Work Text:
If you had asked Shima what he'd be doing on White Day yesterday, he would have said, "Work." Corporate business holiday or not, Tokyo was hardly a city where all crime stopped for love—if anything, they had to look out for teenage kids shoplifting candy stores in the name of love. If you were an unrelenting character enough to persistently continue this line of questioning and asked what Shima would be doing after work, 'you had to get off at some time right?', Then he'd just shrug at you, saying what would you expect a single man in his thirties to do after work? Cleaning the floor or something, is what he would say.
The thing is, Shima isn't single.
He's cleaning the floor anyway.
It's not even his house.
"Sorry, Shima-chan," Ibuki fusses above him, tossing a dripping towel aside and bending himself in capitulation. "I swear I set the alarm right before I stepped into the shower, but the pan was on fire when I came out, and the sprinklers—"
From what Shima can understand, Ibuki, after getting a present from Shima on Valentine's Day (he was aware that it's a day when a woman gives a man chocolate, but what mattered more to Shima was that Ibuki would be ecstatic upon getting a gift, and the resulting expression had been worth everything, really) had decided that he'd make Shima something himself for White Day.
Ibuki's lived long by himself, cooked hundreds of meals alone—he's hardly an incompetent cook. It's not like the pan caught on fire because he didn't know how to use the stove. Though he'd been able to make a perfectly decent first batch, Ibuki's given it a second try, wanting to give Shima a perfect one—and that's where things all went downhill. His focus held through the first round, but by the second, his interest waned. When his phone rang, he got distracted, letting the sugar simmer a second too long until it caught fire.
And Ibuki's place came with a fire-proof cooling system, fortunately for his clothes and his belongings. But unfortunately for Ibuki, the neat batch of candy he made before did not survive the sudden downpour of water from the sprinklers.
Lifting his soaking towel, Shima grins. It's definitely a White Day he won't be able to ever forget, and it's with Ibuki. That's more than enough for him. "It's fine, Ibuki. It's not like I was expecting anything in return. I'll just accept the sentiment."
"Still, that doesn't mean—" Ibuki turns quiet, fidgeting. "Shima-chan always gives me so much. I wanted to pay you back this time with something."
"I know," Shima tosses the towel aside, grabbing another dry one. Wiping his hands clean with it, he leans forward to give Ibuki a kiss on the forehead. "And I accept it. The fact Ibuki wanted to make something for me is enough, okay?"
Ibuki's making that face—the one with his tongue poking out and his eyes narrowed to a slit, the one he only makes when he is unhappy but is forced to comply—and he rises from his place, reaching for the refrigerator. From there he takes out a single surviving piece of candy, dropping it in Shima's mouth before he can argue.
"I'm gonna make another one, but I kinda overpoured the sugar last time and one didn't fit in the box. It's not the whole set, but Shima can know what he missed now!"
It's sweet. But it's more than that. There's a bit of bitterish-saltiness in between the sugary taste to complement the sweetness, and the flavors meld together fantastically. Though he's not the type to enjoy candy or taffy or anything along those lines, he finds himself smiling around the confectionery.
"'s good," he murmurs around the piece, rolling it around his mouth. "You overdid yourself on this one, Ibuki."
Ibuki's expression explodes into a jubilant smile, the joy spreading to every bit of his body. That alone is very pleasant to watch. "Sure did, didn't I? And that's the only surviving piece. Shima's the only one who knows the taste of Ai-chan!"
"Ai-chan's candy, you mean," Shima mutters, a migraine beginning to form. Don't omit the most important part of that sentence, idiot, it ends up meaning something else entirely. Still, it was a shame only Shima could taste it, not even Ibuki, who must have spent hours working on it.
Sucking on the hard ball, Shima signals Ibuki forward with a flick of his fingers, and his partner pads forwards until they're almost touching nose-to-nose. It's very easy to lean forward then, fitting their mouths together and pushing the leftover candy into Ibuki's mouth while enjoying the taste of the sweetness mixing with the signature freshness of Ibuki's breath mint. Ibuki yelps at the beginning, shaking his head and trying to pull away, but Shima holds them together steadfast, letting their tongues lazily mix, and he turns pliant under his touch.
They don't separate until the last of the candy has melted away, breathlessly panting as they straighten themselves. There's a pretty blush covering Ibuki's usually pale skin, and a pleasant smile on his face.
"Where did that come from, Shima-chan?" Ibuki coos.
With a completely flat face, trying to seem nonchalant, he blurts out, "I thought it'd be a shame if the cook couldn't even taste his own food. It's good, isn't it?"
Ibuki hums, his lips twitching. "It was sweet, but Shima-chan's sweeter so I could hardly taste it."
"What's that even supposed to mean?" Shima grumbles, but sighs. "Let's get back to cleaning the water off the floor before it sinks into the woodboard. Come on."
"Okay," Ibuki follows him with a bucket and a mop.
At the end of the day Shima has to admit that while it may have been a pretty shitty White Day from the objective point of view, cleaning the floor couldn't get any more sweeter, not with Ibuki's candy and Ibuki still lingering on his tongue.