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“Hey, Wolfwood.” He had asked one night, resting on a chair, looking outside the window, a bag of donuts in front of him, still half full. “What flavor of donut would you be?” It was such a silly question, he thought, he didn’t even remember why he had decided to ask. They had been just enjoying their silence, no bickering, no Wolfwood saying something about their last escapade. No mention of any trouble.
Which was probably why said priest just huffed and decided to not answer for the longest time, making Vash think that he probably was, still, really mad about having to save him in the last town.
Until, when he had almost forgotten about his sudden question, the other man sat in front of him. “I have no fucking idea.” It was his sincere answer. “All of them are too sweet. They’re too soft and also, they remind me more of you.” As Wolfwood was saying that, Vash was able to see how his eyes had to look away, towards nothing and yet it seemed like he was just trying his best to avoid him.
He couldn’t help but smile.
He was cute when he was flustered, that was a fact he had learned while traveling with him. While living, in some ways, with him. While sharing so many things with him. His home, his fears, his tears even.
“You don’t like donuts, though.” Vash had to point, Wolfwood turned to look at him like he was saying something stupid. “They can’t remind you of me, you don’t like them.”
Once more, his companion huffed before taking an entire donut and downing it on one go, almost, making Vash jump and then laugh, sincerely. It had been so unexpected. So sudden.
But everything with them was like that. Sudden, fierce, out of nowhere.
And he loved it.
He stopped in front of a little stall, the smell of donuts overpowering the one of tobacco inundating his mouth, and then he looked down, curious. There was a strange flavor he had never seen, it was a brown donut, almost like one with no flavor but it clearly had something covering it.
Not like he could eat it.
He would probably break down crying again if he even tried.
But that smell was doing something to him.
“Hey, miss. What is this donut’s flavor?” Vash found himself asking to the lady at the front of the stall, receiving a smile and being told it was an experimental flavor with help of one of the nearby geoplants. Coffee flavored.
Coffee.
That sounded sour.
He bought a bag of the curious donuts and then walked. And walked. And walked. Until he found a little place, almost alone, where he could sit down, taking one of the donuts out of the bag, looking at it and turning it around. The cigar now long forgotten on the floor and being stomped on, he took a small bite out of the curious donut. It wasn’t sweet at all, it was sour, yet there was some taste of sweetness under all of it, there was a softness to it despite how bad it tasted compared to his usual, old, favored flavors.
It was so brown too. It seemed so different from the other colored donuts.
Suddenly his mind wandered a bit too far back and he found himself remembering a silly question he had once asked, to a man he had once thought would be by his side, sharing their tomorrows together, always advancing.
He smiled, feeling the familiar burn of tears forming on his eyes. “Your flavor would be coffee.” He whispered, to no one and to the wind, hoping to answer a memory that could never come back. “Honestly, it doesn’t even taste like a proper donut anymore…but it’s sweet all the same. Even being so damn sour. Even being so strange.” He kept going and then gave the curious treat another bite.
There was a salty flavor now as well.
He didn’t mind it.
Next time he was able to find a donut stall, he asked for coffee flavored donuts only, once more.