Disclaimer: Yorozuya Toukaidou Honpo belongs to the goddess that is Saenagi Ryou. bless
Written for the 30 Kisses challenge on LiveJournal. Trakkun is already doing the 30 Lemons challenge for another pairing, and thought this would be a random fun thing to play with while wrestling with that. They're only ficlets, but Yorozuya cannot be pimped enough. The theme for this one is #11 - "Gardenia."
Please forgive the title. It was irresistible.
Kaori
"Wait, Shima-san."
Yoshitsune pauses and waits for Kaori to catch up. "What's the matter, Kaori-chan?"
It should have been awkward, an uncomfortable dance as they tried to reconcile the differing lengths of their legs, but Kaori sways easily into step with him, despite the fact that he's five inches taller than Yoshitsune.
It should have been, but Yoshitsune can't imagine Kaori ever being awkward or clumsy. Not when Yoshitsune's trained eye can detect the smoothness in his every movement, no matter how tiny - in his fingers brushing long hair back behind his ears, in the roll of his hips as he walks- no, slinks, because Kaori even walks like a model, all supple and sultry grace.
So they settle into a rhythm like they've done this for always, and Yoshitsune takes another note in his head and files it under "Suruga Kaori."
Then Kaori smiles from next to him, and it's happy, not fake and pasted on like the other models he's seen. "Hey, Shima-san, you never did tell me how you solved the case."
"Aa, it was easy!" He lowers his voice conspiratorially. "First, the letter you received wasn't postmarked, so I knew it had to have come from your place of work. Second, once I got my hands on Yagami-san's business card, I could rule him out because the names didn't match - "Yukinobu" is written with the kanji for "happiness" and "to grow." This "Snowman" thought he could frame Yagami-san because of his name, but wrote it with the kanji for "snow." Of course, Yagami-san could have done that on purpose to throw people off, but my third hint was the perfume."
"Perfume?"
"I noticed when I first met Atsushi and Izumi that there was a strong, distinctive smell in the air. It was the same perfume that was on the threatening letter. Later, I heard some of the female models gossiping that Atsushi wore a very expensive and imported cologne. Obviously there could only be one person in the office who would possess such a perfume. It couldn't be Izumi as she was a new model and wouldn't be able to afford it. That left only Atsushi!"
"That's very clever of you, Shima-san. But," he steals a glance at Yoshitsune, "when you were first in the studio, I was in there too, being photographed. How did you know that the perfume wasn't mine?"
Yoshitsune flushes and stalls for time. "Well..."
How to explain that although he's only known Kaori for three days, the scent of him is already etched onto his memory so deeply that he'd be able to pick Kaori out of a room blindfolded? He knows that Kaori uses gardenia perfume, because he smells clean and fresh and sweet where Atsushi was thick and obvious and cloying, the kind of perfume that clogs up the lungs until you can't breathe. And Kaori isn't like that, Yoshitsune somehow knows.
"Aaa..." he stumbles. "You didn't seem the type to wear something so heavy, you know?"
Kaori considers that for a moment. "Hmmm. You're right again, Shima-san."
They've reached the train station while they were walking, and Kaori pulls up in front.
"I think I like you, Shima-san," he says. He bends down for a moment, and with a brush of lips against Yoshitsune's forehead and a wisp of gardenia, he's gone.
