Notes: @stickers-on-a-laptop recently sent me a really lovely little bundle of goodies, art postcards and bookmarks and stickers and so on, from a couple of danmei that I love (with bonus Rider goodies too!), and in exchange I offered to write her whatever she liked and she asked for something with the central trio in Omega, in whom I am also deeply invested, so I wrote this goofy thing. ^_^ You can also read it on AO3 here.
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Ayumu shifts her bag on her shoulder and hopes as she walks up to the warehouse door that Sorato's well enough to talk today. Not that he wasn't very charming when he was sick and goofy, but sick and goofy don't typically make for coherent conversation, and in any case she'd obviously rather that her friends be healthy.
(Admittedly it's also interesting to know that Sorato can get sick, given that he's obviously some kind of space alien. Ayumu hopes that someday he and Kosei will stop worrying and just admit it to her, but in the meantime it's very cute watching Kosei try to cover it up.)
(What was that novel, where the aliens were defeated by the common cold? They're lucky Sorato isn't that kind of space alien.)
(Maybe she can start making a taxonomy once they're all being honest about things.)
She knocks, waits for the shouted acknowledgement from inside, and opens the warehouse door to the sight of Sorato trying to simultaneously change his shirt, read a cooking magazine, and watch some video on Kosei's phone. It takes a titanic effort on her part to not stare at his bare stomach. "I'm glad to see you're feeling better!"
Sorato pulls the fresh tank top down out of the way of his face and beams at her as she continues very politely not staring. "Oh! Ayu-nee!"
Ayumu smiles at him. "I wanted to see how you were doing, and maybe ask you about—"
"You should go out to dinner with us!"
"—that kaiju the other—yes?"
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Ten minutes ago
"You don't want to make food for me anymore?"
"That's not what I—what if I get sick and you have to cook for me?"
"Oh." Sorato nods solemnly. "And this place will teach me how to cook."
Kosei sighs. "Well, no, those were two unrelated thoughts, but—look, yakiniku is really good, it tastes great and it's fun to do and there's a place we can walk to. Little bit expensive but I can manage that this once. And you do get to do a little bit of cooking, which is why it reminded me that you need to learn how to do more cooking for yourself."
"Ok." Another solemn nod, and then one of those abrupt grins. "Then we'll go get yakiniku now, right? Let's go!"
"Hey, hey, not until—I've been dealing with boxes all day, I'm sweaty, give me a few minutes to wash my hair at least." Kosei tugs his arm gently out of Sorato's grip and then gives him a critical look-over. "You could use a clean shirt too, and if we're going to a restaurant you'll have to actually button it up."
"I can do that. Go wash your hair so we can have yakiniku."
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Ayumu should probably feel bad about how startled Kosei was when he got out of the shower and saw that she was there, but the expression on his face was so funny that she can't quite manage any guilt. Anyway, sputtering and red in the face is a good look on him, which is lucky given how easy it is to provoke. (The goofy Super Sentai towel had also been a good look, although she'd resisted the urge to comment.) Anyway, now they're at a yakiniku place near the warehouse and she's once more trying not to laugh as Sorato entirely fails to beat her private space-alien allegations while reading the menu. Forget everything else, he doesn't know what a pig is, he can't be from this planet. When they do finally get their order placed, though, she turns to Kosei and says, cheerfully, "So what brought this on?"
"I, uh." Kosei gives her a look a little bit like a cornered rabbit. "I haven't gotten yakiniku in ages and I though, uh, I thought Sorato would like it. Since he…loves…to eat."
Sorato nods solemnly. "I enjoy eating new things."
"That's fair! You know, I almost never get to have it myself, I don't have the time to go out much. It's nice to be doing this with you two." Ayumu smiles at Kosei, who looks even more nervous, and then at Sorato, who's…watching her so intently that she feels a little bit cornered. "I, ah, right, Sorato, I wanted to ask you more about that dinosaur from the other day, Gomorasaurus, you seemed like maybe you had information about it but we didn't have much chance to talk and you were so sick. You're feeling better now, right?"
"I am! I'm not sneezing at all anymore!" He blinks. "I sort of miss it, it was fun."
Ayumu stifles a laugh. "I kinda get that, but I'm glad you're well now. In any case, I wanted to—how do you know so much about kaiju, by the way? Are you a historian? Maybe a cryptozoologist?"
There's a long pause, during which Kosei visibly tenses, and then Sorato says, slowly, "I don't know. But I'm sure it'll come to me eventually. I really haven't been on this pla—"
Kosei's tension clearly pays off as he leaps in to say, "—island! For very long. He's from. Uh."
"Elsewhere?" Ayumu says, helpfully.
"Yes. He's from…elsewhere."
I wonder how many light-years out "elsewhere" is. "I see! So—oh, hi, yes, thanks," as their food arrives, fortunately before Kosei can entirely explode from nerves.
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Sorato goes through several pieces of meat before he gets the hang of the grill, but fortunately Ayumu and Kosei are able to keep a close enough eye on things to prevent anything from getting burned. Of course, once he does get the hang of it he's fascinated to the point that he'll barely let either of them do anything. This suits Ayumu just fine; she's always felt the work was the least fun aspect of yakiniku. Although not having to do any of the grilling means that she's running the risk of over-indulging a little bit in the restaurant's extensive drinks menu.
By the time the meal is finished she is feeling extremely relaxed and slightly silly and full of interesting kaiju facts and evidence for Sorato being a space alien alongside all of the food. She walks back to the warehouse bracketed in between them, despite her insistence that she's doing fine and hasn't really had that much to drink and isn't going to trip again, and on the sidewalk outside the warehouse she turns and looks at Kosei in the light of the streetlamps and he's so cute that she just leans up slightly and kisses him on the cheek, and then turns to do the same to Sorato while Kosei is busy sputtering. Except that Sorato is already turning towards her, clearly trying to figure out what's going on with Kosei, so she accidentally gets him on the mouth instead.
It's funny, she finds herself thinking mid-kiss, how Sorato doesn't seem to know what to do with his lips. He keeps them so still when he's not talking, it's like he's not used to even having them.
He blinks down at her in genial puzzlement. "What are we doing?"
"You're so strange," she says, feeling enormously cheerful about it, "it's great, I like you so much."
Behind her Kosei says, sounding simultaneously confused and miffed, "When did this turn into a kissing thing? And, and why did he get a kiss on the lips and not me?"
Ayumu swings around to face him, stumbling slightly backwards into Sorato and then staying there leaning on him because he's pleasantly warm and steady. She reaches up and places her hands on the sides of Kosei's face, beaming at him. "You're so cute. You're like if Donald Duck was a real guy." Then she kisses him on the mouth.
He's better at reciprocating than Sorato, although he's still clearly pretty startled about the whole thing. "That, uh. That doesn't answer my question."
"It turned into a kissing thing just now when I decided to kiss you." She lets go of his face and pulls out her phone for a moment to check the time. "Damn, I need to go catch my train home, I have to be at the lab early tomorrow to check on my cultures. Thank you for dinner, I'll treat you next time, ok?" She kisses Kosei one more time, twists around to get Sorato on the cheek for good measure, and hurries off towards the train. "See you both soon!"
As Ayumu heads for the train, Sorato raises a hand to his mouth and says, "That was kissing, right? I don't think I'm very good at it."
"It just takes practice." Kosei sounds a bit faint even to his own ears. "Wait, did she say I'm like Donald Duck?"
"Yes, who's that?"
"I'll tell you about him when we're not just standing here on the sidewalk."
"And also about kissing."
"Sure." This time Kosei's voice comes out even thinner. "Sure, we'll talk about kissing too."
...To be clear I'm not a blue lock fan, I've never read or watched it. this is sheerly second hand nightmare fever dream.
Anyways I had a nightmare last night about blue lock where I transmigrated into Rin Itoshi of Blue Lock fame ( i didn't know anything about him aside from yaoi at this point).
It was like.... Weirdly severance themed but it like never comes up in the dream. Anyways, Rin Itoshi (who i was seeing the perspective of) heard Isagi entering the room was like FRIED and wanted 2 hide & Nagi was there too. I don't actually know anything about Nagi except he basically is in yaoi with reo. but for some reason he was with Rin Itoshi of blue lock fame.
Anyways, he was so fried he tried to hide under the desk but it's one of those desks that don't really have that much cover so his ass was NOT hiding at all. and I think Nagi also hid. but like better.
Anyways Isagi enters and he basically Cucks Rin Itoshi (not really in the context of the dream i dont think they were rlly dating or anything. probably whatever fuckass situationship they have in canon) with Kaiser. I don't think they were actually making out but i didn't want to draw them properly. And like. The thing is Rin Itoshi of blue lock fame is SHIT at hiding and Isagi finds him like almost immediately.
And like... he eyes Rin and doesn't rlly say anything but kind of comes to some kind of conclusion to leave Rin alone and leaves the room with Kaiser. and then Rin itoshi of blue lock fame goes like "fuck i got outed" and then comes out as transgender to nagi. and thats the only reason nagi was there.
anyways I woke up in a cold sweat and so dehydrated i hit my head on the sink when trying to drag myself to get water.
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