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Shouyo was starting to think he was dating a monster.
He loved Kei with all his heart, but some things were unforgivable and he watched in horror as his boyfriend popped a whole marshmallow into his mouth. No graham cracker. No chocolate. It wasn’t even roasted. Just a plain, sticky, horrible sugar pillow.
Kei noticed him looking and deliberately took his time chewing. “What?”
“That’s disgusting.”
In response, Kei pointed to the marshmallow currently on the end of Shouyo’s roasting stick, which in his distraction had caught on fire.
“That’s different!” He hastily blew out the flames. Instead of a toasty and tolerable golden brown, it was now a charred mess. He took it off the stick—wincing as he burned his fingers—and passed it to Kageyama, who was a monster for a different reason.
“Hypocrite,” Kei said.
“Marshmallows have to go in s’mores!” Shouyo said. “The texture isn’t right without them. That doesn’t mean anyone actually likes them!”
“You can’t have s’mores without chocolate either,” Kei said. “Ergo, I won’t be eating s’mores, but I still deserve a sweet treat.”
“Please eat something else,” Shouyo groaned. “Yachi brought other snacks.”
Shouyo’s trusted ally grabbed the plastic grocery bag beside her and offered it to Kei. Kei’s gaze flicked down to the bag and back up to Yachi. Then, staring Shouyo directly in the eye, he grabbed another marshmallow and stuffed it in his mouth. Shouyo threw his arms into the air and screamed.
“Forget it, Sho,” Yamaguchi said, trying and failing to hide his smile. “I’ve been arguing with him about this for years.”
“Shut up, Yamaguchi.”
“Sorry, Tsukki.”
“What’s the big deal?” Kageyama said through a mouthful of s’mores. “Marshmallows are good.”
“Don’t agree with me, King,” Kei said. “It’s weird.” Kageyama shrugged, long past being offended by the old nickname.
“I think your opinion might be… slightly skewed… on this one,” Yamaguchi said, eyeing Kageyama as he put another marshmallow on his stick and deliberately dipped it into the flames to get it the approximate taste and texture of basalt.
“There’s only one thing worse than a marshmallow,” Shouyo said.
“A child,” Kageyama said without missing a beat.
“A burnt—wah! You know that meme?”
“Aww, Kageyama, I’m so proud of you!” Yachi said.
He blinked owlishly at them. “Meme? My nephew steals my marshmallows every time we go camping. It’s awful.”
Yamaguchi burst into laughter. Shouyo gaped at his friend, unsure whether he was serious or fucking with them in a very Kageyama kind of way. Even with how long they’d known each other, it was still hard to tell and despite their best collective efforts, Kageyama’s meme literacy wasn’t up to par.
“Your nephew is doing you a favor,” Yamaguchi said. “He’s saving you from having to eat that horrible stuff.”
“But I like them.”
“You like the burnt ones!” Shouyo said, watching with disgust as Kageyama made another s’more with a black marshmallow. “They’re gross enough without being all bitter too!”
“The bitterness balances out the sweetness,” Kageyama said with the air of someone sipping on fine wine. “Burning them is the only thing that makes them edible.”
“No,” Shouyo, Yamaguchi, and Yachi said in unison.
“I’m not going to stand for this marshmallow slander,” Kei said.
Shouyo sprang up from his seat. “It’s either me or the marshmallows, Kei!”
Yachi gasped. Yamaguchi stared at him, stunned. Kageyama kept chowing down like nothing happened. And Kei…
There was a tense silence as Kei just looked at him. Shouyo generally had a pretty good idea of what his boyfriend was feeling, but he could never quite tell what Kei was thinking. His heart fluttered as he worried for a moment that he’d gone too far, that Kei was taking his silly, overdramatic ultimatum seriously.
Shouyo opened his mouth with an apology on his tongue, but Kei spoke first.
“C’mere.”
It was calm, undemanding. A direction spoken with the surety of someone who knew it would be followed. And Shouyo would follow Kei just about anywhere. Still, relief flooded him as he stepped over and they came face to face.
Kei took a long moment to look at him, and then kissed him. It was tender and slow. Magnetic. It was the best kiss Shouyo had ever received, and he was dimly aware of all of their friends in the background bearing witness. When Kei’s fingers threaded through his hair, he also decided he couldn’t give a fuck.
Kei pulled away, and Shouyo was feeling far too floaty to notice the smile on his face or the glint in his eye.
Then Kei smeared marshmallow fluff onto Shouyo’s face. He squawked and reeled back, nearly falling onto Yamaguchi. Kei laughed as Shouyo tried desperately to scrub the gooey substance off of himself.
“I’ll take the marshmallows,” Kei said, absolute traitor that he was.
Shouyo glared at him while their friends laughed. He could still feel stickiness on his nose and cheek, but he watched the firelight dancing in Kei’s eyes and the dimple that flashed in and out when he laughed and bemoaned the fact that he was irrevocably in love with this marshmallow-eating, salt-in-the-wound-sprinkling, beautiful jerk of a man.
Yep. Truly a monster.