Pocky Day (11/11)
Pairing: Sawamura Daichi and Shimizu Kiyoko (DaiKiyo) Rating: G Word Count: ~2k Summary: Daichi and Kiyoko celebrate pocky day (11/11). For @cpdaichi!
This was the busiest time of year, it seemed. November marked the start of term exams, the start of the upcoming new year holiday season, and the start of preparation for their birthdays (which coincidentally fall only a week apart). Shimizu had always preferred buying her presents at least a month in advance to be certain of them, so although Sawamura’s birthday was at the end of December, her idea for his gift had already been solidified by now. Plus, it was not an easy feat for Shimizu to find him the right watch— it had taken her weeks, hopping from store to store and online boutique to online boutique, just to select a few that she thought were most appropriate. She had needed all the time she could get.
Around this time of year was also when the weather started to change drastically, too. The first snow usually hit in November, and after it the temperatures dropped below freezing with increased regularity. They would soon have to swap their shoes for snow boots, dust off their heavy winter coats, and add thick mufflers to their outdoor wear whenever they wanted to go out. Sawamura might have to change the tires of his bike, too, to gain more traction in the snowy weather.
Perhaps it was because this season was so busy that Shimizu felt it important to slow down. Things begin to compound on one another so quickly at this time, but being able to take a step back and relax is something that would do them both well. In particular, it would be good for Sawamura. Even if he knew that slowing down is good, he didn’t ever seem to try it himself.
Shimizu did not decide to attend university after graduating from high school, but Sawamura did. By her third year, she hadn’t had the faintest idea what job she wanted, and she thought it would be a waste trying to take entrance exams for a subject that she might not fit in. Sawamura, in comparison, had had his plans set in stone. After he graduated, he easily passed entrance exams and was accepted to a decent university in the prefecture. During the week, he went to his classes in the city and worked diligently. On the weekends, Shimizu came to visit, and most of the time stayed overnight.
Before November, her boyfriend had the free time to take her out for dinner on Saturday night, and to sleep in with her on Sunday. Sometimes, they would watch movies in the afternoons, or go for walks around his apartment building. But in November, Sawamura chugged along at his desk all weekend. He only rested when she set food in front of him, or when he needed to break away for the bathroom or his bed. When the sun set and evening darkened out his windows, Sawamura would have to turn on his desk lamp. Over time, he would lean over his desk, closer and closer to it, with the more effort that he’d added to his review. And within three hours, he would usually be almost touching the lamp with his forehead.
For Shimizu’s part, because she had no classes and no exams, she tended to busy herself with tasks around his apartment. She wasn’t about to stop visiting him because his exam season was starting and he spent much of his time studying. There were still ways that she could enjoy spending time with him without directly distracting him. Sawamura was quite neat already, so there was never much to clean, but she took care to make him snacks and meals when he needed them. Sometimes she walked alone outside, watching stray cats scamper across the street and crows peck around the grass. If she ever grew bored, she pulled a book from her overnight bag and cracked it open on the table in the middle of his room, perusing pages at a leisurely pace.
Today, too, that’s how things panned out. Shimizu and Sawamura both sat at the table in the center of his room, though she took up much less space because she hadn’t opened all her textbooks and notebooks in front of her. Her legs were folded neatly beneath the tabletop, and the spine of her book balanced just on the edge of the table like a makeshift book-prop. With one hand, she held the book aloft and turned the pages. With the other hand, she snuck her fingers into a box of chocolate pocky sticks and drew them to her mouth at a steady rhythm. She would read three pages, then take a pocky stick. After another three pages, she reached for another. Then three more pages, and she took one again.
Across from her, Sawamura appeared relatively unchanged. Every ten pages or so, Shimizu would glance up and study him, but he seemed as focused as ever. He never changed his posture or seating arrangement. But when he concentrated, his lips tended to get tighter, and his eyes narrowed like he was taking in only the information on his textbook and nothing else about his surroundings.
Shimizu lowered her eyes back to her book again, allowing him to stay focused on his studies. But eventually her fingers strayed to the pocky sticks again, and rather than slipping them between her own lips, she picked one from its box and raised it to Sawamura’s instead. His lips were pinched so tightly that she could not pierce them even with a thin chocolate-covered stick, so instead she expertly maneuvered the tip into the corner of his mouth where there was some give. She pushed it in softly, watching as his lips relaxed and he started to crunch away at it.
He never looked up from his work.
This began a pattern, much like Shimizu had set into when she was feeding herself. She allowed Sawamura some time to read the textbook splayed open in front of him, but after a few minutes she picked up a stick of pocky and slipped it between his lips. It disappeared in a few seconds, bitten from tip-to-tip.
In high school, their classmates would always play a silly game with the pocky sticks to see who was cowardly and who wasn’t. Two people would bite the opposite ends of a stick and eat their way to the middle. The intention was to scare one with the idea of a kiss, and he or she would break away before ever getting that far. Really, it was a silly game. Nobody ever kissed. In fact, most people never even made it farther than two inches down the stick before caving and backing away. Shimizu had never played it before, and she assumed that Sawamura hadn’t either, though she wouldn’t know for certain. They were in different classes all three years, after all, so what he did with his classmates during home room and cleaning time was beyond her.
It was a funny idea, though, and she had always wondered who created it, and why pocky was the preferred snack. It could have been Calbee potato sticks, just the same.
She smiled to herself at the thought, lifting another pocky stick from the box and slipping it into her boyfriend’s mouth. In high school, he probably wouldn’t have won that game. She had dated Sawamura for years, but he was still as awkward as a middle schooler when it came to being forwardly affectionate. It was fine when he initiated, it seemed, but if Shimizu ever did it herself, he’d turn red and start to scratch his neck sheepishly. This honestly happened quite often, since Shimizu never gave a telling hint as to when she wanted to be romantic with him. She just went for it whenever she felt the urge, even if it was sudden and unexpected.
But somehow, the fact that he was always surprised was charming. When Sawamura was caught off-guard, his face would change dramatically. His eyes grew wide, his eyebrows raised high into his forehead, and the skin of his cheeks seemed to tighten like he was clenching his jaw. It looked a bit funny, but Shimizu had always liked it.
That didn’t mean that she attempted to surprise him on purpose. She never intended to do that. Most of the time she herself didn’t even realize what kind of an impression her actions would make. Shimizu assumed, at base value, that whatever she did would be matched by him. Even if she boldly grabbed his hand in public, to the dismay of elderly women walking nearby who still hadn’t come to accept young couples’ public affection, she thought it was fine. But Sawamura would sometimes get that surprised look in his face, and he’d stumble a bit over his words before he settled into her hand.
Funny, how even years of dating hadn’t changed the way he reacted to her.
Shimizu picked another stick of pocky in her hands. Her fingers had only felt a few left in the box, which made sense considering the speed with which they had been eating them. They would run out soon. She studied it carefully before she would feed it to Sawamura, curiously twisting it once in between her fingers.
Though it was more of a split-second decision, she carried it out as willfully as if she had planned it all along. Slowly, as always, she raised the pocky stick to her boyfriend’s lips and set it between them. As he had before, he began to nibble on the end. But before he could bite halfway down the stick, she snagged the end and broke it off from his mouth.
And then, she replaced it with a kiss, planted silently over top.
This, Sawamura registered quickly. His gaze raised from his textbook towards her, wide with shock. His pencil was still held aloft over his notebook, frozen in the air and unmoving. Shimizu watched his lips part to speak, but he faltered and couldn’t find words at first.
Eventually, “Kiyoko?” was all he asked. It sounded as if he was confused, and wanted some sort of confirmation that she had, in fact, kissed him in place of feeding him a snack. He had probably been so deeply enveloped in his studies that the line between textbook and reality was extremely fuzzy.
But of course he had felt it.
“Nothing,” Shimizu replied with a flat tone, blinking and shifting her eyes back to her book. By pretending that nothing significant had happened— and to her, a simple kiss was not very significant at all— she ended the topic there. Sawamura still had to continue studying, after all, and she knew him well enough to be certain that if she confirmed her kiss, he would ask for another. If she didn’t, then maybe he’d return to his books once more.
Though she stared only at the characters on the pages of her book, Shimizu could sense beside her that Sawamura still had not yet moved. His pause was proof that she had surprised him, and that he still needed to process it. But feeding him no more hints, she never looked up to confirm this, and eventually she heard the fabric of his jacket shift when he bent his shoulders back over his book.
Almost a second later, his hand drew under the table and placed itself lightly atop her knee. “You’re funny.”
