"You're late."

Kidoumaru laughed, managing not to expose the fact that every one of his nerves was stretched to the breaking point. Or that he was trying his best not to run far, far away from the very, very stony face of Kimimaro. "Only by a few minutes."

Kimimaro looked distinctly un-amused. Then again, he always had. "Is that customary?"

Somewhere within his gut, Kidoumaru felt a twinge of fear. "It's called being fashionably late. You should try it sometime." He flashed a small smile to the Kaguya, hoping that it would cause the elder to stop staring at him. It didn't.

"I do not see how it is fashionable to be late."

Kidoumaru struggled to keep his face smooth while quickly glancing around the outside of the bar. Hookers and their clients staggered out its doors, while elder shinobi and normal citizens strolled in. Homeless children scampered around the corner of the bar, hoping to find some morsels thrown out by overstuffed customers. For a moment, Kidoumaru considered grabbing one of them and plopping the scrawny thing down in front of Kimimaro as a sacrifice to save his spidery behind. But that would have taken effort.

Instead, he smiled a little bit further and jerked his head towards the entrance of the bar. "How 'bout I tell you inside?"

It took them around twenty minutes to be seated, mainly because it was a Friday, which was when everyone who was anyone in Otogakure found themselves in desperate need of inebriation. Sushi was just an added bonus.

The wait probably would have taken them even longer if Kimimaro hadn't sent one of his patented stares of green frost towards the server for making him stand so long.

As soon as they were seated, Kimimaro's eyes snapped right back onto Kidoumaru's face. Kidoumaru suddenly felt as though he were being doused in an ice bath.

Don't be a wimp, Kidoumaru! The little voice in the back of his head shrieked. Get it together! Break the ice!

At this point, the encouragement seemed rather literal.

"Y'know, if you keep staring at me like that, I actually might start to think that I'm attractive," Kidoumaru finally ground out cheerfully.

He'd only meant it sarcastically, of course. So he really hadn't expected Kimimaro's reaction to be so – well – serious. Then again, Kimimaro was socially inept.

Kimimaro's brow furrowed, a vaguely troubled look crossing his features. "Do you not perceive yourself as such?"

Kidoumaru blinked, then shrugged. "Does it matter?"

"It shows that you have the ability to correctly observe your situation and surroundings." Kimimaro didn't even glance up as the server arrived, keeping his eyes trained on Kidoumaru. "I was not aware that you had such difficulty in these areas."

"Um – " Both Kidoumaru and the server started to speak; Kidoumaru positively jumped at the opportunity and grinned at the server, a young girl with pale, stringy hair. He took a moment of satisfaction in watching her complexion turn pink with embarrassment before speaking. "'Sup?"

"Um…" The girl fidgeted with her pen as she stared at Kidoumaru. He was fairly certain that this was only because Kimimaro's stare was very, very intimidating. "Do you all want anything to drink?"

Kidoumaru turned back to Kimimaro, trying not to shudder at Kimimaro's (now troubled) stare. "Do you?"

"No."

"Just one sake, then, please." Hey, he might get drunk, but better to deal with Kimimaro then, right? And the water here was poisonous. Worse than cyanide, most probably.

As the server wandered to the next table, he locked eyes with Kimimaro again deliberately, fearing that the gaze had become malicious. He was rather pleased to see that it remained just as puzzled as ever. Not that Kimimaro confused was ever a good thing – it was just that a confused Kimimaro was better than an irritated one any day of the week.

"So," he started to say, as the atmosphere was starting to get slightly uncomfortable. "So, uh—"

"I do not understand," Kimimaro interrupted, "how you have managed to survive for so long with this lack of basic understanding."

"Well, Tayuya always said that I was a dumb bastard."

"Tayuya should take more care in attempting to better herself in subtlety."

Ouch. Kidoumaru couldn't help but scratch his head, at a loss of what to say before, suddenly –

He stopped, feeling a numb sensation spread throughout his body as the whole point of the conversation hit him straight in the face.

Kimimaro was saying that Kidoumaru was attractive.

That was impossible. No way. Kidoumaru was fairly sure that the day Kimimaro found anyone attractive would be the day that Orochimaru would declare that he liked girls. Then again, after all that had happened so far (not much in 'normal' dating time, he supposed, but to him it had seemed like years), Kidoumaru wasn't as surprised as he probably would have been before.

Or Kabuto put Kimimaro up to it.

For some reason, that irked Kidoumaru.

"Do you want to look at the menu?" he finally said after a long stretch of silence. "I mean, we are here, so."

"I am not hungry."

"It's rude not to."

Kimimaro made the equivalent of a shrug, which was mostly furrowing his brows further. Kidoumaru had the sudden, terrifying urge to reach over and smooth out his forehead because damn, the guy was not going to be happy later when he got wrinkles the size of canyons. "If you must."

Perhaps Kimimaro had missed out on the key 'we' in Kidoumaru's sentence, but hell, Kidoumaru wasn't going to say anything. Well, not yet, anyway. It's not like he had Kimimaro's seemingly permanent duct tape over his own mouth.

"Cool," he finally said before looking down at the measly paper in front of him that listed seriously overpriced meals (though they were, in fact, quite delicious).

After ordering and sitting in awkward silence with Kimimaro for about ten to twenty minutes, the food finally arrived in all of its fishy perfection. Kidoumaru just about picked up his chopsticks before glancing up at Kimimaro –

Who still had not moved a single inch since he had sat down.

Kidoumaru felt a small current of irritation run through him. Here he was, paying for all this crap, having to deal with this judgmental, socially challenged ass, and the guy couldn't even have the decency to try and eat. He wasn't doing this for his health. Hell, he would probably be better off dead and rotting. At least then he would be contributing to the environment.

"Y'know," he said carefully, keeping a tactful smile on his face. "It's polite to eat something on a date, even if you're not hungry." Didn't the guy remember the ramen thing from a month or so ago? If he didn't, then he really was seriously brain damaged.

After the Kaguya continued to sit like a dead fish (no pun intended), Kidoumaru jerked his head towards the food. "So…?"

There was a shadow of doubt on Kimimaro's face as he picked up his chopsticks. Gracefully, he plucked up the oshizushi and, with a moment's pause, took a deliberate bite.

Kidoumaru carefully began chewing on a piece of sushi as well, calculating Kimimaro's facial expressions (limited as they were) and trying to ensure that he would at least get a head start when Kimimaro went into rage mode.

He'd been nervous after the first 'date,' too, mostly because he wasn't sure if Kimimaro had actually been satisfied with it or not, especially after the guy had slammed the gate in Kidoumaru's face. Not to mention that for weeks after, they hadn't said a word to each other in the hall. Kimimaro had barely even looked at Kidoumaru since. The younger shinobi wasn't sure what sort of advice Kabuto had given Kimimaro, but it must have been pretty stupid.

"Do you like it?" He finally asked, after about two minutes of Kimimaro slowly chewing. Kidoumaru was starting to feel fairly stupid for even agreeing to this in the first place.

'Brains,' his ass. Tayuya was right. Strategy was one thing. Common sense was a totally different level of intelligence. One that Kidoumaru somehow had failed to developed.

Kimimaro finally swallowed his mouthful of rice and fish before, finally:

"It is decent."

Kidoumaru sighed in relief around his own mouthful of sushi. So maybe he wasn't going to die after all.

They ate in silence for a while. Kidoumaru would have made an effort to make conversation, but the buzz of voices made enough noise for both of them to handle. Besides, it was sort of comfortable this way. Better than Kidoumaru having to say awkward things and Kimimaro retaliate with another awkward thing that would end up with the latter staring intensely and the former looking around nervously, hoping that he wouldn't end up dying.

This isn't so bad, he thought as he chewed on a piece of tamago. Kidoumaru noticed that Kimimaro was only touching the oshizushi, but he decided not to say anything and break the spell. Especially since the Kaguya had finally stopped staring at him. This was a good thing. A very good thing.

Just keep on like this, and he could gain Kimimaro's trust. The game could be won. He just had to keep on at this pace and steer clear of Kimimaro's irritation.

For the first time in a while, Kidoumaru felt fully relaxed.

After the check was paid, they walked out into the breeze. It was fairly dark outside, but Kimimaro's hair was so bright under the moon that Kidoumaru was quite easily able to keep track of the elder. It made him wonder how the Kaguya had ever been sent out on a stealth mission in the first place. He was too easily noticed.

He set at a steady pace behind Kimimaro as they walked further away from the bustle and lights and into the gloomier area of Otogakure (which wasn't very hard to do, as Kimimaro was walking slower than usual). They were close enough that Kimimaro could feel the warmth coming off of the elder. A few warning buttons began flashing red here, but he shoved them away. He wasn't that close. Not enough to constitute Kimimaro to turn around and slice off his ba—

Suddenly, Kimimaro stopped.

Kidoumaru braked just in time to stop himself from colliding with the elder.

"Uh…" The silence didn't feel that comfortable anymore.

Kimimaro barely twitched. Kidoumaru couldn't see his face, and he kept that in mind as he carefully edged around to the Kaguya's side. "Hey," he said, warning bells going off in his brain. "You oka—"

Now Kidoumaru stopped.

Kimimaro had turned a rather lovely shade of green.

And as Kidoumaru continued to stare, Kimimaro lunged forward and, with his hand clasped to his mouth, upheaved the oshizushi into the dust.

So that went over well. I mean, it could have been worse, right?

Yeah, I take that back.

Anyways: merry late Christmas! Hope you all had a fantastic time and ate a bunch of good food (without, hopefully, getting poisoned like poor Kimimaro. First the crush, now bad oshizushi. When will the inhumanity end?).

Peace~