105A/N: Happy Valentine's Day! Not sure if any of you remember the wasabi prank from Chapter 12 of The Center of Everything, but it comes up again (as you can tell by the title). There will be another author's note at the end discussing future updates, but more on that later.
For now, enjoy!
(Also, the writing is a bit… er…lacking. I've been tackling other writing projects at the moment, so I apologize for its mediocrity.)
xXx
- Chocolate with Wasabi -
xXx
She started seeing red. Lots of it. Originally, it came in moderate sprinkles—a handful of heart-shaped balloons here and there, a few pink posters advertising chocolates scattered about the mall, all of them captioned with sweet reminders to express unconditional adoration via the only ways acceptable: through the purchases of commercial products manufactured en masse.
Soon, however, and at an exponential rate, shopping centers dripped with the crimson color, and the irresistible scent of chocolate lingered in the air like a delicious, eye-crossing fog. Aside from being the quintessential hue for passion and love, red also happened to be a color of warning. Despite never having celebrated a Valentine's Day in Japan, Hana took the city-wide hint readily enough. The holiday was fast approaching, and, unlike the other girls who giggled to themselves about what they planned on getting their crushes or boyfriends, Hana had no idea what to get Tai.
At present, she stared fiercely at an arrangement of shirts in a boutique, as if, by stare alone, the perfect selection would levitate straight to her. She had gone to the mall with Kari, Yolei, and Sora, as her cluelessness over the celebration of the international holiday had left her in a desperate want of female company. It hadn't escaped her notice, either, that all three girls had been acquainted with her boyfriend much longer than she had. It was imperative that she ask the necessary questions in order to make the most of her first Valentine's Day in Japan. The queries launched out of her mouth poured out like a chocolate fountain.
"So… what?" she had asked. "Matt, Ken, T.K., and Tai. They just… what? Spend that day waiting for us to shower them with gifts and kisses?"
The national customs pertaining to the holiday were a strange shift from the Valentine's Days she was used to witnessing in France. There, the holiday was not restricted to one of the sexes, nor was it largely limited to offerings of chocolate. Men and women alike gifted each other much in the way one saw in the movies—with romantic cards, teddy bears, heart-shaped boxes of chocolates, flowers, red lingerie.
"Pretty much," had been Yolei's blunt answer. "What's not to get?"
Sora had offered her a kinder and more thorough explanation.
"Valentine's Day in Japan is typically in the hands of the girls, Hana," she had explained. "We get our male friends and significant others chocolates and maybe another small gift, and the act will be reciprocated in a month's time, on March 14th, White Day."
"And we bypassed every shop selling chocolate and went to a bookstore to get a cookbook, why?" Hana had asked in reply. It only confused her further that her friends willfully ignored the gift-wrapped confections. Why else would they be so heavily advertised and available, painted in glaring shades of red, if not to be bought by every girl that walked by?
Her lacking insight was gladly provided by Kari.
"Homemade chocolates are considered particularly special," she had said, "which is why we reserve them for our boyfriends." While she had been speaking, she had tapped the cookbook in her arms—the one they had purchased when they had gone to the bookstore. Its glossy cover winked reflected light at Hana, blocking half of the title that had already been memorized: A Love Affair with Chocolate, Famous French Sweets and the Stories Behind Them.
The reminder that they'd head to Sora's home after the mall trip to prepare the chocolates only made Hana groan internally. It was bad enough that she didn't know what else to get her boyfriend. What worsened her situation was the universal truth that she couldn't cook or bake to save her life. She still vividly remembered nearly destroying her kitchen the last time she tried her hand at making a dessert. Her bûche de Noël ended up being a bûche de merde.
She rubbed her forehead and muttered a French oath under a breath. Behind her, Kari and Yolei shared what they each had bought for their respective beaus—the former purchasing a hat and the latter a scarf. A ways off was Sora, perusing a stack of shirts, most options she pulled out being, firstly, slim-fitted, and secondly, some various shade of grey.
With a grunt, Hana refocused her attentions, peering yet again at the display of clothing and sighing dramatically when she happened upon no epiphany.
"Everything okay?"
A hand touched the one that had been fiddling with her headband. The white arch had been wiggled back and forth so many times in the past hour that Hana swore a bald spot had been rubbed straight through her dark brown hair.
"I don't know what to get Tai, Kari," Hana confessed hurriedly. "I know we're not supposed to get our guys anything extravagant or expensive for this holiday, but even little things. I… I don't know." She was tempted to reach up and touch her headband again, but a weight landed on her left shoulder. She turned to the side to see Yolei leaning an elbow on her.
"You're kidding, right?" she said, an incredulous eyebrow raised. The weight of her limb caused Hana to pitch slightly to the left. "You're usually really good about knowing what to get him."
"When there's no occasion, yes," Hana was loath to admit, regaining balance.
She wasn't a stranger when it came to giving Tai presents. It had become a habit of hers to leave notes for him scattered about his apartment on a near daily basis. She would comment on how he needed to do his laundry, or hide a wish of good luck in his school books if she knew he had an upcoming exam. Most he threw away, which she didn't mind. They were silly, passing thoughts on paper. Occasionally, however, she'd find some accrued on his desk, taped to the wood, the paper soft from wear and fondness, the ink of her messages bleeding greasy shadows.
Aside from the gifts of written words, Hana had had no issue giving him actual tokens of her affection: a video game he had been anticipating since the announcement of its development (which she had hid under his mattress, thus requiring Tai to search for it), a hoodie bearing the name and crest of his favorite soccer club, gift cards to the restaurants he frequented—all of them met with gratitude and kisses (minus the first, since he had uprooted his entire apartment in pursuit of it).
"But when one's attached," Hana continued, her doubts actualizing on her tongue, "I feel like he expects certain things, and I don't want to disappoint him if I get it wrong. And, well, this will be our first Valentine's Day in Japan, and I just want it to be—"
"Perfect?"
Both Kari and Yolei had finished Hana's sentence in unison, the joining of their voices making the word unnervingly sonorous. They grinned unabashedly at her, bearing the looks of individuals who had suffered the same apprehensions and had overcome them. In truth, Hana wasn't aiming for a 'perfect' Valentine's Day. The word she had planned on using was 'fun.'
"Yeah," she murmured.
Sora afterwards returned to them, her purchase swinging buoyantly in her hand. She was surprised to find that one of their group had yet to put on the accomplished smile of a successful day at the mall, and Hana's predicament was explained in brief.
"Hana," Sora said, like a mother pitying the fruitless efforts of her child. The French brunette reluctantly pulled her eyes away from the rows of folded shirts. "Don't stress too much about this. This is Tai, remember?" She set her shopping bag on the ground and touched Hana gently on her other shoulder. "Tai, who planted that wasabi bomb on your sushi plate? Tai, who put fake spiders in your locker on Halloween? Tai, who gets a kick out of poking your nose like this?" She demonstrated, tapping the point of Hana's nose with a finger and pushing just slightly so that her nostrils widened and her eyes crossed. The girls giggled.
"Yeah, Hana," Yolei heartened, lifting her elbow off her shoulder. "My first Valentine's Day with Ken was…" She grimaced, biting her bottom lip as she turned her gaze upward to the ceiling. "… really bad. Turns out, he's allergic to strawberries, and I gave him chocolate coated strawberries. It was a disaster."
"At least you didn't have your older brother chaperoning you on yours," Kari dourly contributed. "The most T.K. and I did on that day was hold pinkies."
Yolei sputtered out a laugh, tipping her head in agreement.
"Poor you."
"Exactly."
For Hana's sake, they stopped by a few other shops to see if she would find anything suitable for her boyfriend. None came to any avail. Hana had come very close to buying a pink polo from a clothing boutique, but the girls had wildly cautioned her not go anywhere near rose-colored apparel. Her excuse had been that Tai desperately needed some variety to his wardrobe—which consisted mostly of athletic shorts and t-shirts—but her friends advocated otherwise.
"He'd sooner cut his hair than be caught wearing anything pink, Hana," they told her. She was then advised to consider his 'male pride.'
After another agonizing hour of failure, Hana decided to call it quits. Her other present for Tai would have to be bought on her own time. They needed to get to Sora's to start making the chocolates. That, and they would be video-chatting with Mimi during preparation, and they had to be mindful of the time difference between Tokyo and New York City.
On the way out the mall, they passed one store that was unusually empty of customers. The surrounding kiosks and shops were full of potential consumers, the lot of them rummaging through racks and shelves of clothing, shaking boxes of chocolates, considering items on display with a discerning eye and a forefinger and thumb cupping the chin. Hana paused before the store, her green eyes roving over the boxes and trinkets arranged in squat towers at its front entrance. She noticed the store wasn't entirely empty. A few boys were inside, testing a product, giggling amongst themselves. Hana watched them unblinkingly, her mouth parting into a broad grin as the aha-moment she had been waiting for lit like fireworks in her brain.
"Geniál!" she cried, striking a finger into the air. She bolted off into the store just as Kari, Yolei and Sora were about to exit the mall, the only thing any of them heard being a victorious:
"I finally know what the get Tai!"
xXx
Hana Kurosawa was grossly nauseated. Her nervousness over the romantic holiday was getting the better of her as she sat at a picnic table in the park. It was the chosen rendezvous point where everyone would exchange Valentine's Day gifts, and she had come relatively early, sharing the table with but three other people: Izzy, Cody, and Davis. Ironically, the three boys happened to be the only ones without significant others around to give them gifts. Her legs bounced up and down rapidly as she sat on the top of the table, making the bench seat rattle and forcing the rest of her companions to forego sitting on the bench and join her on the tabletop.
Cody sat beside her, and next to him sat Izzy, his laptop computer resting on his knees. A large bag of candy-coated chocolates occupied the majority of Cody's lap, and every now and then Koushiro's typing fingers would halt and blindly dig into the bag to grab a handful, the Hida boy meanwhile taking a few of the sweets in his fingers as he looked on with Izzy at the computer screen.
Davis reclined behind her, leaning against her back, grumbling about how he hated the holiday and how he wished the others would finally arrive so he could move on and celebrate his eternal singleness in classic bachelor style. When Hana was in no mood to listen to him talking, she encouraged him to also fill his mouth with the candy. Graciously, Davis would oblige her.
The chocolates themselves had been a gift from Mimi to Izzy, just one of several she had sent him in a Valentine's Day care package. When Hana had stopped by the Izumi household to pick up some computer programming assignments for her next tutoring session, she saw the care package in its entirety, the whole of it laid bare on the family dining table—all red sparkles and glitter.
Notable items included a teddy bear dressed in a t-shirt that read, "Somebody in New York City Loves Me!", a box of chocolate bon-bons handmade by a famous French chocolatier, and a five pound bag of candy-coated chocolate hearts, their sugar shells painted red, pink, and white and bearing nerdy pick-up lines such as, 'You defragment my life,' and 'You had me at Hello World.' There had also been a chocolate bar, and printed on its wrapper was:
'0100100100100000011011000110 1111011101100110010100100000 011110010110111101110101'
"It's 'I love you' in binary code," Izzy had begrudgingly translated in light of Hana's genuine curiosity. She replied with a badly contained snort of laughter and a teasingly sung, "Comme c'est mignon!" How cute!
A tap on her shoulder drew Hana away from the recent memory, and her heart nearly stopped when she turned and saw Davis leaning his chin on her shoulder, jutting his lower lip out as he peered at the items in her hands.
"What'd you get Tai?" he pried baldly.
"Just, uh, some…" She cleared her throat, stifling a chuckle as she remembered exactly what she had concocted for Tai's enjoyment. "…chocolate bon-bons," she answered, cracking a smile. She held the grin for a long time, the corners of her mouth progressively spreading farther apart. Davis narrowed his eyes on her, and even Cody and Izzy glanced at her with slightly raised eyebrows.
While she had been at Sora's helping make the Valentine's Day treats, Hana had been lucky enough to be struck with another eureka. She had been looking in the refrigerator for some cream and had chanced upon a tube of wasabi paste shelved in the side door.
"Well, hello there, friend," she had cackled aloud, lifting the container out.
Wondering why earth she was laughing to herself, Kari, Yolei, and Sora all turned to her, their movement also allowing Mimi, who was watching them from the web camera on Sora's laptop, to be an onlooker. Hana proudly waved the tube of wasabi paste back at them, her scheme visible in the wicked glimmer of her green eyes.
"Well, that's certainly cause for trouble," commented Mimi.
Sora's forehead creased.
"Are you certain that's a good idea, Hana? I mean, I know Tai pranked you ages ago, but do you really think that's necessary?"
Hana raised her hands in the air, her reply but a gesture of indifference.
"What's the worse that could happen, Takenouchi?" she parried. "I'm only going to rig one of the chocolate truffles. Everything else will be normal. Besides, what's a little romance without some spice, hmm?"
The doctored chocolate bon-bon was marked with a little white dot to differentiate it from the others, and it sat conveniently at the top of the batch in the cellophane bag that held it. Her other gift for Tai was in a tote bag under the picnic table, to be brought out only when the wasabi bomb had been planted and some form of recompense would be due.
"And exactly what sort of mischief do you have planned for him this evening?" Izzy probed, drawing Hana from her crafty daydreams. He sounded like her father.
"Oh, never you mind that, Koushiro," Hana cooed, waving him off. "Suffice it to say that revenge is sweet. Or will be, in my case."
The others arrived soon after, and couples broke off to different areas of the park to exchange gifts in private. Tai approached her casually, his hands in his jeans' pockets, a silly smile on his face. His brown eyes were bright with anticipation. Her stomach felt twisted in a knot, and her heartbeat thumped crazily, like the wings of a panicked bird locked in a cage. Without a word, she jumped off the picnic table, grabbed her tote bag and took his hand, eagerly leading him away to an open space in the center of the park.
"You sure you don't want to sit or anything?" he asked, raising an eyebrow at her. He glanced around them, taking note of their other friends who had situated themselves in less conspicuous places.
"No, no," Hana insisted, speaking as if she were out of breath. "I want to do this here." She set her bag on the grass beside their feet and raised her gift of sweets to him in offering, the crinkling, petite bag resting in her cupped hands. Her jaw clenched as she waited for him to react, expecting him to examine the contents, but he just looked at her, stuck in an emotive state between impressed and amused.
"They're homemade," she added, her nerves unable to keep her from talking. "And, no, they're not poisoned. I had Sora and Mimi and Yolei and Kari help me out so that they didn't turn out disgusting, so hopefully they'll be to your tastes. And even if they aren't, I'll eat them because they're chocolate and I'm French, and I grew up on a diet consisting largely of bon-bons and fattened duck liver."
He chuckled lightly and touched her mouth with his index finger.
"Hana," he said, leaning forward to meet her eye level. She blushed as she met his stare, the warmth emanating from his eyes traveling in waves straight under her skin. "I'm sure they're fantastic. Calm down." He withdrew his finger, and her lips curled over her teeth, fighting the urge to continue gabbing her worries away. "Now," Tai began anew. "Can I try one?"
"Of course."
She untied the bag, her fingertips slippery with perspiration. She saw his hand already reaching into it, and on a reflex, she swatted it away.
"Sorry," she murmured, in response to the eyebrow he arched at her. "I, uh, I just want to feed it to you. Can't I feed it to you?"
"Okay, but you didn't have to slap my hand," he grouched.
Delicately, she plucked her wasabi bon-bon out of the bag, the chocolate coated sphere snug between her thumb and pointer finger. Her excitement coursed through her in jolty, trembling bursts, and it took every ounce of her willpower to keep her hand from shaking as she brought the sweet closer to Tai's mouth.
He bit. She nearly choked trying to dam her laughter. Her eyes widened in anticipation, glittering with mischievous glee, when his chewing mouth stopped, the jaw fixed in a crick, and the eyes bulged.
She hadn't even doubled over with her first lung-busting guffaw when her laughing mouth was checked, and the piece of chocolate with wasabi was promptly, with impeccable aim, spat back at her face.
Her entire body cringed, petrified in its disgust, her hands curled into claws over her chest, as she felt the warm, wet, chunky slew whip across her nose, followed quickly by a burning sensation in her left eye.
She shrieked.
"What the hell, Taichi!" she screamed, hands flying to her face. "You got it in my freaking eye!"
"What!" he shouted, followed by more spitting at the ground. "What the hell me?" Spit. Spit. Spit. "What the hell is wrong with you?" Spit. "You gave me a freaking wasabi bomb!"
Hana ignored him and blindly ran off to find the closest water fountain to flush the wasabi paste from her eye. She was unaware that Tai had raced after her, the scathing bite of wasabi on his tongue also requiring him to find water and to find it fast.
They happened to reach the nearest fountain at the same time, Tai's longer legs allowing him to catch up with her, and they roughly spent the next five minutes asserting claim over the oasis—his head and hair butting into her space as she tried to splash water at her eye, her elbow digging into his side as she tried to nudge him out. Neither of them attained much relief to either of their ailments. The only thing they succeeded in doing was thoroughly drenching the other in ice cold water from the waist up.
"You're awful," Hana said, quivering from the cold. She glared at him from under the wet curtain of her hair, noticing the way his shirt clung to his lean frame, the rivulets of water dripping down the defined sinew of his arms. She licked the drops of water on her upper lip and shivered.
"Right back at you," Tai replied. There was a pause, the echoes of their petty fight mixing with the sounds of their exhausted panting. Hana could see and hear the rest of their friends coming toward them, no doubt wondering what had happened. She sputtered a shaky giggle, hugging her arms tighter to keep her teeth from chattering.
"Come here, you goof," she heard Tai chuckle, accompanied by an arm being wrapped around her shoulders. His clothes were chill and damp, but he himself was sufficiently warm, and she unfolded the arms across her chest and hugged him tightly, savoring the subtle shake of his chest as he laughed with her.
Afterwards, he slipped his fingers beneath her chin and parted her hair away from her face, checking to see if the wasabi he had spit at her caused any damage.
"You know I'm going to get you back for this," he teased, giving her a poke in the nose.
Hana pouted while absentmindedly drawing circles over his heart.
"But I already have a peace offering prepared," she whined.
He rested his forehead against hers, tantalizing her by keeping his mouth just a hair's width away from her own.
"Oh, do you, now?" he asked. A snicker rumbled from the back of his throat.
"Not that kind of peace offering, Taichi," Hana thwarted, poking him in the shoulder. She eased away and took his hand, leading him back to the tote bag she had left in the middle of the park.
"But I think you'll enjoy it all the same."
xXx
"Think fast, Koushiro!"
Before Izzy could even turn around, a yellow, foam ball pelted him in the side of the head—for the tenth time. It was quickly followed by the click of a toy gun being reloaded and another hit to his cranium.
Hana sat comfortably on the loveseat with Sora, Yolei, and Kari, the four of them sharing the leftover chocolates from the original batch they had made. They watched, like viewers entranced by a wildlife documentary, as Hana's boyfriend continued firing foam balls at their resident computer genius, giggling like a schoolgirl throughout.
After the disaster with the chocolate wasabi truffle, Tai had announced that he'd be heading back to his apartment to change into dry clothes, and Hana had invited the rest of their friends to join them. Valentine's Day was, after all, also about friendship, and what better way to end the evening than chatting with friends and eating chocolate?
A quick walk back to the Kamiya apartment, a swift change of attire, and five minutes later, Tai was happily ducking about his living room, putting Hana's peace offering to repeated use as he barraged his guests with foam ammo.
By the time Izzy felt the brunt of Tai's childish attacks for the twentieth time, his temper finally flared, and he shut his laptop computer and demanded Tai surrender his toy gun.
"Screw that, Izumi," Tai gruffly replied, hitting Izzy square in the forehead with a perfectly aimed headshot.
The other boys attempted an intervention, but Tai had grown attached to his weapon of choice and peppered anyone who approached with a hail of plush balls. Eventually, the situation got so bad that Matt, Izzy, Davis, Cody, Ken and T.K. were stuck clustered together behind the living room sofa while Tai kept vigil over his territory, strutting imperiously as the toy gun rested on his shoulder.
"Well, I have to hand it to you, Hana," Kari said. "You got my brother a gift that suits him perfectly."
"Ugh. At whose expense?" Yolei moaned. "Ken and the other guys haven't budged from their spot behind the couch in the past fifteen minutes." She cupped her hands around her mouth. "Valentine's Day is not about hiding like wimps!"
"SHH!" Davis hissed, popping his head out behind the side of the sofa. "We're plotting here!" He retreated in time to dodge a foam ball that would have walloped him on the head.
"You've created a monster, Hana," Sora murmured behind a hand.
The aspiring ballerina laughed merrily and stood up, passing the boys sheltered behind the couch and reaching into the tote bag she had left by the front door. A few seconds later, and Tai was hit smack in the gut with a piece of spongy ammo. He stared aghast, firstly, at his fake injury, and secondly, in the direction it had come from. Hana stood smugly by the sofa, blowing a breath over the nozzle of another copy of his toy.
"Here, Matt," she said, flippantly tossing the plastic toy to the blond.
The budding musician gladly reloaded the gadget and jumped out of hiding, punching Tai with a smattering of foam balls before he regained cover behind the loveseat. Despites the risks, Matt raised his head over the top of the piece of furniture, accepting the kiss of good luck that Sora gladly bestowed on him. Encouraged, he dared to venture out further, his blue eyes narrowing on his target.
"How could you?" Tai squealed, looking to Hana as she sauntered back to her seat. His arm was raised over his head, ineffectively blocking the shots from his enabled foe.
Hana stared back at him coolly, ignoring the rapid sequence of pop! pop! pop! as Matt fired away behind them. She crossed her legs.
"You really think I'd get you one of those without getting one myself?" she returned, throwing him a look. "They were pretty cheap, too. I've got two more in my tote."
The news spurred the rest of the boys into action, the mob of them clamoring for the remaining toys. Izzy managed to claim one, and Davis succeeded in grabbing the other. Together, they did not hesitate to put the devices to immediate use. Each of them loaded their weapons to capacity, and Davis cried out, "Eat foam, senpai!" before he and Izzy unleashed a maelstrom of cushy yellow balls.
An hour later and the state of the Kamiya living room resembled something short of a ball pit at a video arcade. The boys involved in the game were in need of replenishing their energy, and so they spent their temporary truce lazily, those in relationships allowing themselves to be fed by their girlfriends. Those without—Cody, Izzy, and Davis—were busy using the lull as an opportunity to tinker with one of the toy guns, trying to repurpose its cheap plastic make for optimum firing power. Hana had gone into the kitchen to get a glass of water and was filling her cup in the sink when she felt a weight settle around her shoulders and a warmth cover her back. The brush of a familiar face beside her ear and the tickle of unruly hair on her neck followed.
"Happy Valentine's Day, Hana," he said, kissing his smile onto her cheek. She giggled and tilted her head to the side to look at him, their noses brushing. There was a smear of chocolate on the corner of his mouth.
She laughed and licked her thumb before wiping it away.
"Happy Valentine's Day, Taichi."
xXx
A/N: Aw, how cute! (At least, I hope it was?) I just couldn't do anything too sappy for a Valentine's Day themed one-shot, so you get pranks and other shenanigans.
Anywho… Okay, folks. The next 'one-shot' (more like two/possibly three-shot) queued up for this project is a heavy-hitter. It deals with a certain rock star's and tennis player's break-up and the hell that breaks loose because of it. With that said, do you find it too soon for me to post it? Or would you rather get a few more fluffy/funny one-shots first? Because I'm certain that some of the things that happen in this next one-shot will be off-putting for some of you. It's just… it's just not pretty. Let's leave it at that. It's like Chapter 27 of The Center of Everything but times ten. It's just… REALLY BAD.
If the general consensus is that you all trust me completely and don't care, I'll commence with its posting. Otherwise, I'll put it on hold until you get sick of the fun and fluffy.
Once again, thanks for reading! :D