#avoidanteyes

  Kano practiced his cooking at his fellow bud's, Shintaro, house. He brought whatever ingredients he could in recipes he'd practice off of and also bought extra with whatever money he had left given by Ayano. He.. wasn't very good at it, being used to Kido cooking all the time after picking up after their eldest sister to hopefully take more off her plate. Shin never sounded too pleased when he'd bring food to him, most of the time it had too much, and tasted weird. 

  "Oii, I brought some more, but my hands are full!" Kano bumped the door imitating a knock to Shintaro's bedroom door. He heard a groan from the other side, not too pleased having to try probably another wasteful endeavor. He followed the recipe as closely as he could and accidentally cut three of his fingers as well as burned the palm of his left hand. But he was determined to get better. He had to.

//i’m not even surprised omfg i know what you’re getting at here

ayano loves love. she loves all of the different kinds of it and the ways that it manifests in different people!!

she’s felt plenty of love before, for her parents, for her siblings, and maybe a certain childhood friend okay and they’re all different kinds of love. her parents were great people, and even though her dad’s presence kind of faded after her mother died, she can’t bring herself to think him less for it. although her siblings tend to be viewed as a whole, she loves them all individually, too, for who they are and whoever they might grow up to be. ((do you even need me to explain about love no.3))

Shintaro was acting weird.

He’d been grumpy all day- well, okay, he was like that all the time, but it was worse today- and had been taking longer to respond to her pestering than normal. He usually came up with comebacks and insults in a flash, but now the pauses were frequent and long, and it was starting to annoy her. He wasn’t even listening to her now, was he?

"What’s your problem, friend?” Ene sighed, leaning back onto her chair with a roll of her eyes. “Spit it out- ah?”

There was a shaky breath on the other side of the call, and Ene couldn’t control the way her stomach twisted at the sound. He didn’t respond to her at all, but she could hear quiet sobbing. Ah, shit. If there was a surefire way to make someone feel bad, he definitely found it. He probably didn’t even realize that he’d never exited out, did he? He probably would have meant to, because there was no way in hell he’d let her listen to him.

"…Master?" The word tasted bitter in her mouth, two syllables tripping over themselves. It didn’t feel right. It felt foreign, ugly coming from her right now.

"O-oi, Shintaro, are you…” she paused, staring down at her hands. What were the chances that he’d feel worse if she said something, against needing her to talk to him? 70/30? She didn’t know what he was upset about, but this was Shintaro Kisaragi. The kid just… didn’t cry, and it felt like there was an upset in the universe if he did.  Was today important? The 22nd?

But she couldn’t just… leave him like this, could she? She had to take her chances with the thirty percent. “Hey, Shintaro,” she said, her voice quiet. She wanted to back out, she wanted to pretend that this had never happened, but she forced out a voice that didn’t splinter. “Shintaro, listen to me.”

There was an abrupt silence on the other side, but looking at her screen, he hadn’t logged out. She waited for a lashing out that never came. That was encouraging, but…

"What’s going on? Here, let’s switch to video chat, hold on-"

“No." His voice sounded strained. Was he embarrassed? Okay, yeah, she could see that. She would be, too.

"It’s okay,” she sighed, pinching the bridge of her nose. “Do you seriously think I’m going to ditch you or something? You’ve sent me the weirdest files on accident, and you think I’m gonna judge you now?” She preferred to ignore the fact that that would have been perfectly valid to think. The kid was obnoxious and she loved to torment him, sure, but right now she felt an awkward desire to hug him more than anything. God damn computer screens.

She sighed, but smiled all the same.

  Crashing to the ground and in an attempt to catch himself scraping up his hands, Kano broke out into laughter, “Geez, Shin, I didn’t know you were clumsy like Momo!!" Kano was underneath him, being a little smaller than the older male wasn’t really a problem to him, but the way he was laying was making it kind of hard to breath..

  “Ah, um, could you?" Kano nudged, hoping Shintaro would get the hint to move. Almost immediately, he got up quickly and apologized profusely. Kano knew he was uncomfortable around people and maybe hurdling one to the ground, despite knowing him, made him embarrassed? Kano held out his scraped up hand and shook it a little, prompting Shin, although reluctantly, to pull Kano up. Kano was his dear older sister’s younger brother, but that didn’t necessarily mean he expected special treatment.

It had taken a bit of coaxing, well… perhaps a lot of coaxing to get Shintaro up and out of his apartment and into the streets but she had managed to do it and was proud of her efforts. 

"See, isn’t this nice~"

All she had received in response was a muffled grunt which could have had a thousand different meanings and yet none at the same time. It didn’t bother her however, she far too used to his ways to be put off by his display of grouchiness at having been removed from the comfort of his abode.

Dragging him along behind her, she took him to a quiet restaurant she had discovered not too far away from the bookstore she worked at. They served a wide range of foods from simply sandwiches to exotic pasta and seafood but at decent prices which wouldn’t each massive holes in one’s wallet.

This was her primary purpose for prying her reclusive friend from his hole, she wanted to share the wonders of cheap yet yummy cuisine. 

Shintaro didn’t seem to hide the fact that he was absolutely miserable very well, huh. Of course, Ayano wouldn’t be that happy if she was being rained on, either, but shouldn’t he have…

"Shintaro-kun, you forgot an umbrella?" Didn’t he see the forecast at all? Or at least the fact that the sky had been clouded over for the past hour? "You’re going to get soaked like that! Here, I’ve got one, share with me until we get to school!" Well, it was a little too late to keep him dry, but.

"I really don’t need it,” he grumbled, with hardly a glance in her direction, but the faint shiver in his step was enough to say otherwise.

"No, no, you really do!” Ayano insisted, taking a light hold of his shoulder. “Come on, my umbrella’s big enough for the two of us!” She lifted the hand with the umbrella held in it, perking her eyebrows with an excited grin.

"No. I said I don’t need it,” he continued on, voice as flat as ever. Was it just her, or was he walking faster? Her hand slipped off, and she puffed up with an indignant sigh.

“Shin-kun! Do you really hate my presence so much?” Although Ayano wasn’t being that serious- she still had the faintest hint of a smile on her face through the mock anger- it seemed to stop him in his tracks for a moment, and he finally looked over.

"Don’t say stupid things like that," Shintaro shot back, "and besides. Do you really like my company that much?” …well then.

"Of course I do!" Ayano’s voice rose, and this time the frustration was real. Why did he have to ask such silly things! "Even if you’re really, really mean to me! You’re my friend, right?"

He opened his mouth for a reply, but closed it again. What was he planning on saying-? There was silence for a moment. Finally, Shintaro hesitantly reached over to clasp the umbrella. Ayano couldn’t really tell what he was thinking, but she was beaming.

"Lift your hand up more," he said shortly. "You’re too small to reach my height like that." He was going to listen to her for once! She raised her arm more than was really comfortable, but she’d stand it for now.

"See? Now you can be nice and dry! I told you it would work out!" Even something like this felt like a huge victory to her, which was kind of embarrassing, but it made Ayano happy all the same. Shintaro wouldn’t do it if he couldn’t stand her, right? 

"Yeah, yeah, whatever. Let’s just not be late."