilted his head back with a thoughtful look towards the ceiling. Then he caught your eye again and mimicked eating with chopsticks. “Eating? Money for eating out?” He shook his head. There were a couple more gestures, and you stared, trying to puzzle it out.
“Cooking?” you guessed at last. He pointed while nodding with excitement.
“Salmon!”
“So… you need money for cooking… are you cooking a lot of stuff?” He shook his head and rubbed his fingers together. “Cooking… expensive stuff?”
He gave you double thumbs up, which made you grin widely. “That’s so cool!!” Then a call of your name interrupted your conversation.
“We’re getting ready to go! You good?”
“Coming!” you called back. You shifted your weight onto your toes then rolled back onto your heels. “Uh, sorry for taking up so much of your time.”
“Konbu,” he said, waving a hand nonchalantly.
Another call of your name, this time laced with annoyance made you beat a hasty retreat. “Bye Inumaki!” You gave one last wave before you hustled to join your friends.
It wasn’t until well into the evening after recounting everything over and over again that you realized, to your growing horror, that you hadn’t even bought anything. AGAIN.
Obviously, you had only gone to the store a second time to talk to Inumaki but your plan was to at least BUY something so it at least looked less obvious was ruined.
Groaning, you buried your head into your pillow.
It was embarrassing but there wasn’t much you could do about it. You thought you had one last group of friends that would be willing to go. Then you would just have to give up on your crush.
Clutching the pillow to yourself, you flipped onto your back, staring up at the ceiling. Even if you didn’t love the idea, you thought going back to visit someone while they were working was incredibly rude. Anymore than three visits would just be stalking at that point. Inumaki couldn’t even really tell you to stop either, which made it all the more awkward.
Resolutely, you made a promise to yourself. Tomorrow would be the last time. You’d buy something (for once) and make small talk. If the whole time you were desperately trying to memorize the exact shade of Inumaki’s eyes, well.
No one had to know but you.
You trailed awkwardly after your schoolmates into the store. You weren’t close to any of them, it’d taken a little bit of wheedling to get this group together but luckily, you’d managed.
This time when you went in, you watched as Okkotsu tapped Inumaki’s shoulder. His platinum blonde hair gleamed in the overhead lights as he restocked something on a bottom shelf. Looking up, violet eyes followed the line of Okkotsu’s finger until he caught your stare. You wiggled your fingers sheepishly and Inumaki’s eyes seemed to light up. Straightening to his feet, he came over to where you were hovering by the doorway.
“I brought more friends,” you said with a low laugh. Inumaki nodded. There was a few beats of silence before you cleared your throat. “I uh, I got so caught up with chatting with you yesterday I forgot to buy anything! I feel a little silly…” you trailed off, realizing that you wanted to ask him to show you the same products as yesterday but you had just seen them. That would be weird right? You didn’t need his help with that, you knew where they were.
While you were panicking internally, Inumaki gently laid his hand on your arm and started directing you out the door. Puzzled, you followed, and he brought you to the side of the building.
“Uh?” you asked before shutting up when Inumaki held up a finger before he started digging into his pocket and withdrew a phone.
Texting quickly, he flipped the screen over to you.
Hi. Do you want to exchange phone numbers?
Widening your eyes you stared at the blank screen before looking up at him. “Y-you want to?” you asked, breathless. He nodded back.
Hands shaking just a tad you reached out and he let you take the phone from him. Swallowing, you punched in your number but before you could put in a name he nabbed the phone back.
“Wait I wasn’t done—”
Inumaki flipped the phone around so you could see the name he’d put you under. It was just the see no evil monkey emoji with the two swirling hearts and a star. The hearts made your pulse quicken but…
“What’s with the monkey?”
He seemed amused before he pointed at you and then covered his eyes. “Ah!” he mimicked in a high-pitched voice.
You stared for a moment as he slowly uncovered his eyes to stare at you, gauging your reaction. Then it dawned on you.
“Is that supposed to be me?!” you asked, indignantly.
Inumaki laughed and your anger was swept away watching his eyes shut with amusement. Just as swiftly his laughter ended and he started typing again on his phone. Your chime went off and you pulled your bag around to grab it.
Unknown Number 04:32PM
It’s Inumaki Toge, you can just call me Toge though.
You pouted at the screen. “What do you call me, monkey?” Still, you put his name into your contacts. Your phone vibrated in your hand.
Inumaki Toge 04:33PM
No, I call you cute.
Instantly your face flushed and you hunched your shoulders, too embarrassed to look up. A finger started poking a heated cheek and you slapped it away.
His eyes were smiling and you wrinkled your nose back. “Okay, mister smart guy. Lemme take a picture for your icon!” Immediately he posed with dual peace signs. “Take off your mask!” you said with glee, excited you’d be able to see him without it now.
Strangely, he hesitated.
“Inumaki?”
Again, he held up a finger and started typing quickly.
Inumaki Toge 04:35PM
Call me Toge.
You watched the dots appear and disappear before appearing again then stopping. You lifted an eyebrow and stared at him as Toge glared daggers at his screen.
“If you don’t feel comfortable with it you don’t have to,” you said gently.
“Ikura,” Toge said with annoyance.
Inumaki Toge 04:36PM
I have… tattoos. On my face. It’s startling for people so that’s why I cover it up.
He ended the message with a praying hands emoji.
“Tattoos?” you repeated, and he nodded as you idly pocketed your phone. You chewed on your lip. “Can I see them?”
“Tuna?”
You didn’t know what that meant but Toge raised up a hand and covered a finger near his face mask you figured it was some variation of ‘Really?’
“Yeah,” you breathed. “Yeah, I’d like to, if that was okay.”
Toge nodded and pulled away the straps from his ears and pulled away the mask, violet eyes trained on you.
When you saw his full face, you could resist a gasp. You crowded into his space reaching out towards one circle before you stopped, suddenly aware of how close you were and that you were just about to touch him.
“I’m sorry—” you began before he chuckled and grabbed your hand and pressed it against his cheek. Toge leaned into it, closing his eyes and he sighed loudly, seemingly with relief.
Taking that as a sign it was okay to explore you trailed your fingers down until your thumb could brush against the dark lines. “They’re really cool,” you whispered.
Violet eyes blinked open, staring directly through you. Then, without warning, he suddenly stuck out his tongue. You were shocked until you realized there was another mark and you sucked in a breath of awe.
Then your body was being whipped around and you briefly dizzy as you were pressed against Toge’s chest. At some point, he grabbed his phone again and had it in selfie mood. You were staring with shock but quickly smiled and did a peace sign as Toge smiled as well.
“Send that to me!” you demanded as you turned around after the photo snapped. Toge laughed and nodded.
“TOGE!!” Maki’s furious yell made you jump. Toge just rolled his eyes. “YOU BETTER GET BACK TO WORK!”
“Leaf mustard!” Toge called back. He looked at you and smiled once more before putting his face mask back on. With a hand, he gestured next to his ear in a ‘call me’ gesture before miming texting.
“Yeah, I’ll make sure to text you!” you agreed enthusiastically. Toge flashed a thumbs up then had a moment of thoughtfulness, as he tilted his head.
Stepping closer to you, he quickly pulled off the mask from one ear and dropped a fast kiss on your cheek. You squeaked with alarm but he was already pulling away and fixing his face mask back. You couldn’t help but press a few fingers to your cheek, staring at him wide-eyed.
Toge laughed lowly before hurrying away.
“Make sure to send me that pic!” you yelled after his retreating form.
You took a second to lean against the side of the building and just… relax as your heart tried to hammer its way out of your chest. You could help the burst of giggles that swarmed up inside you and left you gasping, bent in half as you laughed.
It felt so freeing! Like flying. You weren’t even going to go back after today and yet here you are, with a phone number and a kiss. The heat of your skin hadn’t dissipated yet, leaving you one round ring of warmth right there.
You felt positively giddy with excitement. You wouldn’t wait to text him later. Your chime went off and you looked down to see his name flash across the screen.
Inumaki Toge 04:53PM
Hey so your friends left a while ago? I feel a bit bad about that. I close at five, if you want to wait I can walk you home. OR if you have plans you can just text me later! Whichever works.
You had to let out a breathless laugh at his attempts to get you to be comfortable. You appreciated them. Typing back quickly, you answered. I’ll wait!
Inumaki Toge 04:54PM
Great, it’s a date. Don’t let my idiot coworkers try to tag along, cuz they will.
Distantly you could hear muted screaming, likely from Maki. You laughed and settled down to wait, pulling your phone close to start scrolling through it.
You couldn't wait to see how this would turn out.