Title: Experimentation
Author: kajamiku
Fandom: Naruto
Disclaimer: 'Naruto', unfortunately, doesn't belong to me...
Pairing: Orochimaru x Jiraiya
Summary/Notes: Experimentation's consequences. Nothing smutty, just a kiss.
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Experimentation
"Ne, Oro-kun?" Orochimaru looked up from his reading material, blinking at the oddly contemplative expression his teammate was wearing. It was rare for the white-haired teen to look so serious, so it immediately caught his attention.
"What now Jiraiya?" The pale nin masked his curiosity with a mildly annoyed tone, picking up his cup of sake and taking a sip.
"…Have you ever kissed a guy?"
The sake sprayed from Orochimaru's lips like a fountain; ruining the scroll he had been reading, and making him cough wildly. Though in a normal situation Jiraiya would probably have been laughing so hard that his own sake spouted from his nose, now he was just sitting opposite Orochimaru, watching his reaction almost self-consciously.
After taking a few minutes to compose himself, Orochimaru finally caught his breath enough to answer. "No, no I haven't." He paused, surveying his teammate half-wearily. "Why? Have you?" Jiraiya shook his head.
There was an awkward pause.
"…Want to?" Jiraiya looked something between hopeful and nervous, and it would have pleased Orochimaru greatly to have been able to laugh and say no… but for the moment he was curious.
"Alright." He said, after a moment of watching the amusing expressions his teammate was displaying; ranging from shame and anger to embarrassment and acknowledged rejection. It all evaporated in his surprise and enthusiasm however, as Jiraiya grinned widely and sat up. Orochimaru rolled his eyes at the nin's sudden energy.
It took another awkward silence before Jiraiya asked the question Orochimaru had been fighting against asking, "Um, how are we going to…?"
Orochimaru's natural personal space limits usually stopped the notoriously stupid who tried it from coming closer than a few feet but, until now, Jiraiya had never had any problems with the dark-haired boy's imaginary barrier. The frequent grabbing at his person had, at one time, annoyed him immensely, but this time it was quite the opposite. Jiraiya looked like a lost puppy.
After a further moment of dragging out his teammate's suffering, Orochimaru took the initiative and, setting aside his decidedly damp scroll, shuffled over to the other teen, put one hand to the side of the blushing face to stop Jiraiya from moving, and kissed him.
As soon as Orochimaru decided he had gotten enough from the contact, he withdrew to his original position, tidied his kimono and set about cleaning the ruined scroll.
Little more than a small experiment to Orochimaru, he soon wished he'd never agreed to do such a thing. Jiraiya was never one to know when to shut up, no matter how much he was threatened, and the amount of times he brought the incident up made Orochimaru throw all kinds of things at him, from shurikans to entire pots of hot tea. The moment Jiraiya properly discovered women however, Orochimaru was mostly forgotten and the pale nin took every opportunity thereafter to remind him of what happened with his first kiss.
Even beyond his fiftieth year, he still blushed so heavily that it looked like rampant sunburn and how could Orochimaru pass up the chance to embarrass him so heavily? His memory was long and his cruelty well known, as Jiraiya was well aware. He should have expected it.
And Jiraiya always maintained that on that evening, when they drank jars and jars of sake together though both of them were really far too young, he should have taken more from the situation. Then, perhaps, the teasing would be worth it.