When they are directed to their table by the host, it is the subtle things that makes Deidara notice his waiter. At first, it's a very warm and solid presence to his right. His waiter looms over the two of them and offers them copies of the menu, suggesting popular dishes and the chef's choice for tonight.
Then, it's the way his white shirt clings to his biceps when he fills their glasses with water, topping it with a slice of lemon.
Deidara buries his nose in his menu, furiously trying to focus on what he's going to order instead of someone he'll probably never meet again.
"It's all in English," Sasori suddenly says.
"What?"
"The menu," Sasori says, "is all in English."
Deidara is about to ask him what that has to do with anything before he shuts himself up. He scowls, folding the menu and placing it on the table.
There's a smug look on Sasori's face and he doesn't like that the only emotion he's ever seen the guy sport is always so condescending.
"Do you want our waiter to present the menu to you?" Sasori asks. "There are some big words in here."
Before Deidara can even do anything, Sasori is already waving at their waiter at the other side of the restaurant.
It takes him all but two seconds to cross the span of the room.
"How may I help you, sir?"
His voice! The sound and texture of his voice! It's too much, he'd say. Too much for someone who is supposed to be his waiter.
"My friend here can't decide on what he wants to eat," Sasori says, "so I suggested that you could present the menu to him and see which one he'd like best. Oh, and keep it mostly Japanese. He failed English."
The waiter smiles and then turns to him.
He smiled! Damn Sasori to the deepest level of Hell.
Deidara tries not to look up at his face when he presents the menu, listing off all types of dishes he has never heard before and telling him what they consist of and how they're made. Even though this is a western restaurant – what, French, Italian? He doesn't know – the waiter manages to keep everything he's saying in Japanese.
He finds that he's staring at his face now.
His waiter – Obito, his name is Obito. He has a nametag on – smiles wider at him when he finishes introducing the menu and suggests he order the dish with shrimp in it since it's the closest to any familiar Asian cuisine.
Swallowing, Deidara nods. When the waiter – Obito – takes out a pad and pen to scribble something down, he takes the time to really look at him.
It's hard to tell with him facing slightly away, but the man has scars over the right side of his face. Scars! With all those muscles, Deidara has no doubt that he must be a brute. A gangster, Deidara tells himself, with affiliations in the black society.
He bets he has tattoos all over his body.
Deidara feels proud for a second before realizing that he still doesn't hate the guy. In fact, it only makes Obito seem even cooler than he probably is.
"And we'll take your best red wine," Sasori is saying.
"Of course," Obito replies, scribbling on his notepad. Deidara catches him throwing a glance at his direction, but only for a split second. "I will have to see your IDs."
"If it's because I look fourteen," Sasori says, reaching for his pockets, "I would like to say it's due to my good genes."
"Of course not, sir," Obito laughs, a rumbling sound that feels like a base machine vibrating right into his bones. "We are required to check anyone who doesn't look a day over thirty."
"He just turned twenty," Sasori says as he holds out his driver's license, nodding his head toward Deidara's direction.
Obito quickly turns to him, grabbing the corner of Deidara's resident ID when he holds it out. Deidara swears he feels the waiter's fingers brush up against his own and he swears that he sees a glint in his eyes that makes him think it's done on purpose.
"Happy belated birthday, Mr. Deidara," Obito says with a smile.
"Thanks, yeah," Deidara mumbles, trying not to focus on how good his name sounds in the guy's voice.
"Your meals will be ready in twenty minutes, maximum," Obito says, bows, and then he takes their menus and leaves without another word.
"Something feels off," Sasori idly says.
"You think, hm?" Deidara snaps. "I could have Google Translated the menu, asshole."
"The menu has Japanese on it," Sasori says.
"What?"
"Are you deaf?" Sasori asks and then he says, "The menu has Japanese on it."
"You son of a bitch, hm," Deidara says. "You made a fool out of me!"
"Did not," Sasori says. "I merely told him you couldn't decide, not that you didn't bother reading the menu to see if it's actually only in English because you were so busy checking him out."
"You," Deidara sputters. "I wasn't–!"
"No shame," Sasori says. "It was also partly because I am hungry and you always take too long to decide what you want to eat."
"You ate with me no more than twice this entire year, yeah."
"Two times too many," Sasori says.
"Then why invite me out tonight, hm?"
"I'm going to leave for Germany in a few hours," Sasori says, "and I thought it would be polite to treat a former student and friend to dinner."
Deidara narrows his eyes, knowing that there's no use arguing to split the bill.
"How many years are you going to spend there, yeah?" he asks instead.
"As many years as it will take," Sasori replies. "It's a shame you didn't take the scholarship. You could be in Britain or even America right now."
"You know I wouldn't like it, hm," Deidara scowls at him.
Sasori shrugs and then he knocks his knuckles on the table. "Put your ID away."
Deidara grumbles under his breath and then he remembers something.
Obito read his ID. He knows when he's born. He knows his full name. He knows his address.
Neither of them likes red wine!
Deidara lifts his head and stares at Sasori, who just shrugs at his expression.
"You need to get laid, kid," Sasori says, unfolding a paper napkin.
"I don't need your help," Deidara says.
"Looked like you were just going to stare at him the entire night and fill this room with your drool," Sasori says, holding his glass and picking out the lemon slice, placing it on the paper napkin.
"It could be because I'm hungry and want to eat something, hm," Deidara says.
"Yeah, eat him, maybe," Sasori says.
Deidara doesn't even know what to say to that. He leans back against his chair and crosses his arms.
"Don't act surprised," Sasori says. "I know what sex is."
"Sounds unbelievable, hm," Deidara mumbles.
"I make lifelike models," Sasori replies. "Just because I'm not interested in having sex doesn't mean I've never seen and don't know what sex is."
"Gross," Deidara mumbles, fishing into his pocket to take out his phone.
"I hope you're not texting your sister to tell her how hot your waiter is," Sasori says, taking a sip from his glass.
"Am not, hm," Deidara says under his breath, unlocking his phone and opening the messaging app.
"My waiter is really hot," Deidara sends, seeing his sister immediately pop online. "I'm going to accidentally drop my napkin and suck his dick."
Kurotsuchi responds immediately with a couple of shocked faces and an eggplant and then she writes, "Pic."
Obito returns with a bottle of wine and two glasses.
Deidara locks his phone and places it on the table, sitting up straighter.
He watches carefully as Obito places the glasses down and uncorks the bottle. Deidara knows nothing about wine but he remains transfixed as he watches those muscles ripple underneath the white dress shirt, the veins that appear on his forearm when he applies even the tiniest of force.
Even the way he pours the wine into the glass seems impossible to look away from.
Sasori thanks Obito and then Deidara finds himself staring right into Obito's eyes. Obito offers him a smile, holding the eye contact for what has to be way too long for a server at a busy restaurant and then his phone chimes.
They both look at his lock screen, showing a text from Kurotsuchi saying, "FYI a pic of his face, not his dick. Tho idm a dick pic as long as ur face isn't in it."
Deidara knows he's blushing. He looks up at Obito, trying his best to school his expression to a more neutral one, only to receive an extremely bemused smile in return.
Then, without another word, Obito leaves the table.
"I told you not to tell your sister," Sasori says, pinching the glass and swirling the contents around. "This is good wine."
"You know nothing about wine, hm," Deidara grunts out, unlocking his phone. He tells his sister his waiter saw the text.
"You know nothing about subtlety," Sasori says. "If you're not going to be subtle about it, just ask him for his phone number in that explosive and spontaneous style of yours and get it over with. I'm tired of the sexual tension."
"Stop saying sex. It's very unsettling coming from you, hm. And," Deidara says, "he's probably your age. I don't like old men."
"I've seen old men," Sasori replies, "and I can tell you with confidence that he looks very good for 'someone my age.'"
"Please stop, hm," Deidara whines, pushing his phone.
"You've been moaning about not getting dick for three years now," Sasori says, matter-of-factly. "It's very annoying and this is the first time since I've met you that you showed any interest in another guy. I cannot wait for you to finally shut up."
Deidara doesn't respond. He pinches his forehead with his thumb and forefinger and reaches for his glass of wine. It goes down as smoothly as wine does. He takes a deep breath and then goes to refill his glass.
"Here he comes," Sasori says, taking the wine bottle from Deidara's hands and placing it back on the table.
Deidara immediately sits up and almost spills his drink in the process.
"Oh, be careful," Obito says, balancing two plates of food in one hand and reaching out to steady his glass with the other. "Are you alright?"
"Yes," Deidara says, his voice sounding really funny to his own ears. He looks up at Obito in awe.
"That's good to hear," Obito smiles.
Deidara's heart skips a beat.
He looks back down at the table and swears that he will never look at anyone again.
Deidara blinks when a plate is placed in front of him. It looks like any other plate of food in a western restaurant, but the familiar sight of shrimp makes him less daunted.
"Enjoy your meals," he hears Obito say and then, against his better judgment, Deidara looks up. To see him off, he tells himself. It's only proper manners.
They make eye contact and when Deidara didn't think it could get any worse, Obito winks at him.
He winked!
Deidara doesn't look back down as his waiter turns around to wait other tables, not until Sasori clears his throat and says something about drooling again.
"Shut up," Deidara snaps, grabbing his fork and stabbing the food in front of him.
They eat in relative silence until Sasori breaks it.
"Are you going to ask?" Sasori asks.
Deidara grunts in response and doesn't say anything else. They finish their meals soon enough and Deidara clutches his water, teeth clicking against the glass.
"Are you going to ask?" Sasori repeats his question from earlier and when Deidara doesn't respond immediately, he says, "Are you deaf? Are you going to ask him for his number?"
"He's working, hm," Deidara says. "It's not nice to bother him."
"You gawking at him seems very bothersome," Sasori says.
"That's enough of that," Deidara grunts out, setting down his water and then reaching for his wine.
"If you don't ask him now," Sasori continues, "you're going to regret it in the future, when you're old and gray and still single."
Deidara scoffs and says, "You act as if I will never get a boyfriend."
"With the way you're acting right now," Sasori says, "it's quite possible the only boyfriend you'll ever have is your body pillow. You're going to die a virgin."
"Says the virgin, hm," Deidara grunts out, placing his empty glass on the table. He glances at the wine bottle and then clicks his tongue. "Didn't know you drink that much."
"I don't want to have sex," Sasori responds and then pours himself another glass of wine. "I do a lot of social drinking," he says. "That's what happens when you do a business."
"Hm," Deidara hums, watching Sasori fill his glass with too much wine.
"It's so I can stand your loitering," Sasori says and puts down the near-empty wine bottle.
Deidara stares at him and then pours the rest of the wine into his glass. They drink and Deidara can feel the warmth of the alcohol settling in the pit of his stomach. That is what he focuses on when Sasori speaks next.
"It's never too late to start looking for someone," Sasori says. "If you refuse to travel overseas then you have to start looking here. The guy obviously thinks your lack of subtlety is…"
He trails off. Deidara looks up to see why and finds Obito heading toward their table. He turns to look at Sasori and his friend merely shrugs.
"Hello," Obito greets them, picking up their emptied plates. "Would you like to look at the dessert menu?"
"Yes," Sasori responds.
"More wine?"
"No," Deidara says quickly.
"Of course," Obito says, looking at Deidara.
He somehow manages to pull out twin dessert menus and sets them in front of them. He bows and says that he would come back in a couple of moments and then he turns to leave once more.
"I would have liked more wine," Sasori says.
"If we had more wine, we'd be here until the sun rises, yeah."
"Probably not a big deal for you."
Deidara decides that he doesn't want to comment. He looks over the dessert menu and finds that it indeed has Japanese translations of the western dishes printed on. Duh! How dumb could he be?
Damn Sasori for tricking him.
He picks the one that sounds the least fat and reaches for his wine.
"You spilled some," Sasori says.
Deidara peers at the glass. He grabs his napkin and brings it closer to clean it. After he's done, he takes a generous sip.
"Have you decided, yeah?" Deidara asks when he's finished.
"The moment he placed the menu down," Sasori replies.
Deidara scoffs and then places his glass down. Sasori raises his hand and Obito appears a moment later.
They place their orders and when Obito goes to retrieve their menus, Deidara's napkin gets caught on the corner and falls on to the ground.
"Uh oh," Obito exclaims, leaning down to pick it up for him at the same time he tries to do it on his own. Their hands nearly touch and Obito glances up at him, giving him a smile. "Sorry about that," he apologies and takes the napkin without waiting for Deidara. He folds it expertly – uncaring that it's stained with wine – and places it back on the table.
Deidara leans back against his chair as he watches Obito walk away.
"Just like a movie," Sasori says.
"This isn't a drama, hm," Deidara says.
"It sure feels like one," Sasori replies. "So boring and drags on the tension just for the views."
Deidara ignores Sasori and grabs his wine again.
The dessert comes sooner than expected and Deidara manages to finally thank Obito verbally this time when he sets the plate down.
Obito smiles at him – that smile again – and after he tells them to enjoy their dessert, he leaves again.
Deidara watches his every step.
"Dessert," comes Sasori's annoyed voice.
Deidara tears his gaze away and grabs his napkin. Something flies out of it when he places it on his lap.
He leans over and plucks it off of the ground to find that it's a rather crude note, written in a surprisingly neat handwriting.
"I get off in fifteen minutes," the note reads. "Outside in twenty? "
Following the note is an unmistakable set of numbers.
Sasori plops a spoon into his mouth.
"I told you," he says, "this is just like a movie."
He forgets about the strawberry ice-cream and immediately reaches for his phone.
Sasori doesn't take long to finish his dessert. He gives Deidara a disinterested glance before waving at Obito again, giving him plenty of time to shove the note somewhere.
Obito comes with the bill in hand. Sasori pays and after everything is finalized, the two of them stand to get ready to leave.
When Deidara stands, it's clear that he's much shorter than Obito. Deidara doesn't know what to do with this information. He hurries to follow Sasori out of the restaurant.
"You have about ten minutes," Sasori says. "I won't wait with you. I need to head to the airport."
"Boring," Deidara mumbles, staring at the entrance of the restaurant.
"He's not going to walk out here, kid," Sasori says. "He's an employee, look over there."
Deidara follows the direction of Sasori's finger and watches a plain door by the side of the restaurant.
"Goodbye," Sasori says.
"See you, hm," Deidara replies and then he's gone.
The air is a bit cold but Deidara can't bring himself to care. Everything feels weird to him. He shoves his hands into his pants' pockets, squeezing his arms to his side to ward off the chilly night wind, but otherwise remains still.
Something bubbles in the pit of his stomach and he blames it on the dessert that he only ate two bites of. The dairy, he thinks.
He continues thinking until someone walks up to him.
Deidara looks up in surprise, vision filling with Obito. He missed him coming out, that sucks. He also missed admiring his chiseled physique in the tight t-shirt he decided to change into. He couldn't get a good look without looking like a complete creep, so Deidara settles on staring at his face instead.
At least he can say he's focusing on the conversation.
"Hi," Obito says, smile seemingly having never left.
"Hi," Deidara responds, returning the grin.
"I thought you didn't read the note," he says.
"I'm very subtle, hm," Deidara replies and then he turns when Obito gestures to the other end of the street. The two of them begin walking.
"I don't think subtle is the right word," Obito says, "but I do agree that it's very intriguing to watch nonetheless."
Deidara thinks he has enough with the whole subtlety thing. He can definitely be sneaky when he wants to.
"Is it safe to assume," Obito continues to say, "that the 'picture of his face' your sister sent you is a picture of my face?"
Deidara scowls and his lack of an answer is answer enough.
"Where are we going, yeah?"
"Dessert," Obito says. "You barely had any."
"I don't want to gain weight, hm."
Obito taps his chin, acting like he's thinking very hard about it.
"Well, I do know something we can do that's very physically exerting."
"Dessert, hm," Deidara says and then quickens his pace.
He hears Obito's quiet laughter behind him.
Hey guys, Red here!
Beta'd by AO3 user Kate_Black14.
Not really sure if this can be counted as a prompt but since I posted it as an incorrect quote on Tumblr and Alpha requested it to be a one-shot, I would consider it a Tumblr prompt. It's inspired by the text that Deidara sent to Kurotsuchi.
I have been suffering from writer's block for the entire month and while I'm not in love with this piece, I don't hate it either. I started this one-shot because I needed something fresh to get my mind off of the ideas I have now. They've somehow 'corrupted' with my mind so they're no good for now. I need to get this out of my system ASAP because I want to write something special for my birthday.
Just another heads up: I got a job last week so I'm spending 8 hours every weekday (pretending to be) busy, so updates would be scarce.
It's funny that I say that because a majority of this is written while I was at work. Guess they don't really have a lot of things to give the intern to do.
Follow me on Tumblr (redskiez dot tumblr dot com) for updates and information about my stuff!
That's about it. Thanks for reading and if you liked (or didn't like) this fic, please leave a review telling me what you liked (or didn't like) about it!
Cheers,
-redskiez:)