| [Sep. 7th, 2013|03:02 am] |
Almost immediately, he returned for Kakashi’s book.
And, because he couldn’t quite help himself, flipped it open to scan a page.
“Wow,” he said distantly, eight pages later. “That is not safe sex.”
Or sane sex.
Maybe that explained something about Kakashi. It was certainly more information about Jiraiya-sama’s inner landscape than Raidou had ever, ever wanted to know. He shoved the book into his back pocket and—running late now, dammit—dashed for the main gate.
He slowed down at the corner, strolling to the restaurant Ryouma had picked like a captain with a grasp of time, rather than a captain with a grasp of someone else’s porn.
Ryouma was already there, sitting easily at one of Soba Yatai’s sidewalk tables, shaded by the broad striped awning and chatting to the skinny teenage waiter. He glanced up with a broad, relieved smile when Raidou got near, as if he’d thought Raidou might flake on him. White teeth flashed against sun-browned skin, and Raidou thought, oh.
Boundaries, idiot captain.
He settled across from Ryouma, to the visible disappointment of the waiter, and sent the kid off with an order of green tea. “Already made your pick?” he asked Ryouma.
“Tempura soba,” Ryouma said, running a finger absently around the rim of what looked like a glass of barley tea. “Haven’t seen Kakashi yet.”
Raidou glanced at the sun. “He’s still got twenty minutes.”
“Before what?” Ryouma asked.
Raidou freed Icha Icha from his back pocket and laid it on the table. “Before I get to keep this for another day,” he said. “You’re not the only person I bully.”
“Lucky him,” Ryouma said dryly. He glanced at the shabby orange cover, with its distinctive red stop-circle and the frolicking figures behind it. “That’s the one he was reading at the Trials. Isn’t he done by now?”
Ryouma couldn’t read. Of course he didn’t know what Icha Icha was.
Well good, they could cap the last conversation by starting this one with, if Raidou was feeling charitable about it, erotica.
“I think it’s a personal favorite,” he said, deliberately vague, and thanked the waiter when the kid resurfaced with green tea. “I’ll take whatever the special is.”
The waiter bowed and zipped away.
Raidou turned his attention back to Ryouma, who was nearing a sprawl in the slotted sunlight. Short, dark hair was mattress-tousled, but he’d taken a minute to swap the zombie dolphins for a tamer shirt; this one had a Shuriken Force band logo silk-screened across the chest. There were faint shadows etched beneath his eyes, legacy of four days short sleep and hard training on the back of Trials. His mouth was still wide and reckless, slightly shiny from drinking his tea, and the cheekbones would still make an angel cry.
And for four days, Raidou had done really well at not noticing that.
He cradled his tea and inhaled the warm, slightly grassy scent, letting the thought wash away. Ryouma was off-limits, beyond off-limits, and Raidou genuinely wanted to do right by him, for the sake of both their careers and the village, not to mention Team Six’s mental health.
Maybe in a year, if they were both still breathing, he’d think again.
“Guess it’s like listening to the same record over again,” Ryouma said musingly, looking at the book. “Though at least I listen to different records in between. He said there's a movie coming out soon. Maybe we should all go as a team. Show him we support his interests.”
Raidou choked on his tea. |
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