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Riddle stared down at the little notepad in his hands, the contents of the cloth Ashengrotto grocery bag beside him scattered across the counter. With a sigh, he lets the notepad close shut– it was brand new, bought hastily from a corner store late last night. It had laminated golden hearts on the cover, the leather pink.
He still wasn’t quite sure if he should go with the plan, even after buying everything and promising Mrs.Ashengrotto– Magdaline– twice last night. He’d be going back on his word and wasting food, and he lived too far from Trey to have him make anything with them in Riddle’s place.
These past three years, he and Azul took the day off from any commitments to spend the day together for Valentines Day, an incredibly simple tradition– perhaps there was a fancy dinner at the end, homemade or at a restaurant, and obscene flower bouquets were only natural occurrences. How Azul particularly loved showing off so.
This year, however, after spending half of the night sleeping deliriously completing homework for medical school, Riddle had suddenly remembered a passing conversation between Azul, Jade and Floyd. He’d never gotten the full story of Azul’s unsavory past, not that there was a cohesive story to tell–
“‘Zul’s biiirthday is comin’ up! ‘Yer gonna get catering at ‘yer place again, right?”
“My, it’s almost like we’re more excited for your birthday than you are, Azul. A smile wouldn’t hurt you.”
The man in question huffs, heaving the heavy kettle onto a tray of confectionaries and tea bags.
“No, no, I’m just the right amount of happy for my birthday. It’s not that.”
“I remember that your mother used to send you treats for special days like these, no? Those treats that had to be eaten above–”
Azul had set the tea tray down then, a little too hard and sending one of the tea bangs bounding off the tray.
“Let’s keep away from that topic.”
They’d all been sporadically visited by Azul’s mother, and Riddle had especially won her favor by being just so adorable in her eyes. And that he took his position as her son’s partner very seriously. They were on a first-name basis, initiated by the woman herself.
So when he’d dialed her number early in the morning– she hadn’t even opened up her restaurant in the Coral Sea, it was that early– and she’d rushed him into obtaining a pen and a notebook and writing down the recipe for the special snacks she’d make Azul for Valentines Day.
Delicacies, such as chocolate-covered snacks or even rice balls, were a thing that had to go through many extra steps and usually had to be eaten on the surface. It also meant that Riddle could skip the process of creating a bubble to craft it all and seal it in a container, which they carefully modified the regular recipe so he wouldn’t accidentally be messing up a thing.
She’d even given him the exact measurements! And exact timing, which an experienced cook did not need, he was aware.
He had gotten the tale that Jade had referenced on his run to the corner store– those carefully packaged snacks she sent him to school with on holidays were being stolen from him, and it was possible that they could have kept being stolen from him if it weren’t for an elder sibling catching one of them in the act of scarfing it down.
After Azul refused to explain why he'd never told her, the tradition had filtered out.
Taking another look at his very basic ingredients, Riddle slapped his hands against the marble kitchen counter, jolting in pain from the cold hard surface. Carefully, he washes his strawberries, a very familiar chore. He lines fourteen dry, similarly sized strawberries on his tray and nibbles on the fifteenth, leaves an all. The fate of the less uniform strawberries is… unknown. Let’s say that.
Using the double-boiler method, though it sends a small spike of anxiety through his veins, Riddle melts his chocolate next. The chocolate is more on the bitter side.
As he waits for the chocolate to begin melting, he strips the leaves off of the strawberries but leaves the stem. It was mostly a decorative choice, since Azul, too, cared not for something as trivial as strawberry leaves. A smile finds its way on Riddle’s face when he thinks of the way the octo-merman would react when he sees the finished product, evoking something light and fluffy and dreamy in his chest. He ends up leaning on the counter with his hands resting on his chin and almost ruins the batch of chocolate. Almost!
“Ah!” He gasps when his thumb brushes the hot pot. He needs to be more careful– no more distractions! Quickly, he begins to dip the strawberries in the chocolate and lay them on the parchment. Oh, how unsanitary it would be to lick the droplets of chocolate from his fingers and swipe them off the counter… but he shouldn’t.
He rips off the plastic film encasing the two-pack of sprinkles, white pearls and blue hearts. In his cabinets there is a tin of sea salt– the good kind. He gingerly sprinkles only four strawberries with the sea salt, five with the blue hearts, and five with the pearls.
He may be biased, but he quite likes the pearls. He hopes Azul does, too.
They are for him, after all…
Would he recognize them as his revitalized family tradition? He hoped he did, since he also promised Magdaline his reaction later that day.
Carefully, with hands training to be steady as a surgeon’s, he peels the chocolate-dipped strawberries off of the parchment and into their own container. Only a pair of days until Valentine's.
The same day he made the strawberries, Riddle made sure to solidify their schedule and Azul would come and pick Riddle up this time around. It made things easier for the both of them.
“Ha~ppy Valentines~” The silver-haired man hums, holding an oversized bouquet of roses as red as his partner’s hair in the doorway of Riddle’s quaint little apartment. It eclipses him and makes Riddle laugh.
“I’m going to need several vases for this.” He pouts. Awkwardly, he handles the bouquet and gives it a place on the couch. “Quick, sit down. I have something to give you too.”
Something changes in Azul’s composure the moment his eyes land on the plate– he can tell by the way the muscles in his face slacken and his eyes flutter in disbelief.
Riddle carefully sets the plate of chocolate-dipped strawberries on the coffee table, standing, waiting, expectantly with his hands clasped together. His voice is as soft as duck’s down when he speaks, but carries the intention of Cupid’s arrow. “Happy Valentine’s Day.”
Gingerly, Azul picks up a salt-sprinkled chocolate strawberry by the stem and cups it, reveling in the snap and crunch of the chocolate, and the softer crunch of the flesh of the fruit. Juice mixed with chocolate runs carelessly down his wrist and threatens to stain the sleeve of his fancy-casual suit, but it isn’t the only thing running down.
Tears as salty as the salt decorating the chocolate begin to flow freely down his cheeks, alarming Riddle some. He rushes to provide his partner a napkin and nearly gets his hand crushed by the other’s groping hand, because he refuses to pull his face out of his elbow.
“You– I– these are—” Is as far as Azul gets. He frantically dabs at his tears, but they keep coming down. At least he isn’t upset with Riddle.
“Ah..” Riddle starts, and never finishes, because Azul shoves the remainder of his strawberry in his mouth and then clutches the lapels of the redhead’s sweater and shoves his face straight into his chest to quell the sobs. It leaves him in the awkward position of trying to hug him around his head and shoulders and fussing over how the wire frames of his glasses must be bending in this position.
Riddle hugs Azul until the sobs slow into soft hiccups and he’s coherent again. “I’m sorry– I just wasn’t– wasn’t expecting—”
“It’s alright,” Riddle murmurs, desperate to tamp down the laughter bubbling in chest. His hands carefully run though the silver locks of Azul’s hair, a small revenge for the now soaked shirt. “I, ah, called your mother a few nights ago...”
Azul, who had begun to pull away, jolts and sniffles rather aggressively. “Oh, I know, I know. I can tell.”
In an instant, the strawberries disappear one-by-one in entire bites, stopping only for wiping away more stray tears. He makes sure to compliment every last one of them.
“So you called Mama; how am I supposed to top that?” The octo-merman murmurs into Riddle’s side, silently deciding that they would not be going out today. His hair is ruffled and eyes puffy, the lashes clumped and wet, while Riddle’s shirt was still dark with tears and the fabric of his sweater stretched and in need of ironing. A day inside didn’t sound too bad.
“You’ll find a way. Magdaline sends her regards as well.”
Azul sighs miserably, rubbing and irritating the skin of his nose. Riddle leans in and pecks his lips on one stained cheek, to which he grumbles and tilts his head away.
“Not now, I’m losing.”
Riddle giggles. They make themselves further comfortable on the couch, definitely not going out today. The oversized bouquet is unfortunately delegated to the floor.
The very next day, Riddle recounts the event with pleasure to Azul’s mother. He thinks he can hear a couple sniffles on the other end of the line…