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“What’s wrong?”
Kaoru looks up from where he had been sullenly picking at his meal. “Hm?”
“What’s wrong?” Kojiro asks again as he wipes down a set of plates. “You don’t have your usual appetite.”
A slight frown appears on Kaoru’s face. “No, I’m…” he trails off. “I’m fine.”
Kojiro raises his eyebrows. “Your half-eaten lasagna begs to differ.”
Kaoru exhales sharply through his nose. “I’m just not hungry.”
“That’s new.” Kojiro shakes his head, deciding not to press the issue any further. When Kaoru was ready, Kaoru would tell him. “You want me to pack the rest for you to take home?”
Kaoru dips his head in a slight nod. “That would be appreciated.”
Kojiro takes Kaoru’s plate and begins transferring its contents to a takeout box, humming lightly under his breath as he does so. Even with his back turned to Kaoru, he can hear the erratic tapping noise of Kaoru’s fingers on the counter.
“You’re in a strange mood today,” Kojiro notes as he carefully slides the remaining lasagna out of the plate and into the box. “Anything wrong?”
Kaoru doesn’t answer. Instead, he says abruptly, “Have you heard of the new restaurant that opened down the street?”
Kojiro’s hands still. “What?”
“La Reir. Have you heard about it?”
Kojiro turns his head slightly. “No,” he says carefully. “What is it, French?”
“Italian, actually.”
Kojiro turns completely to face Kaoru. “Italian?”
Kaoru’s staring at the counter, his finger tracing mindless patterns against the surface. “Italian,” he repeats, and something bitter arises in Kojiro’s mouth. “I heard it was good.”
Kojiro’s eye twitches. “Oh, yeah? I didn’t even know you knew other restaurants.”
Kaoru smacks him on the shoulder with his fan before moving it back to cover half of his face. “The reviews speak rather highly of it.”
The reviews speak pretty highly about my restaurant too, Kojiro thinks to himself, and the next smile he flashes at Kaoru is strained.
“Guess I’ve got competition, then,” he says breezily. “My Italian food will always be your favorite, though, right?” he tries to joke, but his grin falters when Kaoru remains silent.
“Shut up,” comes Kaoru’s belated response. “I was just—I was going to ask…” His brows furrow. Kojiro waits, vaguely bewildered by Kaoru’s atypical indications of nervousness. He hasn’t seen Kaoru this nearly flustered since high school, he thinks. Kaoru clicks his tongue, seemingly frustrated at himself. “If you… wanted, that is,” Kaoru starts again, his fingers back to tapping on the bar’s surface, “we could. Hm. We could go and check it out. Have dinner there. Together.”
Kojiro absolutely does not want to go out and dine at a rival Italian restaurant that Kaoru apparently likes better than his own, but it’s pretty obvious by Kaoru’s mannerisms that he’d be disappointed if Kojiro were to decline the invitation. And if there’s one thing Kojiro hates more than the idea that his restaurant’s position as Kaoru’s favorite place of dining has been usurped, it’s the thought of disappointing Kaoru.
So he plasters on a weak smile. “Sure,” he forces out through gritted teeth, and Kaoru’s eyes widen.
“Seriously?”
Kojiro blinks. “What?”
“You’re really… fine with it?”
Ah, so Kaoru has picked up on Kojiro’s animosity towards the rival restaurant. It’s unexpectedly sweet of him to take Kojiro’s ugly feelings into consideration, and Kojiro’s smile turns into something a little more genuine.
“Of course,” Kojiro admits. “It’s with you, isn’t it?” Even with his fear of heights, Kojiro thinks he wouldn’t mind plummeting hundreds of feet from the sky if it was Kaoru beside him. It’s such an embarrassing thought that Kojiro can almost hear Kaoru laughing at him, so he keeps the sentiment to himself.
Kaoru’s eyes widen even more, and Kojiro watches, fascinated, as a light blush spreads across Kaoru’s face. With an embarrassed cough, Kaoru turns his head to the side.
“Tomorrow, then, is fine?”
Kojiro would much rather spend tomorrow night at Sia la Luce with Kaoru at the bar and Kojiro behind the counter as he always has, but with a quiet and resigned sigh, he nods.
“Tomorrow it is.”
The first thing Kojiro notices about the restaurant is its size.
“Tiny,” he notes to Kaoru under his breath as he pushes the door open. Kaoru sends him a strange look, to which Kojiro clarifies. “Tinier than Sia la Luce, I mean.”
Kaoru’s stare turns unimpressed. He shakes his head, but doesn’t say anything to contradict it before walking inside. Kojiro counts it as a win.
He’s decided that’s his plan for the night. If Kojiro must be forced to dine on Italian cooking other than his own, the least he can try to do is win Kaoru over again—if not in terms of romantic feelings, given that Kojiro gave up on that quite a few years ago, then at least in terms of cooking. The both of them usually revel in talking shit about their latest pet peeve, whether that’s Adam or… well, it’s usually Adam. So surely, if Kojiro drops enough not-so-subtle digs at the restaurant, Kaoru will remember Sia la Luce’s superiority in every way, right?
“Awfully dim lights,” he points out to Kaoru when they enter.
Kaoru ignores him. “Reservation for two,” he says to the waiter in the front, “under Kaoru Sakurayashiki.”
Kojiro whistles under his breath. “You made a reservation and everything for this? Fancy.”
Kaoru gives him a strange look, but says nothing else as they’re both led to the table. There’s a small set of roses as a centerpiece for the table, and Kojiro can’t help flicking a petal to see if it was real. Even though his hand gets smacked away by Kaoru’s fan moments later, Kojiro’s still able to discover that they were not, in fact, fake flowers simply for show. An unfortunate win for La Reir. He’ll have to ask Hiromi how much it would cost to furnish Sia la Luce with flora.
Kojiro taps his finger against his knee impatiently under the table as he waits for the menus to be set before them. He spends a few seconds scanning the list of items, but he doesn’t particularly have an appetite, so it’s only a few moments later that Kojiro slides his menu away.
“I’ll just have whatever you have,” he tells Kaoru, who nods absently even while he continues to scan the menu’s contents. Kojiro frowns. On second thought, maybe he should consider hiring a graphic designer to remake Sia la Luce’s menu…
Kaoru orders for the both of them, and then it’s a waiting game. 7:52, Kojiro notes the time—there’s absolutely no way this restaurant can pull off Kojiro’s quick prep time, no matter how many chefs they have in the kitchen. If their dishes aren’t out by 8:30, Kojiro will get a decisive win. Unconsciously, his knee begins to bounce under the table, but it’s only a few moments later he gets a kick in the shin and a pointed glare from Kaoru. Kojiro flashes him a sheepish grin and forces his knee still.
While waiting, Kojiro lets his eyes wander around the restaurant. It’s certainly bigger than it appeared to be from the outside, but the space is still a little cramped—it’s likely that Kojiro’s just used to the open space of Sia la Luce, but then, shouldn’t Kaoru be too? The lights, as Kojiro had already pointed out to an unresponsive Kaoru, are more dim than Kojiro’s used to, too. He will admit, only to himself, that the lights are effective in curating an almost intimate atmosphere, but Kojiro, unfortunately, wasn’t here on a date, and so the low lights only serve to give him a headache instead of anything else. In his arbitrary judgment of the restaurant as a whole, Kojiro counts the lack of lighting as a point for the much more illuminated interior of Sia la Luce.
Aside from the lights, there’s not much else in terms of decor. It’s a good thing, Kojiro will reluctantly concede, in terms of not cluttering up the space, but surely they could add a little more spark, a little more color?
Well, Kojiro thinks as he pulls his eyes away from the lackluster decor to Kaoru, at least there's one nice thing to look at in here.
Because Kaoru is, in fact, dressed up more than usual. He’s switched out his usual kimono for a nicely-fitted gray turtleneck and an unbuttoned black trench coat over it that Kojiro’s actually pretty sure he hasn’t seen Kaoru wear before. It almost makes Kojiro feel bad for throwing on the first shirt he grabbed from his closet, but in his defense, he was too busy plotting how to convince Kaoru that Sia la Luce was the better restaurant.
Kaoru’s been acting strange, though. For one thing, he’s barely said a word since they’d arrived, and while Kojiro’s not unfamiliar with Kaoru’s silent lapses, it seems weird in the context that Kaoru was the one to invite him to the restaurant in the first place. If that wasn’t odd enough, Kojiro’s also noticed Kaoru fidgeting throughout the wait. Kaoru’s hands will move from being on top of each other on top of the table, to underneath the table, to fiddling with a lock of hair, to pushing back a lock of hair, to tapping erratically on the table’s surface—they’re all signs of anxiety so uncharacteristic of Kaoru that Kojiro half considers stopping by the hospital before returning.
Kaoru relaxes considerably when the food finally arrives, probably because it gives him something to do with his hands. Much to Kojiro’s chagrin, the dishes come out at 8:28 exactly. He lets Kaoru take his fill first, and then pulls the plate closer for further inspection.
The plating is… nice, Kojiro will admit. Not too showy, not too basic. The serving size, though, is ludicrously small. The portion on the plate is barely enough for one person, let alone two.
“Do you want… more?” Kaoru asks hesitantly when he notices the pithy amount on Kojiro’s plate. Kojiro quickly shakes his head.
“No, no, I’m… not that hungry right now.”
Kaoru frowns, but doesn’t argue otherwise. He takes a bite from his meal, and Kojiro carefully watches his expression as to how Kaoru enjoys the food. It’s only when Kaoru looks up that Kojiro realizes he has his own meals to be eating, and he hastily takes a bite of his own.
It’s… not bad.
“Not enough salt,” Kojiro says anyway between chews. “The vegetables could be cooked longer, I think.”
Kaoru looks vaguely bewildered. “Oh?”
Kojiro swallows. “It’s passable, though, I guess,” he concedes, and Kaoru’s eyebrows raise.
“Passable,” he repeats in an odd voice, and Kojiro nods before taking a bite of the second meal they’d ordered.
“Overcooked,” he announces immediately. “You can tell by the texture of the meat—” He pulls apart the strip on his plate as a demonstration. “See? It’s too tough.”
“I suppose,” Kaoru murmurs, but he sounds absentminded, and his eyes aren’t meeting Kojiro’s. “Maybe you’ll…” Kaoru trails off. He clears his throat. “Maybe you’ll enjoy the dessert a little better.”
“I doubt it,” Kojiro says honestly, and Kaoru’s lips tug downwards in a frown.
Kojiro doesn’t really understand Kaoru’s reactions—usually, any ribbing of Kojiro’s is met in kind by Kaoru’s own snarky comments, but this dining experience has been so bereft of such remarks from Kaoru that it leaves Kojiro feeling terribly adrift. His only remaining tether is his singular goal of the night: ensure that Sia la Luce remains Kaoru’s favorite restaurant, even if it kills him.
Finally, the fabled dessert arrives. It’s a small plate of a few round cookies, joined together in pairs by what appears to be a chocolate filling. Kojiro vaguely recalls seeing such cookies during his time in Italy, but the name escapes him. He waits for Kaoru to take one from the plate before taking one for himself, squinting at it up close before popping it into his mouth whole.
“Good?” Kaoru asks after an expectant pause.
Kojiro chews some more, then swallows.
“Not enough hazelnut.”
Kaoru blinks. “What?”
“The cookies,” Kojiro explains, “need more hazelnut. The chocolate filling’s alright, I guess, but without enough hazelnuts in the cookies themselves, you’ve just got yourself a bland sort of sandwich…” He trails off at Kaoru’s quickly darkening expression. “Kaoru?”
In a stroke of strangely well-timed coincidence, the bill arrives. Before Kojiro can make any sort of move at all, Kaoru slaps a stack of yen on the bill with an odd type of vehemence, mutters a “keep the change” to the bewildered waiter, and storms outside of the restaurant entirely.
Kojiro, shellshocked at Kaoru’s sudden departure, takes a few moments to recover. When he blinks to snap himself out of his stupor, he realizes Kaoru’s disappeared entirely. He springs out of his own seat to rush outside, the cold wind stinging against his face when he glances around frantically in an effort to find Kaoru.
It’s not too hard—not many people in Okinawa have pink hair, after all—and Kojiro only has to jog a bit before he catches up to Kaoru, who’s still steadfastly marching towards… somewhere.
“Kaoru,” Kojiro calls, and when Kaoru shows no sign of stopping, he tries again, louder. “Kaoru.”
Kaoru stops. Kojiro, a few steps behind, stops too.
“...Kao—”
“You know,” Kaoru interrupts. “You didn’t have to say yes.”
Kojiro blinks. “What?”
Kaoru spins around to face Kojiro, his eyes narrowed and his posture tense. "If you were going to be such an ass the whole time," he pushes out through gritted teeth, "you didn't have to say yes to the date at all. Fucking asshole."
“I wasn’t trying to be an ass,” Kojiro defends himself weakly, even though he kind of maybe was, and then his brain catches up to the rest of the sentence. “Wait, what?”
“This is an embarrassing enough ordeal as it is,” Kaoru says exasperatedly. “Your incessant complaints and criticisms and—” He cuts himself off and glances to the side, wrapping his arms around him. “You could have just said no.”
“I could have just said no,” Kojiro repeats faintly. “No to what, again?”
Kaoru squints at him. “To the date?”
“...this was a date?”
Kaoru blinks slowly at him. “Are you fucking kidding me.”
“Wait—”
“Are you fucking kidding me?”
“How was I supposed to know this was a date,” Kojiro blurts out, hands in the air. “You just said—you were talking about how good the food here was, I thought—you said we should come here together, I thought it was—weren’t we just… checking it out? To—to compare it to Sia la Luce?”
Kaoru looks at him as if Kojiro’s grown a second head. “What are you talking about?”
“I didn’t know it was a date,” Kojiro quickly says before Kaoru can walk away from him again. “Kaoru, I swear—I thought…” He trails off. “I thought you were trying to tell me you liked another restaurant better than Sia la Luce,” he admits quietly as he stares at his feet, his ears burning a little with the heat of embarrassment now that he’s realized how Kaoru must have seen his words. “That’s why I…”
“God,” Kaoru mutters. “I’m in love with an idiot.”
Kojiro’s head snaps up. “You’re in love with me?”
“I—” Kaoru splutters. “Well, I—I asked you out on a date, didn’t I?”
“You did,” Kojiro remembers. His eyes widen. “You did.”
Kaoru watches him warily. “Yes, well. It was a foolish idea, anyway. Forget it. We can just pretend this entire ordeal never happened—”
“Kaoru, will you go out on a date with me?”
Kaoru stares at him. “What?”
“Will you go out on a date with me?” Kojiro repeats earnestly. “A proper one, this time. I’ll dress up and everything, I swear. I’ll get flowers! And, um, maybe rent a limousine—”
“Shut up,” Kaoru mutters, but there’s a small smile hidden behind the hand he presses to his mouth. “You’re…” He shakes his head. “You’re an idiot.”
“But I’m your idiot, right?” Kojiro asks hopefully.
Kaoru closes his eyes. “Unfortunately,” he grumbles, but his smile betrays him. Kojiro grins.
“You know, I think I’ve got just the date place for you… it’s an Italian restaurant, too, actually. Ever heard of Sia la Luce?”