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“Are you a charger?”
It takes a moment for the words to even register. When they do, Kaoru turns to squint at Kojiro.
“What?”
“Are you a charger?” Kojiro asks again with a lopsided grin. “Because I’m dying without you.”
Kaoru opens his mouth. Kaoru closes his mouth. Kaoru opens his mouth.
“What?”
A few feet away, Reki calls Kojiro’s name. “Ooh, gotta go,” is Kojiro’s only farewell before he skates to where the redhead waves, leaving Kaoru staring stupidly at the space he once was.
“Carla,” he says after a pause. “What was that?”
Carla’s light fades in and out a few times. “It is unclear, Master.”
No shit, Kaoru thinks.
Maybe the gorilla just hadn’t gotten enough sleep. Yes, a sleep-addled mind could explain the jumble of words that left Kojiro’s mouth, so surely Kaoru wouldn’t be hearing anything similar any time soon—
“Know what’s on the menu?”
Kaoru looks up from his phone, eyes narrowed. “I come here every day, of course I know what—”
“Me ‘n you.”
Kaoru’s mouth drops open. Kojiro continues wiping down his wine glass with a light whistle.
“Can you touch my hand?”
Kaoru eyes his offered hand warily. “What, did you get hurt?”
Kojiro shakes his head. “I want to tell my friends I’ve been touched by an angel.”
Kaoru wishes it didn’t take him a beat to slap Kojiro’s hand away. “What friends,” he manages to scoff out.
“Do you know what would happen in zero gravity?”
“Actually,” Kaoru starts, mildly relieved that Kojiro’s finally brought up an actual topic of conversation instead of awkwardly doing… whatever it was he’s been doing these past few days, “I did some research into it when I was—”
“I’d still fall for you.”
Kaoru’s words trail off.
“Oh,” Kojiro hums without regard for Kaoru’s stupefied silence. “I got a new shipment of wine. You wanna try?”
“I’m learning about important dates in history.”
Kaoru pinches the bridge of his nose. For once, Kaoru wishes Kojiro would divert this attention to his fangirls, instead.
“Really,” he mutters out when he feels Kojiro’s expectant gaze.
“You wanna be one of them?”
Kaoru despises himself for the way his heart skips a beat when the meaning sinks in. Not for the first time, he’s grateful that his outfit for S masks the better half of his face.
In an almost uncannily similar way to the first time Kojiro had pulled out such a line, an energetic “Joe!” turns Kojiro’s attention away. With a wave and a wink, he skates away, leaving Kaoru fuming.
“Carla.”
“Yes, Master.”
“...what was that?”
Kaoru doesn’t really know why he’s asking again. Maybe it’s because a part of him thinks he’ll find comfort in the reassurance that Kojiro’s actions are 100%, entirely irrational and unpredictable.
Carla glows. “There is a 96% chance that Joe the imbecile is flirting with you.”
This time, it is his own skateboard on the receiving end of Kaoru’s stunned stare.
Carla dims. Kaoru’s still staring.
“What?”
“There is a 96% chance that Joe the imbecile is flirting with you.”
The words don’t make sense hearing them a second time, either. For a few moments, the cheers and yells of S fade into a stifling silence, blocked out by the sound of Kaoru’s own thoughts.
Flirting? is his first indignant reaction. Kojiro, flirting—with me?
Ridiculous. There must be some sort of bug in Carla’s programming. To observe all of this and come up with the conclusion of flirting? It’s so wildly beyond the realm of logic that Kaoru would almost find it funny if not for it being just a bit horrifying. Kojiro was obviously doing this all with some sort of purpose—but Kaoru’s seen him interact with enough fangirls to know that this, whatever this is, was nothing more than something fun. Something fun, easy, distracting for Kojiro, because that’s how Kojiro sees these fangirls—fun, easy, distracting.
To be treated the same as that group—
Something bitter rises on Kaoru’s tongue. He swallows it down.
“96%, huh,” Kaoru mutters to himself. “I don’t like those odds.”
He leaves S early that night.
To Kaoru’s chagrin, Kojiro continues. He does his best to put it out of his mind, but it gets to a point where Kaoru goes out of his way to avoid Kojiro—distancing himself at S and making fewer trips to Sia la Luce during its after-hours. If Kojiro was going to insist on treating Kaoru like one of his groupies, he would have to deal with the consequences. That’s what Kaoru tells himself when he feels Kojiro’s stare on the back of his head during a night out at S.
He’s given a brief reprieve from his loud and louder thoughts when Langa comes up with a wave.
“Hi, Cherry,” he greets. Kaoru nods in his direction.
“Snow.” He may be the only one of their misfit group that bothers to uphold their pretense of secret identities, but it doesn’t stop him from continuing it. “Alone tonight?” he asks when he doesn’t spot a familiar redhead next to him.
“Reki’s bugging Joe to teach him his Power Break.”
That explained why he always seemed to be buzzing around Kojiro recently. “And you’re here to bug me, I presume?” he asks Langa with a raised eyebrow.
Langa ducks his head with a slight smile. “Um, kind of. I, uh…” He looks up to meet Kaoru’s eyes. “I want to confess to Reki.”
“Oh,” Kaoru says after a beat when it becomes obvious Langa’s waiting for a response. “My best wishes.” He pauses. “Was that all?”
“Um,” Langa says, his feet shifting around a bit as he talks. “I wanted to—I wanted to ask if you had, maybe, any suggestions…?”
Kaoru’s had some strange requests in his time, but this might just take the cake. “Suggestions,” he repeats dryly, before shaking his head. “I… really don’t think I can provide any helpful feedback. You could ask…” Joe, he was about to finish, but then he remembers Kojiro’s recent actions and changes his mind.
“Oh, I already asked Joe,” Langa remarks casually.
Kaoru’s eyebrows raise. “Oh?”
“He said I should try pick-up lines.”
Kaoru blinks.
Langa blinks back.
“...what?”
“He said I should try pick-up lines.” Langa scratches his nose. “The only pick-up lines I know are in English, though, so…”
Kaoru barely registers the second part of what Langa says. “You…” he starts slowly, before trailing off. “You asked Joe how to confess to someone. And he said you should try… pick-up lines?”
Langa nods. “It’s not really working, though.”
Kaoru’s mouth opens. Kaoru’s mouth closes.
Without a word, he spins on his heel and begins marching towards Kojiro. He snatches Kojiro’s wrist from the air where he was gesturing to Reki, then begins dragging him away.
“Oh, hey, Kaoru—”
“Save it,” Kaoru bites out, before slamming his hand next to Kojiro’s face and pinning him against the dilapidated building they stand behind. Kojiro’s eyes widen.
“...Kaoru?”
“Are you flirting with me?” Kaoru demands.
Kojiro blinks, before his entire face collapses into a grin. “Shit, I didn’t think it would take you this long to—”
“No,” Kaoru interrupts. “Are you flirting with me.”
“...there’s a difference?”
“You—” Kaoru cuts himself off with a frustrated noise before pushing away to leave some distance between them. “You told Langa.”
“I’m a bit lost,” Kojiro admits after a pause.
“You told Langa to use pick-up lines on Reki.”
“I did,” Kojiro agrees.
“Why?”
“Why?” Kojiro parrots. “Because I thought it would help?”
“How would making someone feel disposable help, Kojiro?” The question explodes out of Kaoru with more force than expected. Kaoru takes a step back. Kojiro’s eyebrows furrow.
“Disposable…? Kaoru, what…” Kojiro trails off. “This isn’t about what I told Langa, is it?”
“It is,” Kaoru tries to insist, but his words falter when Kojiro takes a step forward.
“It isn’t.” Another step forward. “It’s about you.”
“It’s—it’s not, stop trying to change the topic—”
“Kaoru,” Kojiro murmurs, his voice soft. “Have I been making you feel like that?” He hesitates. “...disposable?”
Kaoru bites the inside of his cheek. “I don’t understand,” he starts quietly. “I don’t understand why you’ve been acting like this—I don’t understand what you hope to accomplish with all of this, I don’t understand why you’re talking to me like you talk to them—” He exhales softly. “And I don’t understand why you’d tell Langa to do the same.”
“Oh,” Kojiro says quietly.
Kaoru’s not finished. “I’m not one of your fangirls, Kojiro.”
“I know.”
“Then don’t treat me like one.”
“I’ve never meant to,” Kojiro says, and a rebuke rises instantly to Kaoru’s tongue, but the look on Kojiro’s face gives him pause. “Kaoru, honest, I’ve never meant to.”
“What,” Kaoru says with a disbelieving scoff, “so you were feeding me pick-up lines because you meant it?”
“Well,” Kojiro says with a sheepish grin, “yeah.”
Kaoru stares at him.
Kojiro quickly waves his hands in the air. “Okay, listen, admittedly—I might have been going about this all wrong. I…” His grin dims. “I didn’t realize it could sound like I was just… messing around. I’m not, I swear. I just thought it might be a good way to test the waters…” His lips twist into a frown. “In hindsight, probably not the smartest move I could have pulled. You’re clearly not…” He trails off. An unfamiliar melancholy flickers in his eyes. “Ah… anyway. I’m really sorry for making you feel like you weren’t important to me. You are, Kaoru, more than you could know.”
Kaoru’s head spins. “Test the waters,” is the phrase he latches on. “Test the waters?”
“Um,” Kojiro starts awkwardly. “You know, like… see if you would ever be… interested in me in, uh, that way.” Before Kaoru can respond, Kojiro takes a step back. “I, uh, got the message, though. Loud and clear.” He flashes a thumbs-up and a painfully fake grin. “No more pick-up lines. Promise.”
Somehow, it is only at this that the pieces finally click into place. Kaoru’s mouth drops open.
“You like me,” he murmurs. “You like me!”
“Yes,” Kojiro agrees, albeit a bit confused. “But, uh, I don’t—”
Kaoru decides he’s heard enough talking from Kojiro. He hooks a finger on Kojiro’s necklace and pulls, sending their mouths crashing into each other. It’s a quick, messy affair that feels more like fighting than kissing—but Kaoru thinks for them, this is just right.
Kojiro has a terribly dazed expression when they separate. “Huh,” he croaks out.
Kaoru smacks him on the head. “Idiot. You’re a huge, blundering idiot.” He squishes Kojiro’s cheeks in his hands. “You thought pick-up lines were the best way to tell me you liked me?”
“Well,” Kojiro says after a beat with a dopey grin. “It… worked, didn’t it?”
“You’re an idiot,” is the last thing Kaoru says before he pulls Kojiro’s face towards his again, and the sounds of S once again fall to the wayside.
“Kojiro.”
“Hm?”
“Are you a chef?”
“Huh?”
“Because you’ve… got a recipe for making my heart flutter.”
“...Kaoru Sakurayashiki, are you flirting with me?”
“Don’t get used to it.”
“I guess this means you liked my pick-up lines—”
“No.”
“—so you wouldn’t mind if I started them again—”
“No.”
“...oh, fine.”
“...”
“...”
“...”
“...hey, Kaoru?”
“...what.”
“I love you.”
“...stick to pick-up lines, would you?”
“Aw, Kaoru!”
“...but I love you too, idiot gorilla.”