nothing could possibly go wrong here [hyousuke/aki]

"Mm-hmm. You're the first victim in my elaborate, convoluted plan to get all heroes framed and imprisoned," Aki answered, and inched his plate further from Hyousuke's reach in a deliberate motion. As he spoke, he carved off a chunk of the omurice, easing a carefully-proportioned amount of the rice, egg and ketchup onto his spoon. "You've found me out, but, alas. You're too late."

To punctuate his statement, he shoved the spoon into his mouth with a flourish. Fast. Like ripping off a plaster. The chewing and swallowing, unfortunately, had to take longer. The rice sat on his tongue as he chewed; Aki prepared himself to school his face into something placid and accepting, readying the sort of expression he made when dinners served concoctions like salmon foam -- and was mildly surprised to find that he didn't have to. It tasted... like rice. A little bland, a little greasy from the butter, but it was unmistakably rice. It was edible. He swallowed, and dabbed at his lip demurely with a knuckle.

"It's -- " exquisite, he would have said, if this had been a house party, and Hyousuke was some up-and-coming business partner of his parents, fishing for praise for his latest culinary experiment. This didn't call for that sort of flattery; and, if anything, Hyousuke looked like he knew it wasn't a masterpiece. " -- not bad."

He scooped up more rice, once again portioning out each component, making sure got a little bit everything neatly balanced on his spoon. "Though, I wouldn't be opposed to getting something sweet to chase this down with."

Something in Aki's stomach loosened, when Hyousuke's expression softened. That prickly sensation that had been needling at him since he first accosted Hyousuke lightening, somewhat. Outwardly, however, his behaviour hardly changed; he clasped a hand over his heart, a scandalized forty year-old housewife.

"Oh, you mean you don't have your juice freshly-squeezed from fruits picked by hand from your personal orchard? Oh, you poor souls. 

"Thank you, kind sir, for sparing me your orange juice in your time of need." He reached across the table for the carton, lips pursing as he read off the label. "Drink. Orange drink. Whatever it lacks in flavour, it makes up for in honesty, I'm sure."

He unscrewed the plastic cap, and peered inside the carton. It looked orange, and smelled, somehow, orange-r than orange, tart and chemically sweet. He had doubts how much of the fruit was actually in there -- the label certainly didn't inspire any confidence on that front. Still, the day had already proven itself to be one of experimentation and new frontiers. If it made it onto a store shelf, it couldn't be that bad, could it?

He tipped the carton, and poured a thumbnail's depth of drink into his cup, before loosely replacing the cap and sliding the carton over to Hyousuke's side of the table.

"Bottom's up," he murmured, took a sip

-- and froze. The pleasant façade he hadn't had to use for the omurice snapped into place as he placed the cup back on the table.

"It's... very flavorful," he said, diplomatic and peaceable and trying very hard to resist his tongue's urge to shrivel up.

How can something be too sweet?

"You would think the school would spare funds for some actual juice, what with you hero children being the rising stars of our generation and all." Now that it had been established that there was no one at the table who particularly fond of Orange Drink, Aki didn't bother to hide his little moue of disgust, wincing in sympathy as Hyousuke took a swig. "How do you intend to save hapless citizens, if you're too busy dying of scurvy?"

He tapped at the side of his cup, nails tinkling lightly against the ceramic, before he leaned back in his chair, letting out a muted sigh. 

"Unfortunately, I only drink distilled spring water, and Godiva hot chocolate. Neither of which, I think, are readily available here." With a flippant shrug, he reached over the table, gesturing for Hyousuke to hand him the carton.  

"Plus, I've only just gotten started on this gastronomic adventure. It'd be a pity if I threw in the towel here -- I still have to work my way up to the legendary Instant Noodles."

It wasn't as if it would kill him. Probably. He'd just have to brush his teeth a little more thoroughly when he got home.

"Aw," Aki channeled as much raw disappointment as he could into that single syllable. "And here I thought that you'd be my gallant chaperone through the brave new world of budget diets. You don't suppose that there'd be any instant noodles flavoured with truffle? Wouldn't like to give my digestive system any rude shocks."

As he spoke, he leaned over the table, snagging the carton of Drink with his fingertips. He tugged it closer to himself, shaking at it lightly, trying to estimate how much of the concoction was left. The sharp, sweet smell of chem-lab oranges wafted into his nose. It smelled like a punch, he thought, somewhat sardonically, before tipping some more of the drink -- not much, but more than his initial thumbnail's worth -- into his cup.

He finished pouring when he was done speaking, setting the carton down again in the middle of the table. With a hand, he swirled the neon orange liquid around the cup for a second, as if he were aerating wine, before bringing it to his lips and taking a gulp -- not a big one, but larger than his initial sip. The synthetic flavour that bloomed on his tongue still made him want to spit, but he spooned a blanket of omurice over it; it tasted almost good in comparison. White wine was to fish as Orange Drink was to omurice, apparently -- insofar as people used mouthfuls of fish to wash the taste of wine out of their mouths.

Still, the faster they got through the drink, the faster Hyousuke -- and the other starving Hero Course students -- could get their hands some proper not-Drink juice. Aki wasn't heartless enough to just let them just languish in malnutrition. 

"Though by this point," he started, once he had finished swallowing, spoon dangling downwards between his fingers to point at the half-eaten plate of omurice, "I think I've already hit the proverbial salty-goop ground running."

"Multiculturalist." Aki lifted his index finger, counting up as he listed down. "An intrepid explorer, worldly-wise, reckless daredevil." He stuck up his pinky, and wiggled his five raised fingers. "Bedridden from dysentery."

He took another gulp of the Drink, and then another. Years of etiquette classes were the paper-thin barrier keeping his face from morphing into a full-on grimace. There was something almost medicinal about the flavour -- like oversweetened children's medicine. A full-body detox with sugarfilled drain cleaner.

Still, he drained the cup, slowly but steadily. When it was finally empty, he set it back on the table with a quiet thrill of triumph, some of that childish glee bubbling into the upward twitch of his lips. Small victories.

"Don't worry, I'll take it slow. Slow-ish," he said. "Orange Drink today, frozen pizza dinners tomorrow. I'll even bring back a souvenir for you, when I finally entrust my delicate constitution to the unforgiving, greasy hands of Wonald WacDonald."

Eager to wash the leftover dredges of the Drink off his tongue, he scooped another mouthful of omurice into his spoon. The plate was almost clean. In only few more bites -- or one large, over-enthusiastic choking hazard -- he'd finish off what Hyousuke had put together. "What do you do though, if not the common man's staple meal of burgers and fries? Aside from omurice and orange-less Orange Drink."

Aki almost faltered at the mention of the Sports Festival. He took a bite of his omurice, chewed methodically, and swallowed the guilt rising up his oesophagus. The rice settled in his gut, leaden and uneasy. "I'll be patient," he answered, shrugging as if unperturbed. He kept his eyes on Hyousuke's face, on his own hands as he scooped more rice into his spoon, and not Hyousuke's hands, his bandages a flash of white just out of his vision. "Carve a space out of my schedule just to taste-test your culinary masterpiece. I'll pen it down in my diary, and everything."

Reaching across the table, he hooked a finger around the side of Hyousuke's glass. Careful not to spill the liquid almost brimming out of the cup, he gave it a short, insistent tug, pulling it an inch towards him.

"Let's go halfsies," he said. "I have to build a tolerance before taking on the Big Wac. And you -- " he jabbed the end of his spoon in Hyousuke's direction " -- need to not die of scurvy before the Sports Festival."

An eye for an eye; mangled hands before a crucial event for some temporarily deadened tastebuds. He couldn't magically undo Hyousuke's burns -- but he could stomach an overly-sweet drink that probably wasn't toxic. 

"Oh," Aki said aloud. Oh.

The whole thing? Well. It was a fair exchange. An eye for an eye, etcetera. He could drink it, no problem. He slid the glass the rest of the way across the table, and raised it up into his cupped hands. The liquid sloshed out of the side, narrowly missing his gloves. There, the glass hovered mid-air and unmoving for a few seconds, as Aki stared down into its dubious orange depths.

His gaze flicked up. The start of a whine about "halfsies" rose on the tip of his tongue, when he met Hyousuke's eyes -- and saw the upturn of his lips.

Oh?

He adjusted grip more securely around the glass. "Fortunately, I'm up-to-date with all my vaccinations."

He brought the glass up to his lips with a quick inhale -- the sort of breath someone would take before cannonballing into a pool. As demurely as he could, without once breaking eye contact with Hyousuke, he started to chug. The too-sweet, too-sharp taste of the drink hit his tongue, the too-orange smell punching up his nose; he reached deep into his formative years, grasped at the hours he spent dawdling around etiquette classes, and kept his expression blank. Unclouded. Meditative.

It took a while before he drained the cup. Eyes still locked onto Hyousuke's, expression as peaceful and still as the Buddha, he angled the glass upwards to catch the last drops of the drink, before breaking his gaze at last to place the glass gingerly back down onto the table.

"If my skin turned orange in the next few hours," he asked, mildly, "do you think I'd have a case against them?"