Lime, salt, mint

By Alice in June

Disclaimer: CCS and Nodame Cantabile is not mine. They belong to their respective owners. Please don't sue. Also the story resembling King Lear is from a kids' show that I watched ages ago.

Lime

“I should have studied astrophysics,” Nakuru snorts.

She has always hated paperwork.

Nakuru's hair is a chocolate brown wave resting on Yukito's white linen shirt.

He likes these evenings with her. He likes their banter. He likes listening to her rants. In a way he enjoys her teasing him the way he enjoys deflecting her sarcasm.

There's this intimate quality to their time together. He jokes about it sometimes.

(But they both know he's serious.)

“You want the parties but you don't want the paperwork,” he teases.

He's almost done editing the mistakes scripts, tomorrow he'll hand it in.

“Oh I want the parties, but don't think I don't deserve it.”

She's confident and on his best days, her confidence rubs off on him.

“I know you do” he says absent-mindedly. He wonders if the kissing scene is inappropriate and at the sound of

Nakuru's pen scribbling, he thinks that it isn't.

“Done!”

He grins widely when he looks at her.

“You're so smug” she takes of her eyes of the papers to flick his ear.

“You're smug all the time,” he reminds her.

It's true; Nakuru is the one with the bigger pay cheque. She gets to go the celebrities' birthdays and then she gets to boss them around the day after.

“Any reason why I shouldn't be?” She smirks at him.

Nakuru sits up and slides down the couch and sits beside Yukito. Her paperwork is forgotten and the remote control is reached for.

Yukito, too, puts aside his own papers and looks at the television.

He feels the warmth radiating off of her skin and he feels grateful for something but he can't remember what it is.

Nodame Cantabile is on.

“I think the kiss is a bold move, Tsukishiro.” Nakuru is so serious that he thinks he'll burst into laughter.

“I'm not challenging the school principal, am I?”

“No, but you have to keep in mind that Rei Kisaragi is the senior producer's daughter. If she's not happy, he won't be either.”

Chiaki says something about bear meat in the background.

“It's just a kiss.”

“Of course, it's just a kiss but Rei can't stand Hiroshi.”

“Ah, but her character, Misao has a thing for his character, Itachi.”

“You're so naïve.”

She's quiet for a while.

He wonders for a second if she's going to say something about him the ingénue writer who thinks he's got this big break and her being the seasoned proffesional.

“Luckily, you've got me. And I've got excellent managerial skills.”

He's spent way too much time with her.

She smiles and her eyes twinkle.

“Lucky me.” He adjusts his glasses and returns her smile.

“Hey, Yukito.”

He shifts closer to her.

“Yeah?”

“I heard Hiroyuki asked you to be his date to the gala.”

Hiroyuki is the handsome, extremely flirtatious casting director and sometimes Yukito almost swears that he's seen Hiroyuki make eyes at a hibiscus plant.

“He hit on me but nothing more happened.”

He's never really had a thing, or at least a serious thing for anyone since Touya.

Except for maybe now.

“So you're free for Thursday?”

“I am.”

He's worried for a second.

“I thought you were going to go the party.”

“And what miss our sacrifice special Thursday night? And, I've been telling you that I'm not interested in the gala. Oh Yuki-chan, you never listen to me etcetera etcetera etcetera.”

He almost frowns.

“You're not staying for our special Thursday,” he tells her, trying to be cheeky.

“Really?” She asks sarcastically.

He smiles at her and shrugs.

She gives him a penetrating gaze.

“Tsukishiro, you do know that as sad as it is, I skip dinners and parties so you and I can have fascinating conversations about whether or not Nodame can change her ways.”

His stomach feels strange. His body feels light in a way.

“I don't remember you being stupid in school so don't tell me you want me to think that you're this dense and you don't get hints. I don't like bullshit.”

“Maybe I need something more than a hint,” he replies with a boldness that he even did not expect.

She leans in close to him and their breaths mingle.

His heart races.

This is too soon. Where is the buildup? I need more time to make the romance between the characters believable.

She looks at her and he knows that she can hear everything he's thinking.

He feels akward but he's trying not to feel so unsure in his skin.

She touches his cheek.

“Just say yes,” she whispers.

“Yes.”

And the pressure in his body drains out of him from the point where their skins meet.

She closes the chasm between them and presses her mouth to his and like a reflex, closes his eyes.

Nakuru lips are soft and she smells nice, like lime (like something wonderful).

(He thinks that she would be more aggressive but she's acting restrained.)

She pulls away and takes off his glasses.

“I might need them, you know.”

“Oh, why Yukito, don't worry, I always lead the blind.”

Yukito has to swallow his retort and something else when Nakuru kisses him again, this time with less inhibition.

She licks his lower lip and lets her long tongue slide into the warmth of his mouth. He puts his arms around her waist and her small hips press against his elbows.

Her breasts press against his chest.

The only word that comes to his mind is 'wow'.

She pulls away after a while and his eyes are glossy.

“I've wanted to do that for a while,” she grins and presses a peck to his cheek.

“I guess my glasses got in the way.”

He takes his glasses and puts them on again.

He smiles at her and puts his arm around her waist again. He puts his head on her shoulder.

The show has about 5 minutes left until it's over and that's when Yukito gives Nakuru a peck on the neck.

He tastes lime.

“Hey, Nakuru?”

“Yeah?”

“Do you think your perfume oils are toxic, because I think I licked some off of your neck?”

She giggles.

Salt

“Touya” she whispers.

She's sitting up and he's lying down.

“Hmm?” Touya opens his eyes and looks up at the celing.

“Talk to me.”

“About what?”

“I don't know, tell me a story.”

“Is the volume of Ranma that you're reading boring?”

It's not meant to be insensitive but it comes out like that.

“It's not boring,” she replies. “We just don't get to talk to each other much these days.”

She strokes his forehead.

This has been a busy week at the hotel, he's had to work till 2 AM and he'll have to get back to work in four hours. She knows that while he's cutting and chopping food in the kitchen, he's thinking of the warm bed that they're both lying on right now.

“I know.”

He's not very sentimental and she finds it appealing. He's not demanding of her either and she's grateful.

Last week, she had a fashion show and this week it's the Fukushima wedding. These days it's always something.

“I miss you.”

This is the mundane but very real part of her life and her marriage. It's saying the saying the small, trite things because sometimes there isn't anything else to say and sometimes those things are just the truth.

“I miss you, too. I think about you at work. When I look at the salmons or geoducks, I see your face in their faces and I don't feel like slicing them up.”

“You're gross” she snorts.

He laughs.

“Hey,” he whispers. “Let's go somewhere next week.”

“Oh, where?”

“Anywhere.”

“I have a wedding to attend next week. My university roommate Maiko is getting married.”

There's a silence. Weddings mean introductions. It means condescending little conversations about, 'oh you're a industry big name and you married a chef'. It's something that annoys Touya and it affects Tomoyo in other ways.

“Do you want me to go?”

He is not antisocial but he is more introverted than he is extroverted.

“I want her to see you,” she twirls his hair between her fingers.

Tomoyo is always elegant in her speech because when people have the 'so you're husband is a chef' conversation with her, she replies 'and so you're wife thinks that shopping is a profession'.

He once told her that he thinks it's fucking out of the world how she manages to handle those questions without coming off like a bitch (coming off as the very opposite of a bitch, in fact).

“You know there's part of me that's thinking that you should send her a picture. I want you to know that I don't expect you to endorse that part of me.”

“Why don't you want to go?”

He moves his mouth, wanting to say something but he stops.

“Tomoyo, I'll go if you want me to but I don't want to stay for long. I haven't had some time to myself for a while now. I even skipped the manager's son's wedding so I could sleep in.”

He sighs.

“We won't stay long, I promise.”

“Thanks.”

She looks down at him. And honestly, he's a vision. He would find this observation embarrassing (not that he minds compliments from his wife) because he finds that flattery makes him feel akward.

He has a dark circles under his eyes (he won't let her apply any of that eye gel crap on him, he thinks that the the circles will go away on their own). But he still looks so handsome. His nose his regal and his lashes are so long. She stares at him and wonders why she hadn't noticed how the thickness and darkness of his hair before today.

“You look like a prince out of storybook.”

“I have feelings, you know.” He mumbles, eyes closed.

“No, you really look like a prince.”

He looks at her with eyes wide open.

“I want you to tell me a fairytale.”

Her request is ridiculous and she knows that.

“Whatever they're serving you at the board meetings, I want some of it.”

“Give us a story, Touya.”

She thinks that maybe he will make a joke about how no one should be an only child because then he or she will always ends up spoiled. She's not spoiled but if she were, he would not be helping her with that problem.

She looks at him and she knows that she will find him compliant.

He chuckles.

He looks out the window and sees that the sky is a pale shade of lavender.

“You know there's a play by Shakespeare called 'King Lear'. So the main character has three daughters and he asks them how much they all love him. And so two of the daughters give him detailed and flattering declarations about their love for him but the youngest one gives an honest and brief answer- she says 'I love you like salt loves meat' and then he disinherits her. I don't remember too much about the play but I think he makes the wrong move in disinheriting her.

There's another variation of that story. In the variation, two of his daughters tell him that they love him like 'honey' and 'sugar'. He thinks that their confessions are sweet and so he's disappointed with the youngest one's answer. Later, he's on this trip to the woods and they accompany him with their husbands. He gets so hungry that he's practically straving so he asks all of them to cook something for him. The eldest two cook meat dishes and both of them over sweetened. The youngest, however, cooked a meat dish that had the right amount of salt.”

She looks at him attentively.

He swallows and turns to look at her.

He has soulful blue eyes under his dark lashes.

“You know I always think about you when I remember that story.”

“Oh, why is that now?”

“Because I love you like salt loves meat. Does that make sense?”

His eyes brim over with love and his mouth curls into a smile.

Tomoyo leans over to kiss him and he returns her kiss warmly.

“It does,” she whispers against his mouth.

He rolls over to the other side of the bed.

She has had love letters from so many admirers. There were many poets and two photographers who liked her. She was flattered by their words, their art and their seeming devotion to immortalize her in the form of art.

Touya is an artist his own way. Cooking is his art. However, he, unlike those who came before him, does not know not anything about flattering girls with words. Everything he says is sincere and meaningful. He was successful in his wooing her because he was honest about his feelings and his love for her.

She kisses his head and she turns away from him. She turns on the lamplight.

The light is focused on the hand-autographed comic book.

She reads while he sleeps.

Mint

'It's been so long since I was inside a university canteen.'

This was never their first choice for the venue of their first date but it turned to be the most convenient.

She sees pink mouths around white bread and lean fingers around green straws.

Everyone around them is young and there are conversations about physics, chemistry, literature and parties.

She wonders if he feels nostalgic on a regular basis.

'You know I think the last time I set foot in a university was during my bachelors in Harvard.'

She looks at him and he looks back, innocuously.

'Oh, Daidouji-chan, I don't think our relationship will progress beyond this date. I did my PhD from MIT.'

She laughs and how can she not?

She places her hand on the blue table and he looks at her.

His hand is inches away from hers and she sees him contemplating whether or not he should reach out for her hand.

She's been described as dynamic, aggressive and fearless by all the business magazines and the media.

She looks at his hand and she thinks that she should be the one to reach out for his hand.

Dynamic, aggressive, fearless.

Her hand slides towards him and then …

'Kinomoto-sensei,' a tall man says and as if on cue, they both remove their hands from the table. 'I see you're

with your friend over here, it's nice to meet you.'

The man has a wide smile on his face and he has two bowls in each hand.

She smiles back at him, feeling a little uncomfortable.

'It's nice to meet you, too.'

'I have these for you.' He sets down the two bowls on the table. 'Compliments from the chef.'

'And also from me,' Fujitaka adds. 'But Sakamura-san was gracious enough to obtain these and keep them for me.'

The man nods at him and he leaves.

Sonomi looks at the contents of her bowl.

It looks like white ice.

'It's iced sorbet,' he informs her. 'It's wonderful, try it.'

She takes a spoonful the sorbet and tastes it.

The sensation that follows is lovely and her tongue feels cool.

'This is mint flavoured.'

'Mine is strawberry flavoured,' he says with his mouth half-full.

Pink liquid trickles down from the corner of his mouth and he wipes his chin with a tissue paper.

She should turned be turned off but her reaction is the opposite.

She take another spoon of the sorbet hoping that the coolness of the sorbet will flow from her tongue to her face.

Today, he is attractive, not only in manner but in looks too.

'This is called ice from heaven in Iran.'

'Is that what you learned in Food Science 101, sensei?' She asks, raising an eyebrow.

'No, I had this Arab colleague who was with me in this expedition in Egypt and he told me about ice sorbet. I had this in Egypt about 15 years ago. It was a wonderful experience.'

Sonomi thinks of Egypt. She thinks of dry deserts, cool lakes and marbled domes. She thinks of the burning sun and the iridsecent moon. She thinks of a little girl with lilac eyes.

'I went to Egypt, once. I wanted to take Tomoyo but it was a business trip.' There is part of her that tells to her stop talking but for some reason, she doesn't pay heed to that part. 'I left her behind because of so many business trips. I could have taken her with me. I could let her spend more time with her mother.'

She doesn't mean to sound self-pitying and she feels embarassed.

An old woman counting her woes.

Ugh.

'You made good decisions as a parent. You did a great job of raising her,' he reassures her.

He doesn't sound like he pities her.

He sounds like he respects her.

'Sometimes people tell me that she was partly responsible for her own upbringing.'

She sees herself in her mind's eye. There's sarcasm in her smile.

She can do this, she thinks.

She's not ashamed of the way Tomoyo gew up.

'I can't judge other people, Sonomi. I let Touya do my job sometimes.'

'We're not pitying ourselves, just to be clear,' she says with a hint of playfulness under her severity.

'No, of course, we're not. Why would we be?'

His voice is casual.

'If you were anymore charming, I would be worried about you.'

'I'm not very good at charming, people.'

She smirks at him, thinking bullshit.

She thinks of things to say to him.

What will they talk about?

Their children's education? Their jobs? The weather?

She thinks of things to say to him but when she thinks of moving her lips, the words become stale in her mouth.

She thinks that now would be a good time to ask him about the event. She was going to ask him next week, anyway.

'Fujitaka-san, there is a ball that I am going to attend on the 13th of the next month. I want you to be my date.'

Her words come out with like a command.

She observes his poker face.

'If you don't have any plans, of course,' she adds, lowering her voice.

'I don't. It would be an honour to accompany you.'

He looks enthusiastic.

His enthusiasm is almost infectious.

She used to immune to his charm. What had happened to her?

'Good. I didn't want to have to see if anyone else was available.' She clears her throat. 'I have to warn you though that you will be meeting obnoxious windbags. Don't be surprised if someone makes some condescending comment about you not being old money. There are going to be annoying snobs over there.'

'Oh, I'm not worried,' he begins to explain, calmly and she looks at him, surprised. 'There may be old money snobs at the ball but I'm an intellectual snob. I am worse than they are.'

There's the crookedness of his mouth and the dimple on his cheek.

She giggles.

Daidouji Sonomi actually giggles.

Daidouji Sonomi might start acting like a stupid drunk teenager who has a crush.

She has another spoon of her sorbet in vain.

'Have a bit of mine,' he offers as he extends the spoon towards.

He looks at her with no expectation of being turned down.

She looks at the spoon.

Daidouji Sonomi is not a stupid drunk teenager who has a crush.

She eats the sorbet off the spoon.

It tastes pleasant.

He looks at her.

This is romance.

This is what she missed out on.

This is … not half bad.

She sees a girl behind Fujitaka who's looking at them. The girl turns her head away the instant she notices Sonomi's eyes.

Sonomi has been told that she possesses expressive eyes. Sonomi's eyes aren't just expressive. They have a voice and when she looked at that girl, her eyes scolded, 'What is your problem?'

'That girl isn't in your class is she?' She asks, irritated.

He turns back to glance at the girl.

'No, I think that she might be in the business faculty.'

She observes him and for a second, she could have almost sworn that he blushed.

'We're out of place in here, aren't we?' He asks, shyness creeping in his voice.

They are out of place in here in so many ways.

'Thank you for coming here, Daidouji-chan and thank you for asking me to be your date.' His voice is gentle but firm.

'You're welcome,' she replies.

She eats another spoon of the sorbet.

She stops eating when she feels the sudden sensation of warmth on her hand.

She feels his hand touching her hand under the table.

She raises her eyes to look at him, slowly.

He has the smallest smile on his mouth and the smile reaches his eyes.

His eyes are brown and like her eyes, they too have a voice.

She hears a request.

She bites her lip.

This is is something that she has avoided for so long. This is something that she likes.

She returns his smile and squeezes his hand.