AN: I started this story a long while ago and finally decided to finish it (I've got at least two other half-finished fanfics going). You have to read the beginning of this story with a dirty mind or it's not going to make sense. I wrote their dialogue with double-entendres in mind. Some other notes:

Headphones President is a Japanese nu-metal band (categorized by ) that I would recommend.

Malice Mizer is an example of the Visual Kei style of Japanese Rock that is quite popular now; Wikipedia and Google can tell you more.

Koda Kumi is a famous Japanese pop star.

Blood type dispenser: Japan has vending machines that sell everything from soda to lobsters to condoms to beer; sometimes it's categorized by blood type in accordance with Japanese stereotypes.

Gochisousama (deshita) is a set phrase for after the meal, something like "Thanks for the food."

SHUNK. Sunako chopped vegetables into immaculate pieces with overzealous viciousness. The liquids spilled onto the cutting board and pooled beneath the bleeding plant, soaking her knife in its innards.

"Good job, Sunako-chan, you killed the tomato," Kyohei praised.

The ghostly teenager did not reply, but merely gutted the next botanic victim with the enthusiasm of a serial killer.

"So," he continued, trying a new topic, "you never told me what we're having for dinner tonight?"

"Pasta. Pass me that tomato." She gestured with her elbow to the rolling red vegetable (or fruit?) making a futile bid for freedom.

Takano Kyohei snatched it and passed it between his hands casually, leaning his back against the countertop. "American style tonight?"

She answered without looking at him, "I thought we'd switch things up a little. We can't do the same thing every single night."

He pursed his lips thoughtfully—or rather like he needed some kind of muscle action to jumpstart his brain. "Did you have something… special in mind?"

Sunako looked over at him suddenly. "It's time for dinner, remember?"

He accidentally made eye contact with Ranmaru as his focus swept absently across the table; he swallowed wrong and choked. Ranmaru watched him cough like he expected something stolen to fall out of his mouth.

"Don't cough on the food!" Sunako snapped, wrenching the tomato from his grasp and rinsing it thoroughly before impaling it on her unnecessarily large knife.

"Don't worry everyone, I'm fine," wheezed Kyohei sarcastically.

"Are you OK, Kyohei?" Yuki looked genuinely concerned as he bounced into the kitchen, but Ranmaru returned his attention to his music magazine. "Is that Headphones President? I thought you were more of a Visual Kei guy, Ran-chan."

"I do have some old Malice Mizer CDs, but ever since Kami died it just hasn't been the same," he elaborated, but Kyohei flipped over and rested his elbows on the counter, getting comfortable to bug Sunako-chan some more.

"So I don't get this, uh, pasta stuff," he began, indicating the tomato carcasses with a jerk of his head. "How does it work?"

Sunako paused, her eyes flickering once behind her to Yuki and Ranmaru, who seemed reasonably distracted by the wonders of Japanese men dressed like 17th century French girls. "You've been pulling late nights at the library with Takenaga prepping for finals, so you haven't been home for… dinner. I thought we would do something a little different, remind you why you miss coming home."

Kyohei grinned, his eyes glassy. "You're a great cook."

She made no verbal response, but perhaps held her head a little higher over the tomato remains she swept into the bowl.

"How do you… make pasta?"

Sunako began mixing the ingredients, but the slight twitches of her mouth told Kyohei she was choosing her words with care. "Well… first you need a kitchen. I know you've never made edible food before, so you don't exactly know your way around one, but you'll get used to it."

"A. Kitchen." His brow furrowed and he mulled this over. "Wow, damn Sunako-chan, I never thought of making pasta in a kitchen before, you must be some kinda genius to have thought of that. I was gonna suggest the basement, but…"

"Don't get me wrong, I've considered the basement," she answered lightly. "But I've decided the kitchen has more useful things here."

"Right." Kyohei smirked. "So what do you do once you get to the kitchen?"

She checked the pot on the stove, saw it was boiling, and ordered, "Pass me that packet there. No, you idiot, the one that says 'Pasta' on it. Big red letters. Left. That one, yes." She tore it open with a fingernail and dumped the contents unceremoniously into the pot. "Like that."

"Helpful."

Sunako ignored his sarcasm. "Get me that spoon. The wooden one. Wood is not silver, retard, how did you get to high school?"

"You're in a mood tonight," he grumbled, folding his arms and leaning against the fridge on the other side of the kitchen.

After a moment's pause, she mumbled quietly, "I don't like it when you're not here."

He frowned still, but looked somewhat mollified. "You just like when I eat your food."

Sunako dipped the wooden spoon into the pot, ruthlessly churning the noodles. "You don't seem to mind."

"It makes you happy, doesn't it?"

She snorted. "Yes," she answered with a tone of understatement, "it does make me happy."

Kyohei snuck a little closer and leaned his elbows against the counter, grinning mischievously as he pressed, "And you're so hard to please."

The wooden spoon clattered to the floor, spattering hot water onto the floor and Kyohei's bare toes. He hopped about the kitchen, howling and cursing. The boys at the table couldn't ignore him.

"That's what you get for messing around while I'm cooking," Sunako snapped. "Now go sit down at the table and be patient!"

"Why is Sunako-chan so edgy?" muttered Yuki to Ranmaru, who was slouched lazily over the back of a chair across the table.

"Whatever attempts she makes to deny the truth," proclaimed Ranmaru, shedding rose petals and pink sparkles, "Sunako-chan is a woman. She has needs that are not being satisfied." He shot a meaningful look at Kyohei, who raised an eyebrow but was clearly skeptic of Dr. Morii's diagnosis.

"And what 'needs' would those be? She's already slaughtered the vegetables, and it's illegal to sic her on humans," he retorted as Sunako began to wipe up the mess on the floor.

Ranmaru banged his fists on the table as he stood. "Womanly needs, you imbecile! You have no idea how to treat a lady, how is Sunako-chan supposed to become one?"

At this Kyohei burst out laughing. "Womanly needs!" He was shoved roughly away from the sink as Sunako rinsed off the spoon. "Ranmaru, I don't think you know Sunako-chan half as well as you imagine. You have no idea what Sunako-chan needs!"

"I wager my guess is better than yours!" Ranmaru argued, folding his arms and waiting for a comeback.

Kyohei opened his mouth as if to speak, then became acutely aware of the abrupt silence as the faucet was turned off and seemed to think better of it.

Ranmaru took this as resignation and pressed forward. "Maybe if you two stopped bickering for two seconds, you would realize you're in love."

Kyohei rolled his eyes and, seeing Sunako ready to push him out of the way again, fled quickly to the table.

"Come on, Kyohei," insisted Yuki, "you've got to admit that Sunako-chan is different to you than any other girl, right?"

"Of course she is!" he said. "I don't ask Noi to kill cockroaches for me, do I?"

With a groan of frustration, Ranmaru collapsed back into his chair. "Goddammit, that's not—forget it. You have no idea what love is. You've never been in love before, have you?"

Kyohei sank his head onto his arms and fiddled with the corners of the magazine pages across the table. "I'm hungryyyy," he moaned.

Ranmaru gasped. "You haven't, have you?"

"You've never been in love, Kyohei-kun?" asked Yuki pityingly. "That explains so much…"

"Sunako-chan, is it ready yet?" Kyohei persisted.

"Does that mean you're still a virgin?" Ranmaru hissed. Complete silence descended on the kitchen; even Sunako had stopped moving.

Kyohei sat up and tilted his chair back on two legs, faking a casual air that did not deceive anyone. "Why are we even talking about this? What were you guys talking about before, Malice Mizer?"

"Kyohei." Ranmaru's manner was more appropriate for the sick bed of a close friend than the kitchen of the mansion they rented. "Have you even kissed a girl before? Please, tell me you have, or I'm going to have to make some phone calls, and there is a lovely married woman I would hate to stand up."

"Even I've gotten to second base with this baby face," said Yuki. "You've always had girls clambering after you, surely you've…?"

Kyohei groaned. "I don't have to answer to you guys. Unlike you, I don't kiss and tell."

Ranmaru jabbed an accusing finger in his direction. "More like you don't kiss at all!"

"I've had my first kiss, okay," started Kyohei.

"With who?" Ranmaru interrupted.

"No one you know," he said hastily.

"Of course, of course," Ranmaru retorted. "Isn't that convenient."

"Who cares, though, honestly? What's the big—"

"Only someone who's never had their first kiss would be so unwilling to talk about it!" Yuki explained.

The daggers being stared were broken as Sunako set the table with a lot of extra movement blocking their line of sight. Kyohei was incredibly grateful for the spotlight shifting from him to dinner, and a delicious dinner at that. Sunako's specialty was Japanese food, but she had proved she could expand her talents to other areas as well.

Yuki mumbled something with his mouth full that Ranmaru deciphered to mean "Where's Takenaga?"

"Getting laid," he answered, struggling to eat the pasta with chopsticks while keeping his eyes trained on the fold-out of Koda Kumi.

"He's with Noi," Sunako clarified to a surprised Yuki.

"Her parents aren't home," Ranmaru added.

"They're going to a movie," Sunako countered.

"He's staying over."

"Yeah, he's gettin' lucky," agreed Kyohei, reading the magazine (or at least staring at Kumi) upside down.

Sunako frowned and twirled the noodles adeptly around her fork.

"Shit, I forgot to give him condoms," Ranmaru remembered suddenly. "I hope he thought to get some."

"There's a blood-type dispenser at the drugstore by the bus stop," said Kyohei. "He must have passed by it."

"There is? Since when?"

"Since two months ago, at least." Kyohei shrugged. Ranmaru looked thoughtful.

"Maybe… maybe I should go get some," said Yuki out loud.

"Don't push it, Yuki-chan," Ranmaru snorted, still staring admiringly at Kumi's nice… skin.

Kyohei forced back a smile and said, "Go for it, Yuki. Even if you don't use 'em for a while, it's good to have some around, right?"

This didn't seem to make him any happier, but he was appeased by Ranmaru letting him borrow the magazine while the other went out for the night.

"Don't expect me back before dawn," Ranmaru announced, making sure they all saw him pack fuzzy handcuffs, condoms, and two extra pairs of underwear. "If I'm not at school tomorrow, well, I might just be too worn out, you know?"

Yuki departed to his room shortly afterwards, nose pressed to the tour dates of Remioromen.

"Gochisousama," Kyohei burped, stacking his plate on top of the others in the sink.

"That's OK, don't bother washing them or anything. I'm not tired from cooking for all of you and I was really looking forward to washing the dishes too."

Kyohei tossed her a look, surprised by the level of bite in her sarcasm, but turned on the faucet. After a moment, he heard Sunako grab her apron and joined him with a sigh.

"You're so slow, let me do it," she said, snatching the sponge from him.

"All right, you know what, cut it out," Kyohei retorted. "There's no reason to get snippy with me just 'cause Takenaga's out with Noi and Ranmaru's out with whoever and I've been actually studying for once—"

Sunako threw the sponge down into the sink, splattering water on her apron and face. She seemed so frustrated she couldn't even decide what angry words to throw at him first. She settled with splashing water from the still-running faucet into his face.

"What the… So that's how you want to play it, huh?" He reached over to the faucet and turned it off. For a moment they merely glared at each other, unsure how to proceed with logic blocked by emotion.

Then Kyohei backed her up against the refrigerator, pressing her wrists by her head against its smooth surface. Before she could throw him off, he kissed her on the mouth and broke the seal on all her frustrations and petty annoyances that had held her back. She kissed him back eagerly, impatiently, and fought against the restraint on her hands. He was stronger than her, but not by much, and held her back with difficulty; finally she threw him off only to wrap her arms around him and pull him closer.

Kyohei's hands danced lightly down her neck to tease with the neckline of her shirt, but Sunako was not to be teased. With one hand she deftly untied her apron, then reached up to grab his wrist and tug it from her neck. Kyohei didn't need much instruction, being almost as impatient as she; his hand was up her shirt in seconds, fumbling with the clasp of her three-years-old bra. The clasp was bent from use and eventually Sunako had to help him undo it. More frantic kissing, and then:

"You don't…have anything, do you?" Sunako breathed.

Kyohei froze, then pressed his forehead against the refrigerator with an expression of extreme regret.

She heaved an exasperated sigh. "Guess I'll have to wait a little longer."