Watanuki had to have been in one of his odd moods that day (the sort where he was still angry, but not at Doumeki or anything he'd done specifically, which always made a nice change) because the first thing he said after plonking himself down at their usual spot at lunchtime was, "So, hypothetically, how many times does a person have to save your life before you get to call them by their first name?"
Doumeki gave the unexpected question appropriate consideration.
After there'd been silence long enough for the new arrival to unpack, open and begin to eat his lunch, Watanuki said, "Well?"
"I'm doing a tally," Doumeki told him.
Watanuki grimaced. "Oh no. That's going to take a while, isn't it?"
"Could do."
There was silence again, excepting only the sounds of chewing.
"Not that I want to break your concentration," said Watanuki, once 'a while' was thoroughly past, "but you must be up to triple figures by now, and I know it can't have been that many simply because I haven't known you long enough."
"I could be double checking my total," Doumeki suggested.
"An approximate number would be perfectly fine, you know," Watanuki complained, "there's no need to drag it out just to…"
"One," Doumeki decided he was happy with the answer he had.
"One?" Watanuki sounded appropriately disbelieving. "That's your answer? One?"
"Maybe twice for use in public," Doumeki amended.
"It took you that long to count to one?"
Doumeki shrugged. "I don't really keep score of things like that."
"But… once?" said Watanuki, probably still finding this something of a cop-out of an answer. "But even I must have saved your life more than once…oh. Right."
"Yeah," said Doumeki. "You have."
