Summary: Honda works at an ice cream parlour, and Kaiba just happens to drop by. Shonen-ai.
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Honda scowled as he rubbed the palms of his hands. They were sticky from holding the ice cream scoop constantly throughout the day. No matter what he did, he never seemed to be able to clean all of the sticky, sweet mess off the handles of the scoops or from his fingers.
He rubbed at the soap again, soap bubbles rising up to his wrists.
Hearing the shop's bell jingle, he turned around, eyes staring downwards as he had expected a short kid to be standing there.
Instead he found himself staring at someone's… groin…
"Hn…" the voice interrupted his thoughts.
The KC belt was not unfamiliar. Honda corrected himself – he was staring at Kaiba Seto's groin. His hands were frozen in their movement, soap still covering them.
He looked up hurriedly, his body still turned in the opposite direction as he blushed a little. "How can I help you?" he hurriedly said, then added "Kaiba" as an afterthought.
Kaiba raised an eyebrow.
Honda sighed and ran a hand through his hair, looking expectant. He was quite certain that the next sentence, or noise perhaps, would be one of amusement or disapproval as Kaiba analysed the situation. "I didn't know you worked here," Kaiba mused, looking as though about to break into his customary smirk.
Honda turned his head to face the wall and glared at it. "I needed a job… and this was what I found."
Kaiba's eyes scanned the twenty-two flavours of ice cream in front of him. It was stupid how they didn't order them alphabetically or otherwise.
Honda dried his hands on the towel, turning and smoothing out his rather colourful apron. It was bad enough to be serving Kaiba ice cream, let alone having to do it while wearing a bright pink and green striped apron with strawberries across the chest and the words 'New Tutti Frutti Flavour.'
Kaiba finally smirked. "Nice apron."
Honda suddenly remembered that was his cue. He looked around, frowning, trying to remember where he'd placed the piece of paper… Well, it didn't matter anyway, he had long since memorised the marketing drabble.
"The blend of strawberry, apple and blackcurrant combined with our own secret spices and the natural sweetness of the fruits will leave you breathless and wishing for more. Available in take-home sizes: five hundred millilitres, one litre, two litres and four litres," Honda said, staring straight at the wall opposite and ignoring the look on Kaiba's face.
Kaiba raised an eyebrow. "Did you forget the 'try it today' part or don't you like me?" His head tilted slightly to the right, towards the shop window where the large poster was hung.
Honda grit his teeth. "Would you like to try some?"
"Hn… Now that you mention it, I have nothing better to do."
Honda rolled his eyes and turned around picked up a small ice-cream pick, and as he did so, he suddenly realised what Kaiba had actually said. A slight blush rose in his cheeks and he let out a breath he hadn't realised he was withholding.
He lowered his head a little as he dipped the pick into the tub of Tutti Frutti, trying to hide the heat in his cheeks. Then he frowned a little, staring. Now that he thought of it, he wasn't sure if that was the right flavour or not. The boysenberry and apple swirl sat next to it, but the more he stared, the less he could see the differences and the more he was convinced he had accidentally swapped the tubs during the day.
"Repetitive manual labour too much for your brain?"
Honda looked up, shooting Kaiba a murderous glare, forgetting his embarrassment, and for a moment he almost imagined that Kaiba looked taken aback.
Honda looked down again. Worse still, the triple swirl sat next to them, and the longer he looked, he couldn't see anything different between the three of them.
He almost snorted in amusement to think what his boss's face would look like if he could see his employee now.
"Two seconds," Honda informed, smiling at Kaiba as he temporarily forgot whom he was talking to.
He grabbed another two picks and stuck them into the other two suspect flavours. Then he tasted them, one after another.
Kaiba stared a little. Honda looked focused as he licked the small mouthfuls of ice cream from the picks and his lips closed around the small wooden sticks. "Mmm…" He looked almost thoughtful as he closed his eyes.
Namie Amuro was playing over the small speakers inside the shop, and her lyrics floated across the silence. Anything you want me to do, I can do you, I can do you…
Kaiba shifted uncomfortably, imagining the movement of Honda's tongue around the small wooden pick…
"Having fun?" Kaiba remarked dryly, licking his lips.
Honda finally opened his eyes and looked up sheepishly and smiled, seemingly unaware of the display he was putting on. Then he threw the picks into the bin and swapped two of the tubs over. "I knew something didn't look right," he said, shaking his head as he grabbed a clean pick and scooped up some of the Tutti Frutti and handed it to Kaiba.
Kaiba just shook his head, looking like he wanted to make another comment.
Honda put his hands on his hips and sighed. "What are you doing here anyway Kaiba? You couldn't possibly be buying ice-cream for yourself."
Kaiba finished tasting the rather sweet ice cream and opened his eyes, staring straight at Honda. "I wasn't…" Besides the fact that he had no intention of telling Honda that he had the lucky talent of well-placed observation skills (and that was sarcasm, since Kaiba had been staring at Honda in class for more than a month now and Honda had never blinked an eyelid), he was hardly going to admit to driving around the block more than ten times to get a decent car park and then scaring a learner driver in order to get one. Neither was he going to admit to the fact that he'd spent the entire night before sleepless and devising his strategy of approach.
"What were you doing then?"
"That's not very professional, is it?" Kaiba smirked.
Honda scowled; annoyed at the way Kaiba just turned the conversation on its head, if indeed it was a conversation at all… "Well what do you want then?" he snapped, leaning across the counter and waving the scoop angrily in Kaiba's face.
Had it not been for the insatiable urge to snap straight back at Honda, he might have wanted to instead bang him in the head with the scoop or simply do nothing at all except smirk.
As it was, he didn't pick either of those options, and instead pulled the scoop from Honda's hand and then, grasping the now empty hand tightly in his own, pulled Honda towards him until their noses touched.
Gently, he pressed his lips to Honda's, closing his eyes, and feeling the boy tense suddenly, he ran the tip of his tongue over Honda's lower lip, silently praying that Honda wasn't so angry still that he'd be inclined to bite off his tongue. Just in case, and perhaps because he was nervously paranoid, Kaiba opened one eye quickly to check.
Honda didn't look like he'd be biting off anyone's tongue anytime soon. Actually, he looked slightly dazed. Not that Kaiba would have cared, since the taste of sugary sweet ice cream and caramel was quickly reducing his ability to think. The thought that he was kissing Honda was enough to make him dizzy and light-headed, and almost breathless…
The bell jangled suddenly and Kaiba found himself being pushed back hurriedly.
Honda's eyes widened and he stammered a little. "Y-Yuki-san?"
His supervisor raised an eyebrow and adjusted the glasses on the bridge of his nose as he walked towards the back storeroom. "I hope your girlfriend is going to buy something Honda-kun. I'd hate my employees to be wasting time for no reason at all…"
Honda blinked rapidly. "H-hai…" He avoided Kaiba's eyes as he felt the ice cream scoop being placed back in his hand. "A-ano… What do you want Kaiba-kun?"
Kaiba tried to meet Honda's eyes, but the other boy was still fumbling with the ice cream scoop and staring downwards. He wanted to say 'you', but that would just sound bad… He cleared his throat a little, ignoring the constricting feeling in his chest. "I'll have some of the Tutti Frutti flavour." He smirked when Honda looked up, blushing and then hurriedly cast his eyes back down again.
"How much?"
"Ten litres." He amused himself to think that he could answer 'all of you' and that Honda's face might turn scarlet.
Honda looked up suddenly. "Are you sure? Don't think you have to buy it because of Yuki-san. I mean… it doesn't matter if you don't want it…"
Kaiba didn't say anything, so Honda took five two-litre tubs from the large freezer and then shuffled the tubs at the back of the shelf to the front.
He punched the numbers into the cash register without looking at Kaiba's face. "That's Y6000…" Honda mumbled a little.
If Kaiba's eyebrows shot up at the exorbitant price of the ice cream, Honda didn't notice as he took the money from Kaiba, noting uncomfortably that Kaiba's hand lingered a little too long above his, and handed him the receipt.
The tubs were hurriedly packed into two large plastic bags and he handed them to Kaiba. "Dozo…"
Yuki-san chose that moment to stick his head around the corner of the storeroom door, and he called out loudly. "Did you give him a sample of the Tutti Frutti?"
Honda bowed his head. "Hai."
Kaiba snorted as he turned and opened the shop door. Honda's head was still bowed. "Arigatou gozaimasu…"
"By the way, you might like to wash your hair…"
Honda's head snapped up and he stared at Kaiba. "Why?"
Kaiba smirked. "You have soap bubbles in it."
Honda scowled and glared after Kaiba as he returned to the sink to cleanse his fingers of the sticky half-icy ice cream. He grabbed the soap and smiled wryly. Perhaps it would be better to wash his mouth out with soap after all…
But then, Kaiba's kiss hadn't been that bad… had it? He didn't think he would be able to look his classmate in the eye tomorrow. He bowed his head and blushed again, as he watched the white soap bubbles climbing up to his wrists.
Kaiba smirked as he passed the poster on the window.
The blend of strawberry, apple and blackcurrant combined with our own secret spices and the natural sweetness of the fruits will leave you breathless and wishing for more. Available in take-home sizes: five hundred millilitres, one litre, two litres and four litres… Try some of our new Tutti Frutti today!
He amused himself with the thought that for once, it wasn't such false advertising, but for the moment he wondered what exactly he was supposed to do with ten litres of Tutti Frutti flavour ice cream…
Perhaps Mokuba would like some…
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Author Notes: Honda doesn't have gloves because I wrote it that way… Though I have been to some places like this where they don't wear gloves, but I suspect they're supposed to for hygiene reasons… It started off as a ficlet for an LJ-community, hence the emphasis on soap bubbles, but I don't think the soap bubbles really have anything to do with it anymore!
NB: Lyrics (the two lines I wrote in) belong to Namie Amuro. And don't anyone tell me that FFnet doesn't allow this, because I figure for these two little lines, it practically counts as a quote. So there. (Insert childish gesture here.)
... And yes, the kiss scene is very strange, because my sarcasm chose to insert itself there, and I couldn't and didn't try tostop it from doing so.
Anyway, thanks for reading and please leave a review for me!
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