Buttercream
Author: Dubious Volute
Pairing: Aya/Yohji/cake
Rating: T, for gratuitous imagined violence and non-standard use of an innocent wedding cake.
Disclaimer: Hear that echo? That's my wallet. Weiß is owned by others, sob, not me. I like to pretend that Glühen never happened—Weiß!florists forever, baby!
Summary: Part of what once was a "Florist's Monthly Drabble-Bouquet" kind of bunny…maybe one day I'll put a few more months up. A Midwinter Valentine to that most esteemed of pastries, the Bad Wedding Cake. Grab your grease-splotched, expensively embossed napkin, take a carb-filled bite (hopefully with an icing flower), and take a look in on what Aya's up against today:
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For the life of him he could not fathom how the gaijin could actually want this revolting mess. Want it at their celebrations. Want him to adorn it with flowers. Three tiers high, the pink and white monstrosity was now oozing a heavy butter-sugar scent that went head to head with the usual pleasant smell of the hanaya--freesia, roses, greenness, compost, Yohji's coffee and cigarettes and Ken's sporty aftershave--to create a nauseating, cloying perfume. Aya's head swam with it. If Omi hadn't been at school or Ken on delivery, he could have foisted it off on one of them. Yohji, having taken the order for this disaster with a masterful display of unfounded reassurances (in cunningly calculated Engrish), and having secured the thing itself from the bakery two blocks up, was notably absent.
So.
Wedding cake.
Daisies. Cut the stems short and poke them straight in? But wouldn't that leak flower preservative right into the dessert? Was that harmful?
More importantly, was that really his problem? Oh god, that smell.
His right eye began to twitch. He reached for the daisies and started trimming stems.
Touching the cake made the sugary reek worse. Within the miasma, deftly adding alstromeria and spray roses, he absently pictured overdressed Americans sprawled and spasming around this gaudy, suddenly malevolent centerpiece. Shi….ne….
Aya pressed a thumb into his right eye to stop it twitching, and then went on with the main garland.
Was it really murder if you poisoned wedding guests with floral fixative? They asked for it, after all. Mass suicide? Lemon leaves, this definitely needed lemon leaves. The small ones, from the end of the stem. And lily-of-the-valley---wait, wasn't that poisonous too? Might not the police simply get a whiff of the cake and rationally conclude that these people all died of sugar shock?
The shop bells tinkled and the chill of January eased its way into the hanaya, but—in a disgusted sugary trance, hands occupied with waxflower—Aya didn't bother to look up until the hair began to prickle on the back of his neck. Yohji, apart from looking unbearably fresh and relaxed and not at all ruffled by the candyfloss stench-cloud that was currently making a move for Aya's sinuses, was slouching elegantly against the worktable. Was looking at him. He allowed one red eyebrow to ascend into an equally elegant interrogative.
In answer, Yohji smirked, leaned forward, swiped Aya's eyebrow with his tongue, and listed out of punching range, all in one incredibly economic pendulum movement.
Aya could only stare, his arched right eyebrow now damp and chilling from the saliva—no longer quite as elegant, but certainly wetter. He hadn't realised he'd had icing on his face. And he could not help but notice the way that Yohji's golden skin peeped through the airy knit of his clinging, cream-coloured cashmere sweater, all framed by the sleek chocolate of his leather coat. He looked infinitely more delicious than cake.
"Saa, Aya," Yohji drawled, "this stuff's not half bad." He gave a trademark suggestive leer and swiped one elegant forefinger into the cake for another try. "Mmm. And slippery," he murmured, rubbing the frosting against his thumb. Keeping his green eyes locked with Aya's sugared-violet purple (the pupils of which, he noted with not a little pride, were dilating rapidly), he stuck the thumb greedily into his mouth and sucked with abandon. Aya's pupils concurrently ballooned. He let go with a wet "pop," then proffered an iced finger to Aya's shocked, slightly lax lips.
Oh, what the hell.
When their mouths met, Yohji licked the frosting from Aya's teeth and then proceeded to diligently search the rest of his mouth for sugary residue. This went on for some time, for never let it be said that Kudou Yohji was not serious and thorough when it counted. And Aya's oral hygiene, he seemed to've decided, was paramount. After, Yohji's eyes strayed back to the cake.
"Don't eat anything that's close to the flowers," Aya offered helpfully. His eye had stopped twitching, and somehow his jeans had come unzipped.
Would the gaijin really notice if one little tier of this thing was missing? He thought not. Wouldn't they all get drunk on skunky American beer before they cut the cake? Besides, they wouldn't have long to think about it before the fixative kicked in and they were all on the floor.
As a solid assassination scheme, he later found himself half-thinking (on the floor himself, as Yohji slid a buttercreamed hand into his red curls), the idea has merit.
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AN: Kudou Yohji, the Weiß Toothbrush. Or is that tooth fairy? You thought that Yohji was going to leap out of that cake in a tasteful marabou thong, didn't you?
Thanks to all who made this possible—especially my cake-decorating teacher, who was always quiet and patient and understanding, even though I suspect that she was in the throes of a constant contact sugar high, and my former boss, the head floral designer at an anonymous swanky Washington, DC florist, who gave long-winded lectures about how you should NEVER stick an inedible, fixative-prepared flower into a cake, although I suspect that he secretly wanted to do so himself, just to see what would happen. Hossein, this dud's for you.