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“Ooh! My sundae looks so yummy~☆”
The sound of his energetic, pink-haired co-worker announcing the arrival of the food interrupted Nakayama from his daze. A waiter laid a rather scrumptious-looking slice of coffee cake in front of him, briefly stealing his attention from what had occupied it moments prior. Slowly – delicately – he sliced his spoon through the coffee-tinted cream and sponge, before lifting the spoon up to his lips and savouring the bittersweet taste. Nakayama was quite the coffee enthusiast, not simply because it provided him with the energy to survive his job, but also for its deliciously rich flavour. The brilliance of this coffee cake was certainly changing his mind about whether a double date right after an exhausting day of work was such a bad idea after all.
It didn’t take long for his gaze to move, however. His eyes soon wandered from the cake and to the right: towards the man sat beside him. That man being Rui Shirafuji, his beloved husband. He was completely and utterly captivating to Nakayama: the way he so carefully sampled a piece of his chocolate fudge cake and popped the spoon into his mouth with a surprising combination of both elegance and cuteness; the way he hummed quietly in approval at the sweet taste every few bites; the way he smiled with such adorable sincerity, like he didn’t want anything else but to be right here spending time with his friends and the man he loved… Nakayama couldn’t get enough of it. Shirafuji was truly irresistible. He wanted nothing more than to reach over and squish his cheeks, or even to give him a kiss...
And yet, he had to resist that urge to smother him in affection. He was in public, for one, but he was also in the presence of Chiyo, one of his co-workers who would most likely spill the details to the whole office in an excited ramble about how cute the married couple were – not harbouring any malicious intent, but simply because she cannot keep her mouth shut. There was also Yuriko, Chiyo’s girlfriend and Shirafuji’s childhood friend, who would most certainly find some way to taunt him about it later. Nakayama would not risk his image and dignity so recklessly like that.
He still wasn’t doing himself any favours in that regard, though, the way he had completely paused his devouring of the coffee cake to stare longingly at Shirafuji, the spoon (still holding a piece of cake) suspended awkwardly mid-air. Despite the usual blankness of his expression, the hearts manifesting in his eyes were a bit hard to miss, and this not-so-subtle display of adoration started being noticed.
“… ‘Kasa? Darling, you’ve been staring at me for a while there. Is something the matter?”
Shirafuji broke the silence to speak up about his husband’s eyes fixed on him, his cheeks being dyed with a light pink, his own eyes averting to the side, and his smile growing a little more rigid. The years of being married to Nakayama didn’t make the man’s intense staring any less awkward.
Upon being noticed, Nakayama froze for a moment, before remembering he had to preserve his dignity and so forcing himself to play it cool. He tried his hardest to ignore his own cheeks turning slightly more pink, as if his own inattentiveness would project onto the others.
“Err- no, don’t mind me. Just enjoy your cake.” Surely it wasn’t too easy to see how Nakayama had very almost lost hold of his composure. He never did for a second, though. Definitely. He’s just that cool and composed.
“Why, I’d love to,” Shirafuji chuckled at the sight of the other man’s frantic attempt to maintain a cool head. “… But your staring is a bit much.”
Interrupting the married couple’s conversation was Chiyo, who was now leaning over the table practically glowing with energy.
“Oh, I get it!! Nakayama-kun, you want to have a stare down with Shira-kun, don’t you?”
The sheer obliviousness of her abrupt statement caused Shirafuji to laugh lightly, removing some of the tension from the scene. “Fufu… No, you’ve got it all wrong….” That awkward demeanour starts to melt away, and in its place, Shirafuji starts to grin mischievously to himself.
“… I don’t think it’s a stare down that he wants.~”
‘Damn it all…’
Did Shirafuji have to be so smooth? And such a tease?! It’s not like he said much, but that smug expression on his face didn’t exactly leave much to be speculated about the kind of thing he was implying. Now Nakayama didn’t know if he wanted to strangle the man or kiss him... Actually, never mind. He couldn’t lay a finger on his darling Shirafuji. The lingering urge to give in to his desire to shower the man in love sure was strong right now, even in the face of his humiliation caused by Shirafuji.
What made things worse for Nakayama was that those teasing words appeared to have made Chiyo aware of what was actually happening here. Meanwhile, Yuriko had been quietly observing the whole scene, sat silently next to her girlfriend as she enjoyed her grapefruit tarts.
Chiyo gasps dramatically, before fixing her gaze onto Nakayama with a rather impish grin on her face. “Ohhh, you want to give him a big kiss, don’t you, Nakayama-kun?” The directness of her comment nearly caused Nakayama to spit out a piece of coffee cake he had just put into his mouth to distract himself from the matter at hand.
“Hrrk- Shut up.” The blond couldn’t really muster the strength to defend himself any further in such an utterly humiliated state. He simply ducked his head down and continued eating his cake, trying to pretend nothing was wrong. His cheeks were a vibrant shade of red by this point – there was no saving his dignity now, was there… “Can I not admire my husband in peace…?”
Gratefully, his wonderful Shirafuji was here to rescue him from this horrific situation that definitely wasn’t of his own making. “Fufu, let’s give him some peace before he explodes. I wouldn’t want to become a widow after my husband combusted due to the sheer heat in his face right now.” Nakayama wasn’t so grateful for the visible embarrassment he was exhuming to be emphasised by Shirafuji’s last comment, but he was relieved that it was finally over.
At least, for now. Until Chiyo decided to tell the story of what happened to everyone she bumped into at work, or when Yuriko brought the memory back to the front of his mind a week later. But he wouldn’t worry about that just yet.
――― ⭒⋆✩⋆⭒ ―――
After the group said their farewells where their paths home no longer aligned, things got much more quiet. What was left was a comfortable silence as the husbands walked back home together side-by side, hand-in-hand. The embarrassment of earlier had been forgotten, and right now, although he didn’t outwardly show it, Nakayama was especially content. There was something special about moments like this, where he and Shirafuji would spend time beside each other in complete silence, which they would fill with small, physical gestures of love, such as interlocking their hands, wrapping an arm around the other’s waist or sometimes even pecking the other’s cheek. The last of which Nakayama decided he would do: in the middle of walking, he leaned up, perched onto the tips of his toes (a detail he would purposefully ignore) and pressed his lips tenderly against Shirafuji’s cheek for a fleeting yet no less sweet second. Such an action caused a flustered response from the taller man, who decided to counter with a kiss on the cheek of his own after he had gotten over his brief spell of awkwardness. This was something that Nakayama would never admit to anyone other than his husband, but it was exchanges like this that meant the world to him. He was a lot more of a romantic than he often liked to admit.
“… Rui?”
“Hm? Yes, my love?”
“I know this isn’t news to you, but I just wanted to say… I love you.”
“Fufu, I love you too.”
The pair lean close together, briefly letting their foreheads meet before Nakayama swings his arm around his beloved husband’s waist and holds him close for the rest of the walk.
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