Warnings: Shonen-ai and implied tea-taking… whatever that means!

For Aia.

Luck in a Teapot

Kyo covered his ears. All this noise! You would have thought they were in a war zone or something. Maybe they were.

"Hand it over Kyo," Shigure instructed calmly, lifting a large pork bun with his chopsticks and using his other hand to pull off the paper on the bottom. He barely cast a glance as Kyo hissed. Yuki simply spun his chopsticks around in his hand and suddenly snatched the last ha gow from Kyo's bowl which he was attempting to hold away from the rat.

For a moment Kyo was shocked, then he recommenced his hissing. If Tohru wasn't mistaken, the hairs at the nape of his neck were standing on end.

Yuki simply ignored the noise. It was no worse than the clutter and clash of dishes in the kitchen or the loud, animated chatting surrounding them.

Since Shigure had discovered a new restaurant in town, he'd developed an insatiable appetite for yum cha, which made Yuki wonder exactly what was in the food they were currently eating. He stared intently at the small dumpling. Prawn, definitely.

Before he had a chance to examine the dumpling further, the exhibit was snatched from him.

He stared at Kyo until the boy 'hmphed' and shoved the dumpling in his mouth and swallowed it whole.

Yuki narrowed his eyes and hoped the carrot-head choked.

Apparently it wasn't his lucky day though. Kyo finished swallowing the dumpling in time to see another three plates of food arrive.

Shigure was starting to get carried away.

Kyo was watching Shigure and Tohru and doing a pretty good job of pretending not to see them at all, when out of nowhere, something kicked him really hard in the knee.

"Ow!" His instinctive reaction was to scramble to his feet and lean across the table to clutch at Yuki's shirt. "Keep your legs to yourself, rat boy."

Shigure smiled blissfully. "Now, now, why don't you just help yourself to some tea," he pushed the generic white pot across at Kyo.

Yuki picked up the teapot curiosity and lifted the lid. It didn't smell abnormal. He swirled the liquid in the pot and took another sniff. Nope. Nothing there to account for Shigure's unhealthy new obsession. He was determined to get to the bottom of the matter though, if only to save himself yet another Sunday morning in the steaming, hot restaurant.

Kyo was scowling at him again. Yuki ignored him. Did that cat ever stop? If he didn't watch it, his face was going to stay that way.

Not that Yuki cared.

He absentmindedly reached out to pick up another pork bun with his chopsticks and was annoyed when the pork bun refused to move. He looked at the offending object and realised why.

The last pork bun was wedged between two sets of chopsticks.

Kyo was glaring, teeth grit and expression set to outraged. He looked like he was going to throw his head back, scream war to the heavens and then leap the table to strangle Yuki.

Yuki didn't want to think about what would happen if Kyo actually did so. So he fixed the problem.

"Ow!" Kyo yelled loudly, immediately shoving his hands under the tablecloth to clutch at his knee. "Damnit!"

Tohru looked at him worriedly, only just stopping herself from embracing him in the middle of the restaurant. "Kyo? Did you hurt yourself?"

He hissed a bit but the pain was subsiding already anyway. "It's nothing," he grumbled and shot Yuki a look.

Tohru didn't stop giving him that look though.

"Stop it!" Kyo yelled suddenly. He couldn't stand it. He hated her look of pity. Hating him would be easier. Pity was the last thing he wanted.

Tohru's eyes filled with tears for a moment and Shigure and Yuki were suddenly glaring at Kyo and why did he always do this? Why did he never stop himself even though he'd done the same thing a million times over and always hurt Tohru like he never meant to?

He slumped down in his seat and refused to look her in the eyes. "Sorry."

Tohru blinked and wiped away the tears. "It's nothing, it's my fault. I shouldn't stare at you like that."

Kyo looked away guiltily.

Shigure cleared his throat. "Anyone up for dessert?"

Yuki stood up and picked up the teapot again. Silently he filled their cups. He didn't even skip Kyo's, though he would have liked to turn it upside down and soak the cat instead.

Kyo blinked and then watched Yuki with suspicion. That wasn't like him.

He picked up his cup of tea and stared at it for a moment. Then he took a sip – just one – and watched Yuki carefully over the rim of the cup. He was still expecting Yuki's anger to hit at any given second.

Yuki stared back.

Kyo took another sip of his tea.

And Yuki's foot kicked him right in the knee.

"Damnit Yuki!" Kyo clutched at his knee. People at the tables around them were starting to whisper.

"Shut up," was Yuki's only response as he continued to sip on his tea. He glanced up at Kyo and was almost horrified to find himself wanting to laugh. Maybe there was something in the tea after all. He quickly put the cup down and stared at it. "Shigure. What's in the tea?"

Shigure blinked. "Well, tea is made using tea leaves and hot water. If you don't use boiling hot water it smells like fish, see?"

Yuki wanted to glare, but found that he couldn't. In confusion, he looked towards Kyo… who was nearly smiling.

He looked back at the tea again and noticed the tealeaves at the bottom of his cup. That couldn't be it.

Something touched his leg… and stayed there. He couldn't help the sudden blush that stained his cheeks. It must have been Tohru accidentally.

But Tohru wasn't sitting opposite him.

Kyo was sitting opposite.

Yuki snuck a look at him. He was slumped down so maybe that was why his leg was pressing against his. The table was small, so maybe Kyo just couldn't be bothered sitting up straight anymore and was trying to piss Yuki off on purpose.

It was the most logical explanation.

But… Yuki couldn't even believe he was thinking like this.

Maybe Kyo was asleep. He usually got sleepy after really big meals, and yum cha only just fit into the really big meal category. It almost warranted a new category of its own – the absolutely-stuffed-can't-walk-straight category.

Tohru and Shigure had been talking to each other the whole meal. Obviously they hadn't yet noticed that the cat was sleeping.

Yuki kept staring just in case. Kyo wasn't exactly a pretty sleeper – he was more of a mess than anything else. He obviously still didn't know the many uses of napkins, since there was a smear of brown sauce next to his mouth, and it looked like he was going to drool too…

Still, if it weren't for the fact that they were in a restaurant, he might almost be tempted to do the same… Minus the drooling part of course.

Kyo grunted and looked up suddenly, his eyes focusing on Yuki. He looked around and saw Tohru and Shigure and remembered where he was and what he was supposed to be doing.

Bloody hell. Shigure was still ordering more food?

Kyo's eyebrow twitched as he noticed Yuki was still staring.

What? Did he have something on his head? He reached up and patted his hair self-consciously. There was nothing there, so he tried to glare at Yuki… and found that he couldn't.

"Stop it," he growled instead, realising that he was blushing just a little. It was probably just the head in here.

Yuki stared back calmly. For once there wasn't the trace of a challenge in his voice. "Stop what?"

Kyo faltered. "Stop looking." He wiped his mouth roughly with his shirt sleeve and continued to stare.

Yuki blinked and his cheeks turned pink. He hurriedly picked up his tea and took a few sips, glad for the fact that he could partially hide behind the tiny white cup.

But he couldn't help but stare, so he stared over the rim of his cup. Kyo looked… Kyo looked, well, nice. His cheeks were quickly turning bright red, and he was still a carrot-head no matter which way you looked at it, but he wasn't scowling and he wasn't hissing or spitting or declaring war or yelling and when he wasn't doing all of that, he was almost cute.

Almost.

Kyo's butt had gone numb a while ago and he was fighting the urge to tell Yuki to stop his damn staring because it was driving him insane.

But suddenly he felt something shift against his leg and he realised it was Yuki's leg. The sensation was… strange. And something of a smile crept up on him, slowly though so that when he realised what he was doing, Yuki had already seen it.

Maybe if Kyo's face stayed that way, it wouldn't be such a bad thing after all.

Yuki studied his tea for a moment. He'd heard that people could tell fortunes using the tealeaves at the bottom of the cup, but he had none, and anyway, he didn't believe in fortunes found in tea.

Although… just for today, he might make an exception. There was definitely luck in a teapot.

fin

Author Notes: Shigure eats like me Mwahahha. Chopsticks are the greatest invention of all time. I can eat M&M's with chopsticks. I wonder if I could do Maltesers too? Maltesers are bigger, but also round, so I guess I'll buy some and find out.