Chapter Text
So maybe this is a bad Idea, Izumi thinks, looking up at Kaoru out of the corner of his eye. He's looking back down at him, lips curling into a devilish smile.
The booth owner starts up the game with a yell, carnival music flooding Izumi's ears as he hikes up his water gun. He squints, aiming for the black hole in front of him as if he's actually gotten a loaded gun and he's out for the kill.
"Woah Senacchi…" Kaoru laughs, leisurely shooting his gun at his own target,"If you were a cute girl then maybe I'd feel bad about winning, but I kind of want to see the embarrassed face you'll make after you lose~"
"Shut up." Izumi grits out, watching the stuffed bears on their pillars rise simultaneously.
To his dismay, Kaoru's bear rises first, the machine letting out a shrill cry of "Player #2 Is The Winner!" Over and over again. It reminds Izumi of his overwhelming shame and grief.
Suddenly there's something warm and fluffy in his hands, and when he looks up, Kaoru is giving him a bear.
"I just won that for you, so can you try not to look so grumpy—?!"
Izumi looks down at the pool of soft blue fur, the color pastel and artificially shiny. "This is my resting face, Kaokun," he says dryly, still inspecting the bear.
The blond nods to the booth owner, before putting his hand on Izumi's back and walking him past the neighboring games. "He brings out your eyes." Is what Kaoru says when they make their way out of the festival's arcade.
They stand on a boardwalk that leads out to a secluded pier, the ocean breeze mixing with Kaoru's stinky cologne. The fluorescent lights of the gaming booths illuminate one side of the blond's face. The warm light from the setting sun takes the other half of him, and Izumi can't do much but stare in awe as they lean over the wooden railing of the pier.
"You remember the first time I asked you out on a date right?"
His voice is like a knife through warm butter when it cuts through the silence. Izumi takes a few seconds to drink his words in, a sardonic smile working it's way onto his lips,"That wasn't a date."
Kaoru scoffs, but smiles softly at Izumi,"Your ice skating really is amazing."
Bells chime as laughing children run by, the overwhelming desire to kiss Kaoru's dumb face making Izumi's hands visibly tremble.
"Senacchi…" Kaoru's blushing when he lifts his body weight off of the rail,"Will you dance with me?"
Izumi's chest feels warm with heat, his throat tight as he's rendered speechless temporarily. He swallows, cerulean eyes looking away from the other male while his face burns to match Kaoru's.
Izumi nods, not trusting his voice.
He sits down his bear before grabbing Kaoru's outstretched hand, gasping a little when he pulls them close together. Izumi makes a small disgruntled noise when their chests collide, Kaoru smiling down at him apologetically,"You alright?"
"Fine." Izumi says, the heels of his knee high boots making dull noises on the wood beneath their feet.
"But this time…" He continues, staring up at the blond with a smirk,"I lead."
His sentence is punctuated with a hand on Kaoru's lower back, a surprised Ah! noise escaping his lips when Izumi pulls him impossibly closer by the hip.
An eyebrow is raised challengingly at Kaoru, who in the first time in a long time, isn't complaining about being handled by a guy. Izumi tests the waters by taking a step back, Kaoru's hand on his shoulder as he steps forward after him. Another step backwards, in which Kaoru follows with another forwards.
"You know I never told you this, but… You're strangely good on your feet." Izumi says, looking down briefly at the motions their feet make as they fall into tune with one another.
"Huh?"
"Well you surf don't you?" Izumi says, the casual conversation keeping him from getting dizzy with all of the spinning they're doing.
"Yeah," Kaoru answers.
Izumi bites his lip, frustrated. "Yeah? Don't mess with me… So you can surf, skate, and dance?"
"You think I can dance?"
Izumi blushes, frowning up at the blond. He wants to punch and kiss that smirk off of his face at the same time.
"Well you're keeping up with me."
Kaoru counts that as a win for now.
The sun is setting, the warm hues of it illuminating the water and giving it an equally warm glow. It looks like it's melting into the flat surface of the water, whose stillness is disrupted by the gentle roll of the breeze.
Izumi feels more than he smells the air, salt licked as it blows his and Kaoru's hair.
"Where did you learn how to dance?" Izumi feels more than compelled to ask, and it's not because Kaoru is bad, but because as a dancer, he notices things.
Like how he's light on his feet, but Izumi supposes that's Kaoru is with everything. Infuriatingly nonchalant.
Kaoru shrugs, hazel eyes looking down at Izumi as if he just can't believe he's doing this right now.
Izumi to Kaoru smells like vanilla, and a little bit of salt. He wants to believe that that was the beach's doing, and that Izumi doesn't actually have such a salty personality that it seeps out of his pores.
He laughs.
"Hey… Kaokun… I'm still hungry… buy me another kabob."
Izumi tugs Kaoru's trench coat, the fabric bunched in his hand.
Kaoru thinks Izumi is strangely clingy. For how aloof he is in class (not to mention in life), this side of him is foreign, especially since they're only just now feeling around their relationship.
"Hey hey, are you sure Senacchi You'll get a stomachache…"
Izumi pouts and punches his shoulder, and Kaoru can't help it when he digs in his wallet and pulls out another 300 yen.