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It was a nice day, a Saturday with clear skies and gentle clouds overhead, not too hot or too cold, but a peaceful warm day that could’ve come out of a dream. Kaoru hadn’t had much to do, a good break from the normal, busy days that seemed to show up more and more often in the past few weeks. He ended up deciding to go for a stroll outside while occasionally stopping to look at shops with small trinkets and such, also passing by cafes with humble interiors filled with young couples and friend groups.
Maybe a few months or maybe a year back he along some random girl would’ve been included in those couples, but not today, not now.
“A day as if nothing could possibly go wrong”, those were Kaoru’s current thoughts, but in an instant, the clouds gathered together and before he knew it he felt a small drop of water come down, another, then another, then more and more until he realized it was raining. Crossing the street he ran, looking for a place to find shelter before he ended up all soaked.
Kaoru eventually came to the outside of a small cafe, the exterior not as overly-decorated and brightly colored as some of the others, but fairly simple, a small staircase leading to a double door entrance and on each side a window with white translucent curtains, including lace at the bottom with small hanging charms resembling konpeito candy.
Eager to avoid the rain before it got worse, he pushed open the doors and headed inside the cafe, greeted with an even softer atmosphere inside than the outside had been, lit up with various warm fairy lights and lamps hanging from the ceiling, some of which had barely noticeable floral patterns, and some with actual flowers on top of the lamps.
“Ah! Hakaze-kun! I didn’t expect to run into you here!”
Kaoru’s eyes widened at the sudden voice, looking up to see none other than Niki Shiina. He was briefly taken by surprise given that he hadn’t seen him much since working together for the whole date plan thing, but now that he thought about it, it might have not been that big of a surprise to run into him at a cafe of all things considering how much he was absorbed in the topic of food while they were planning, so maybe-
“Hakaze-kun? Anyone in there?”
He was snapped out of his current thoughts and greeted by the sight of Niki’s face closely in front of his, causing him to jump back a bit and lose his footing, but before he could fall back he felt a firm grip on his arm, bringing him back up.
“Ah, woah there, are you feeling alright?” Niki stepped back while letting Kaoru catch his breath, who then smiled and tried to compose himself into his normal “calm and cool” persona.
“Yeah I’m feeling fine, just caught a bit off guard that’s all…”
Niki smiled back
“Were you by chance running from the rain? You seemed to rush in here fairly quickly.”
“Yeah, it was a bit unexpected…”
The two stood there, letting the awkward silence fill the air between them while not knowing what exactly to do, it lasted for a few seconds before Niki had an idea and spoke up, trying to find some way to start up a conversation of some sort. “So I’m guessing you didn’t plan on coming here in the first place, In that case could you maybe help me out with something?”
Kaoru looked off to the side, “Yeah, sure, what is it?” because, surely it couldn’t be anything bad, right? They hadn’t talked much before but surely whatever he was thinking of couldn’t be too bad right?
Niki’s face lit up “Alrighty then~” he grabbed the other’s wrist and lead them to the glass case in front of the counter, lined with various pastries and chocolates, all varying in flavor, shape, and color, it was surprising to see all the different kinds of sweets lined up next to each other, based on the labels there were sour ones, even spicy ones, things you probably wouldn't have been able to find in a normal cafe or sweets shop.
Niki crouched down and lightly pressed his fingertips against the case, looking back and forth with sparkling eyes before looking back up at Kaoru, speaking with a giddy voice,
“Dontcha see how many different things they have here? I just wanna try every single one of them no matter how full I might get from it though I doubt it’ll happen, but unfortunately I don’t have much on me, so hey, hey Hakaze-kun, which ones do you seem interested in? I can’t seem to pick, and we could share them if you’d like~”
“I should’ve expected this,” He said softly before sighing. “Well, maybe those?” Kaoru said, pointing to a separate section with an assortment of glazed desserts varying from cookies, to small cakes, and different kinds of mousses. “I’m obviously not suggesting that you get all of them but you could-”
He was cut off by Niki standing up suddenly and smiling brightly towards him. “Yup, yup! I hear you loud and clear, just go sit at a table and I’ll bring em’ over shortly! Actually one second, do you like coffee?”
“Coffee sounds nice, maybe- ah, wait, you probably didn’t hear me correctly, I said you don’t have to-”
“No no no! Just go sit down and I’ll be over in a second, I swear!”
And that was how Kaoru ended up sitting at a table next to the window, watching the rain pour down and onto the pavement, showing no signs of stopping any time soon. He pulled out his phone and to see if he had gotten any recent messages or emails, after he finished checking those he ended up just scrolling through social media, looking to see if there was anything new he should keep his eyes open for. Of course, nothing involving him would be planned without talking to him first right? So there really wasn’t any point to look at anything, but at least it’s a way to pass the time.
He put his phone back away when he heard footsteps coming near his table, looking up and his eyes suddenly widening to see Niki carrying a large tray with towers of different desserts covered in glaze and cream, along with an assortment of drinks, and-
Hold on a second,
Was he planning on the two of them eating all of that?
More importantly, that tray looks really heavy.
Kaoru stood up hurriedly as Niki made his way over to the table, admiring all the food on the tray, “Hey, I’ll help you with that-” but before he could even try, Niki shook his head “It’s fine! I may not look like it, but I’m fairly strong!” While still not fully believing the other, Kaoru nervously sat back down at the table while Niki set down the tray.
“They were a lot less expensive than some of them look so don’t worry about anything! I got lots of different kinds of things we could try and plenty of different drinks to help get everything down, oh, and if you get too full, just hand all of it over to me!” Niki smiled brightly once again before stopping and mumbling, “Well actually, I’d feel bad if I grabbed all of it, so maybe I should let him take some as well?”
“Well you don’t have to worry about any of that right now, so maybe if you want we could start trying these?” Kaoru spoke and reached out for one of the cups sitting on the side and brought it to his lips, it wasn’t bad, it was pretty good actually, “Hey, what is this?”
Niki grabbed a cup similar to the one Kaoru had currently and tried it before trying to remember something, “It’s like strawberry hot chocolate! Well, not exactly, but hot chocolate with some kind of strawberry flavoring or syrup, maybe they took flavored whipped cream or marshmallows then melted it inside?”
He then downed the cup in record time and grabbed one of the cookies from one of the layers on the dessert tower and stuffed it into his mouth, then his face seemed to lighten up even more as he ate more and more.
Kaoru could swear he was starting to get full just from watching this guy eat, seriously, how could one person eat so much?
Though he couldn’t really blame him, these seemed pretty high quality, and the taste was like nothing he’s had before, it’s a shame he hadn’t come here sooner, maybe he could come back with his dormmates, if they were even interested in things like this.
However, he couldn’t deny that it was nice being here with Niki, he had a real charm to him, he managed to act so happy and carefree when absorbed in things like this, you could really tell that he was enjoying himself. He could see how people might be attracted to him easily, the way his eyes light up when he’s excited, how bright his smile can be, it’s charming, captivating even, and maybe, just a little cute-
“Hakaze-kun? Do you need something?”
Huh?
“You’ve been staring for a little so I was wondering if you needed something? Could it be that I’m hogging too much food and you want some for yourself?”
Oh, he had been staring
Wait a second-
“No, don’t worry about it! I was just spacing out again! Yeah, that’s it!” Kaoru tried to cover his face which for some reason suddenly feels really hot, why was his face hot? Why was he staring in the first place? Maybe he was just surprised at how much the other was eating, yeah, that had to be it, there’s no way he was admiring him or anything, he was just wondering how much he had eaten at that point!
Yeah… that’s it….
“Are you sure? I feel a bit bad just eating everything, I mean I did invite you to share with me and you haven’t even had much! Here, try some of this and tell me what you think!”
Niki raised his fork with some kind of chocolate mousse cake and held it in front of Kaoru, looking at him expectantly. With a sigh, he took a bite of the mousse, it was a lot better than he was expecting, it was smooth, not too sweet, he wouldn’t mind having more actually.
“...Do you have more of that?”
“Mhm!” Niki grabbed a small plate with a whole dessert resembling the rest of the bit he just had and placed it in front of him. Kaoru grabbed a fork sitting on the side of the table and began eating it before recalling what just and realizing-
Realizing he just let a guy feed him
And suddenly his face feels hot again, great, just great, “Ok” he told himself “Don’t freak out, you just got fed by a guy, so what? It’s not that big of a deal, friends feed each other all the time don’t they? They do right? They totally do. There’s no reason to freak out, but who said I was freaking out in the first place? Not me, nope, not at all”
Did that count as an indirect kiss?
No, nope, he can’t be thinking like that right now, now is not the time
Niki laughed and propped his arms up on the table, holding his head in his hands, “You don’t have to be nervous or anything, just relax ok?”
Kaoru smiled and took another bite of his mousse, leaning back in his seat, “Yeah yeah, you don’t have to tell me that”
“Oh! This reminds me of that one time where-“
They ended up talking for what seemed like hours, slowly getting rid of the once crowded tower of sugar while they told pointless stories and quickly became comfortable around each other, acting more like childhood friends who were catching up instead of two people who didn’t even know much about each other until a while ago.
It was..nice, Kaoru thought, as people entered and left the cafe it felt as though they were in their own little world, laughing and enjoying the time they spent to the fullest. Just them, the warm lighting from the cafe, and the rain pouring outside.
At some point, Niki took his phone out of his pocket and stood up, stretching, “Whew, it’s already pretty late~”
Now that he thought about it, the sun was already setting, the rain seems as if it had stopped a bit ago as well, pulling out his own phone, he was greeted by a bunch of messages from his dormmates wondering where he was, along with one or two from Anzu.
He put his phone back into his pocket after making sure there wasn’t anything too important he should be worried about, and looked back up and Niki who was staring down at his phone with a tired expression on his face, he sighed after quickly tapping something out and put it away, looking up at Kaoru and smiling.
As they made their way outside the cafe after grabbing everything Niki handed a bag of what looked like leftover sweets to Kaoru.
“Hold on, I can’t accept this-“
“Yes you can! Think of it as thanks for helping me out today, I already have my own so I figured I’d let you take some as well!”
“Then at least let me pay you back for some of it-“
“No! I’m not accepting any form of payment from you!” Niki took Kaoru’s hands and wrapped them around the handles of the bag, holding them in his own, “Please, this is the least I can do so just accept it, alright?” He laughed softly before letting go and stepping back.
“Let’s do this again sometime! It was fun doing this with you today!” He then turned around and was about to take off in his own direction, but before he could Kaoru grabbed him by the hand causing him to turn back around, averting his eyes and speaking nervously,
“Would you like to meet up again next Saturday? Same place, around the same time?”
Niki looked surprised, but then smiled, “Alright then! I look forward to seeing you till then!”
And with that he spun back around and went off in his own direction, leaving Kaoru standing in front of the cafe, bag in hand, and slightly red faced. He looked up at the sky which was painted in several shades of orange and pink, clouds melting together, a sky similar to one you would see in a dream, kind of like earlier. Maybe the rain hadn't ruined the day at all, it was just trying to give him a push in the right direction.
And as he walked back to the dorm building, he couldn’t help but think about how warm the other’s hands had been, or how he wouldn’t mind seeing that bright smile again.