Work Text:
They’re Gr-r-reat!
Author’s Note: Enjoy the story and R&R.
Disclaimer: I do not own anything related to or of the Shinkalion franchise.
Pairing: Established Ginga x Nagara.
Summary:
Nagara has Ginga all figured out.
“Annnd, he’s ALL CLEAR!” Nagara lunged where there were people and swiped his arms in opposite directions, forcing those behind Ginga to tiptoe in reverse to avoid being caught by his crossing hands.
The polished smile Ginga normally displayed was creaking and on the brink of rupturing. “Hrhrhrhr…Hardly. I hope snaggin’ th’ snack ya were lookin’ fer at th’ shop was worth my dignity!”
Nagara had left Ginga in line for the first meal of the day to purchase said snack. Many places in Japan were still cash-only, thus Nagara received a lump of change and used it as his excuse for not double-backing promptly.
The distance from the shop to the buffet was two minutes max. A straight hallway and one turn! How much of a difference would a pocket of coins have on a peak athlete predisposed to charging into action, whatever the circumstance?
What, Ginga expected Nagara to sprint indoors? Incurring the stiff rebuke of the black-suited, individually mic’d security personnel?
He’d dare to try. He was Anjo Nagara!
Ginga was seething a smidge along the outer edges of his otherwise flawless face. They were first in line to dine (Nagara accustomed to early starts, and Ginga as a result of the intense preparations singing/dancing demanded), yet the moment the doors opened, their party wasn’t all present.
“I was three minutes late, Ginga! Don’t be such a tightwad! I’m not the dumb company boss that decided most places around here wouldn’t carry GariGarikun bars!”
Rivalry between cities, Nagara alleged, was the root of this food-based discrimination. A regional dispute evocative of the warlords Takeda Shingen and Uesugi Kenshin.
“Ginga? Did he say Ginga?”
“It is! That’s Arashiyama Ginga!”
“Who’s that? Somebody famous?”
“CAN I TOUCH YOUR HAIR?”
Ginga laughed and waved. Tinted sunglasses and a scarf over his mouth put forth minimal camouflage when Nagara identified him to folks by name.
…
Nagara wasn’t skimping on the milk, filling his bowl right up with the milk jug in the ice bucket so his cereal floated alarmingly close to the surface.
Ginga watched the corn flakes swish side to side in the milk as Nagara walked back to the table. If there was a saving grace, it was that Nagara had both hands around the rim of the bowl to keep it relatively stable, but that did not mean Ginga wasn’t holding his breath until the bowl was safely out of the air and Nagara parked his keister.
This also meant Nagara’s thumbs were dunked partway in milk during the round trip to the breakfast counter. Nagara cleaned them by sucking and then drying them on his napkin before gathering up his spoon.
It really was like watching a child make a mess at mealtime in a booster chair. Only, it was in your best interest this child not begin kicking and screaming, because a kick from Nagara could do a fair hunk of damage. The type requiring professional medical assistance.
“Ya had me worried fer a second!”
“You worry about the weirdest things, Ginga!” Nagara snickered, crunching down on his corn flakes. “But admit it: You wouldn’t know what to do without drama in your life!”
“Wot? Excuse me? Are ya insinuatin’ I enjoy things chaotic?”
Plain cereal was pretty bland and boring.
“Ginga, please. Before you joined Team Shinkalion, we all agreed Shin should be leader. Then you showed up challenging Shin to a duel so you could be center! You were supremely into it!”
“Ahem. Whose idea was it t’ duel fer leadership on Ganryu Island where ’nybody could gawk at us? In our Shinkalion? Wasn’t that you, Nagara?”
Granted, the photographer Hanabi, Taiju, and Yamakasa scrambled desperately to distract by claiming they saw a giant whale out on the water was ultimately revealed as their enemy snooping right under their noses. Ginga’s argument nonetheless stood.
“I was fulfilling the role you wanted me to play, Ginga!”
“Role?”
“Come on, now. You were so into me! Even then! Even now as I sit here making fun of you!”
“I’m re-evaluatin’.”
“No you’re not.”
“If I’m not anythin’, I’m not takin’ yer take on how I feel seriously! Ya accuse me of livin’ off drama? After yer very loud an’ public disagreement with th’ foreigner over thur by th’ self-serve tofu?”
It wasn’t a disagreement.
“I’m loud all the time, in case you forgot!” Nagara didn’t have to yell, but did anyway. “And that foreigner with the uncombed beard and glasses was just a lactose intolerant American with a problem telling whether the rolled omelette has milk in it! I let him know it doesn’t, so he wasn’t at risk of becoming sick and having to lock himself in the toilet!”
Ginga quietly relocated his chair farther from the table to be out of the splash zone of Nagara’s yelling. A wet, ticklish kiss on the cheek, Ginga wouldn’t object to. Spit flying at him constantly while Nagara shot off his mouth though? No thanks, he’d pull out an umbrella to stay dry if he had to!
The counter across from where the American and Nagara had been, there was an egg station functioning at optimum efficiency. The vacationer could’ve feasted his eyes upon the chefs cooking his eggs in front of him, sidestepping the possibility of milk finding its way into his eggs altogether.
“Thot’s it?”
“Yeah. Supremely dramatic, Ginga! This is what I’m talking about! You’re fishing for stuff to bitch about! Hell, we hadn’t sat down, and you already made a scene out of my being late a few minutes! I’m calling it, Ginga! You are A DRAMA QUEEN!”
Nagara’s upper lip was frosted with milk while saying this, and it was driving Ginga crazy. So much so, he was ignoring the content of Nagara’s biting (yet also wholly accurate) comments.
“Nagara, ya’ve got a little somethin’ –”
“The milk above my lip? I know. I’m not wiping it off. You’re welcome.”
Drama. Chaos. Nagara had Ginga all figured out.
Superiority. Rightly earned bluster. Ginga had Nagara all figured out too.
“WELCOME FER WOT?”