Valentine's Day

The alarm clock on the nightstand read 1:04 a.m.

Rolling over lazily, Shinichi pressed his cheek lightly against Kaito's ear. "Hey," he murmured, voice still laced with sleep. He cleared his throat groggily. "Kaito."

"Mm?" Kaito frowned, eyes still shut. "What do you want?" He shifted underneath Shinichi's face and made a contented sound, burrowing into Shinichi's chest. The detective smiled at the sight as Kaito clutched at his shirt with a quiet sigh.

Wrapping an arm around Kaito's back, Shinichi drew back to look him in the face. Well, as well as he could in the early morning murkiness of his bedroom. "Today's Valentine's Day, Kaito. Don't you want to do something romantic?"

"What? No," replied Kaito, sounding almost affronted. "Romance. No."

Shinichi frowned, surprised. "I thought you liked romance."

"On any other day of the year I love romance. When it's from you, at least," muttered Kaito, nosing into the hollow of Shinichi's throat. "Do you remember last Valentine's Day?"

Crinkling his nose as he tried to remember, Shinichi said, "We were eating dinner at the Beika Observation Deck and someone was murdered?"

"Right. The year before that?"

"We discovered that I'm allergic to certain kinds of daffodils." He paused, flushing slightly. "And some brands of chocolate-flavored lube."

"Good memory."

Shinichi flinched visibly, tucking Kaito in closer. "Unfortunately, I don't know if I can ever forget that."

"I bet." Kaito laughed. "And the year before that?"

"I… accidentally took you to a sushi bar." Terrible, terrible idea. "In my defense, you didn't tell me about your phobia."

"Because it's stupid and embarrassing," groaned Kaito. Shinichi could almost feel Kaito's cheeks heating up against his chest. "As is what happened after we walked in and I realized it was a sushi bar."

"Nothing about you is ever stupid or embarrassing," Shinichi rebuked calmly, and he was positive Kaito's face warmed this time. Biting back a grin, Shinichi threaded one hand loosely through Kaito's hair and hummed softly.

Sounding muffled now, Kaito mumbled, "Don't even. Anyway, do you remember the time when we weren't even together yet?"

Oh. This one was particularly… awkward. Shinichi swallowed before he answered, "Someone… spiked the chocolates I gave to you, mistakenly thinking they were for me?"

"Spiked them with an aphrodisiac, to be more precise, but yes, that is essentially correct," Kaito agreed. Shinichi could feel his lips curving into a smile against his collarbone.

"And you ate them before class." Shinichi coughed awkwardly.

Being cornered by Kaito in the bathroom at the first break had been rather… both pleasantly unexpected and rather horrifying due to the lack of explanations that had transpired.

(At the time, he had sort of known he liked Kaito, but he hadn't been sure enough about his feelings to even think about acting on them or anything like that. And Kaito wearing a glazed over expression and pinning him against the bathroom wall had been kind of… unusual. In a "this is not quite right" sort of way.)

(And thankfully, Shinichi had managed to escape that one with both his and Kaito's chastity intact.)

"See? We've never gotten anywhere trying to have a romantic Valentine's Day, so I'm good like this," Kaito explained, dropping a kiss along Shinichi's jawline.

"I see," Shinichi agreed, smiling, as he ran a hand up the arch of Kaito's back. "I like this too."

"Don't you?" Kaito shut his eyes. "Now shut up and go to sleep. I just looked, and it's one eighteen in the morning. What possessed you to ask for this conversation now?"

"Nothing, really."

Shinichi fell silent for a second, listening to Kaito's even, almost imperceptible breaths, feeling his own heartbeat match up in a perfect symphony.

"Kaito?"

A slightly irritated "What now?" came from where Kaito was nestled into Shinichi's chest.

"Happy Valentine's Day. I love you."

Silence, then a muffled laugh – "Happy Valentine's Day, Shinichi. I love you too."

Cuz I don't know. Everyone always seems to go all-out for Valentine's Day with all these complicated storylines and drama and flangst and whatnot, but I just wanted to do something sweet and simple.