Prompt: sex shop employee and slightly flustered customer au

Everyone's heard of Matsumoto's Shop of All Things Unholy. Everyone talks about it in whispers and hushed voices in school. It's a sex shop. With all the sex things. And butt things. And DVDs. Can't forget the DVDs.

Karin's not afraid of a sex shop.

It's just—she's never been in one before. And she was dared by Midoriko, so.

So she kind of has to go in.

And if she's blushing about it and kicking the pavement while she shuffles forward, then nobody has to know.

(Not even Yuzu.)

Come on, Kurosaki. She tells herself, steeling her resolve by tightening her grip on her bag strap. It's just a stupid sex shop. You can do this.

She can stand about in a stupid sex shop for five minutes because of a dare. Karin bets she can even last longer than that. Maybe even ten if she doesn't die of embarrassment and-or giggles. Any longer than that, and Karin's pretty sure there's going to be rumours spread about her.

Like she cares.

All Karin has to do is loiter about for five minutes. And buy something. She can do that. She can definitely do that.

It still feels like she's trespassing into something unholy when she steps through the doors.

And uh—

There are a lot of sex things. And butt things. And—

Cock rings?

Karin kind of just wants to hide in the dildo section and then muffle her laughter because oh god she can't believe she doing this.

(If there are future visits, and frankly, there just might be for shit and giggles, then she's going to probably avoid the cock ring section because kami-sama, she is not ready.)

There must be a bug-eyed expression on her face.

It just so happens that at that point, the sex shop worker decides to intrude.

"Can I help you?" He asks, voice the personification of sin.

Karin freezes, brain short-fusing in the span of a second because she is not alone in this shop. Then she turns around, and tries to act as confident as she possibly can. Play it cool, Kurosaki. Be cool.

"Nah," Karin says, trying to play it cool, shrugging, and if she's not knee-deep in mortification, then she's just face-vaulted into a godawful mess now. "I'm, uh, I'm. Just. Browsing."

No one told her that sex shop workers were sexy.

Because, wow. She'd thought they'd be old people — not, like, say, grandparent old-old, but middle-aged-old. Like. Thirty. Ish. Kind of attractive but maybe not really.

Staring at him was kind of like— staring at what people could only hope to fantasize about. How was someone this attractive even able to exist?

"Alright, well." He smirks, turquoise eyes gleaming like he knows every dirty thought in her head, and Karin's pretty sure she's going to have a nosebleed sometime soon. "If you need me, I'll be around."

Kami.

She isn't supposed to be so… so flustered by this. She wants to do something stupid like— like— lick lube off his mouth?

"Wait a minute!" She squeaks, and tries to pass it by unceremoniously coughing and finally meeting his eyes rather than staring at his wiry frame.

"Yes?" His lips curve, and Karin's pretty sure minds aren't supposed to short-fuse twice in one day.

"Um. Could you direct me to the lube." Karin mutters, staring at her feet because her face is on fire and damn it, being sweaty and exhausted and covered in mud and grass is easier than being in this shop for a minute longer. Five minutes have to have passed by now.

"Sure. This way." He says, sounding amused and Karin wants to die.

"Thanks." She says, unable to look at him, and spends a further few minutes gazing hopelessly at the selection of lube and to wherever the sex shop worker is

Get it together, Kurosaki. Just pick one.

Fine, Karin thinks, and grabs the some red coloured lube before she stomps towards the counter, pink cheeks be damned. She huffs as she hands him the money. There. She did the stupid bet in the stupid sex shop with the sexy stupid sex shop worker.

"Nice choice." He winks, and Karin takes a step back. She never expected a smoulder.

"W-What?"

"Watermelon. It's my favourite flavour." He explains, and she's finally got her head out of a daze to notice that he does in fact wear a name tag. Toushirou.

"Oh?" Karin tries not to sound too out of her element. "Yeah, it's good. I prefer cherry, though."

"So why get watermelon and not cherry?" Toushirou asks, leaning forward like he's curious to know what's going in her mind.

Because she thought she had got cherry lube and not watermelon lube. Kami.

She's not about to awkwardly stride back and forth, brush it off and casually admit she made a mistake.

"No reason really." Karin mumbles, gruffly, forever thankful that the store is virtually empty. "Just felt like something different."

"I see." Toushirou says, even though Karin doesn't, and she nods like she does all the same and an understanding is made between them. "Well. See you around."

"Yeah."

At this point, Karin knows that the blush on her face won't go away for a long, long time and tries to really hard not to break into a sprint while she tries to locate the exit.

("What was it like?" Midoriko asks with big eyes, and Karin's mind stutters to the watermelon flavoured lube that's stuffed at the bottom of her schoolbag, and how Toushirou drawled that it was his favourite with a knowing look in his eyes. Karin puts her hand to her neck and sighs, like the entire thing was a hassle. It was. Turned out she didn't have to buy anything at all. "Oh you know. Nothing special. There were a lot of DVDs.")