Disclaimer: I do not own La Corda D'Oro. Yuki Kure does. I simply own this original idea and anything non-canonical.
Pairing: Len/Kahoko
Prompt: Valentine's Chocolate, from the La Corda D'oro livejournal fic meme.
Summary: Kahoko knows how to make the thought count.
Dark Chocolate Pretzels
Len hated Valentine's Day; there was nothing redeeming about the whole concept. To be pragmatic, if someone wanted to prove their love or affection, then it should be done out of the strength of their feelings rather than the artificial mock-up of spontaneity. That he didn't really care for sweets – and kept getting them from girls whom he had little to no interest in – was simply an added bonus.
But he survived the day by coolly accepting any chocolate before throwing it away when no one was around. When he finally retreated to the last practice room for personal time, Len let out a sigh of relief that no one would come to bother him.
Then Kahoko knocked on the door, eyes wide and bright with hopefulness, and he warred between annoyance and interest. Good manners won, and he bid her to enter. She had a little smile of self-satisfied amusement, her hands hidden behind her back.
"What is it, Hino?" he asked, resting his violin on the piano in anticipation of what was coming.
She didn't even blink at his bluntness. "Guess what, Tsukimori-kun! I have something for you."
"That's not necessary. I don't-"
"Happy Valentine's Day!" and she pulled her hands forward, looking triumphant. In her palms was a small bag, made of the same shiny metallic paper that usually housed gifts to his parents. This one was a vivid sapphire blue, tied at the top with a silver ribbon, and was bulging at all sides with whatever candy Hino had stuffed inside.
From anyone else, Len would have simply taken it and said a meaningless 'thank you'. From Hino, he looked her in the eye as he accepted it and said, "I appreciate the gesture, but I'm afraid it's put to waste on me."
"Well, open it and tell me that in a few minutes."
"Hino, I really need to pract-"
"Please?"
And before he could really think about it, he unwrapped the ribbon and glanced inside. He was expecting truffles or homemade hunks of candy; Len was infinitely surprised to find neither.
"Pretzels?"
"Yup. Chocolate-covered pretzels, but I used dark chocolate instead of milk chocolate. It's not quite as sweet as milk chocolate – a little bitter and strong – but it smelled really good and spread just as easily."
He was utterly flummoxed, and was certain that it must have showed on his face as Hino babbled on and on. "Why? I mean… why?"
"I know you don't like sweets; remember when I returned your jacket last year? You let Hihara-sempai eat all those treats while we visited because you didn't like them," she explained. "You snacked on a lot of salty things like pretzels when we were at Fuyuumi-chan's house, but I still wanted to add some chocolate – in the spirit of Valentine's Day, you know – so I used dark chocolate because I thought you'd like it. Try one."
He already had one of the way to his mouth before she said anything, and he carefully bit into it. The chocolate melted in his mouth as the salt slid across his tongue; the two tastes collided and it was one of the nicest sensations that Len felt in a long time. It shocked him that he enjoyed it so much; chocolate had never been an indulgence of his, but he quickly decided that Hino might actually be on to something with this idea.
So Len gave her an honest, if slightly shy, smile and said, "Thank you," with all his heart. Hino skipped out of the room, nearly glowing with pleasure.
A month later, he returned the favor by gracing her with a song and a kiss.
She tasted like dark chocolate pretzels.
Author's Notes (02/18/08): A little belated V-day present for all. I have two more La Corda shorts I plan to put up before I call these drabbles completed. I might be able to post more stories in the future, but I don't want to leave my readers waiting in the wings for something that might not come.
Thank you, everyone, for reading.