#dilfcember

 "I--what--I mean, no! But--or, yes, rather, or--" Hakoda snaps his mouth shut, flustered by his own...fluster. And by the fact that he doesn't want to say no. Traditionally the answer is yes, and traditionally Hakoda would never ask unless he already knows its a yes, but also, "I just asked you to take your shirt off."

Bato somehow raises an eyebrow at him and eyes him askance through his lashes at the same time, pointed.

"Your scar," Hakoda defends himself, waving the salve at...something. "In the weather--and burns can tighten up, and..."

"And you wanted to feel up my chest?" Bato cuts in, teasing and kneeling up to make a show of flexing like one of those ridiculous wrestling posters they find all over the Earth Kingdom ports for the Earth Racket or whatever its called. "You know you just had to ask, 'Koda."

Hakoda sputters wordlessly in his own defense, mortified to realize he's blushing as he suddenly thinks about it, which--what. He and Bato have been friends since before they could walk. They've swum and sweated and bathed together, bunked down and huddled up. Since when does the idea of Bato's chest--

"'Koda." Hakoda starts, bobbling the salve and clutching it to his chest, his heart pounding from the near-miss as he looks back at Bato's suddenly serious face. "You only ever have to ask."

I know, Hakoda almost says, except that feels too serious somehow, and also like maybe that thing is happening where he gets all caught up in the wrong things.

"Yeah, well," he says inanely instead, fumbling for what to say next. Ship and spear, he's being weird. He can tell he's being weird. He needs to stop being weird, so Bato doesn't think he finds his burn scar off putting or shameful or-- "Just looking out for my bud. Gotta keep that right hand mobile, right?" he teases weakly, mustering a grin. "That's what friends do."

Bato stares at him a long moment, still in a way Hakoda doesn't know how to read, and Hakoda is suddenly achingly aware of that fact, and the weird buzzing feeling in his chest, and also that his grin his going to edge into grimace territory in a few more--