Dinner Date

By Asynca

This falls after 'The Camera Loves You'. It won't make sense, otherwise.

Seriously? My best friend has the most hardcore poker face. Like, some of the time, you'd never have any idea what she's thinking unless she opens her mouth and actually says something.

So we're sitting here at this restaurant – which, by the way, is one of the most awesome restaurants in Tokyo, it's won a million Michelin stars or whatever – and she's just sitting across from me, looking around us with that completely neutral expression. There are heaps of people in this place because it's always totally booked out, and the sound level is kind of high. Lara looks nervous, at least, I think it's nervousness. I could have just smacked myself in the forehead. Sam, you're an idiot, she has that weird thing about crowds now.

"Hey, Sweetie," I begin, reaching across the table toward her. "If you're not comfortable here, it's totally fine if we go find somewhere quieter."

She looks at me as if she's surprised I'm there. "No…" she says, fiddling with the butterknife, "I was just thinking that—" she shakes her head as if to get her train of thought out of it, "—never mind."

She's got a pretty tight grip on that poor butterknife. I lean across the table before she hurts it or herself and take it from her. She lets me, realizing only at that point how white her knuckles were on it. I place it gently down beside her.

She smiles at me and sighs. "Sorry," she says self-consciously, "I guess I'm still a little on edge."

That actually reminds me that we don't have the wine list. I make eye-contact with one of the waiters and he nods, but he's in the middle of doing something else.

"Look at everyone," she says. "I feel so completely out of place here. I stick out like a sore thumb."

I do look around, and it must be pretty unsubtly because Lara looks uncomfortable and mumbles something about not being so obvious. All I can really see heaps of couples and some staff buzzing around. They are all Japanese, though. "You mean because you're white?"

She gives me a look, like I should totally be able to read her mind. I shake my head at her, I'm sure my face is blank. She rolls her eyes and doesn't elaborate.

Maybe it's something to do with the fact that Lara Croft: Tomb Raider aired a few days ago, and the fan mail is starting to pour in. People are recognizing her. It's just so awesome to see people coming up to her and bowing so deeply their necks practically snap. She deserves all of it, from the shrill fangirls to the shy teenage boys. Yesterday she even had this salaryman come up to her and start giving us this long lecture about the importance of history and how thankful he was that Lara was bringing legends back to pop culture.

She gets this delighted, disbelieving smile when people do it, and she still blushes. It's just the cutest thing ever. If she hadn't made me swear that I wouldn't jump her in public, I'd totally maul her every time she does it.

The waiter comes over. He double-takes when he sees Lara, but is professional enough to hide it rather well.

"We need alcohol," I tell him. Lara's eyebrows go up. "What's your best champagne?"

He doesn't even bat an eyelid. "Would you like to see the wine list?"

"Nope," I say. "Just whatever the best champagne is will be fine. We'll take the bottle."

Lara shoots me one of those looks again. "Well, I would like to see it," she says to the waiter. "Thank you."

He bows his head and the goes to retrieve it.

"You'll feel better with alcohol," I promise her. "Whatever the problem actually is."

She sits back in her chair with her hands in her lap. She's wearing one of the raglan tees I bought for her, and it falls off one of her shoulders, showing the blue strap of one of her bras. I recognize that bra because I bought it for her, too: it's a sports bra. She's wearing a sports bra in five star restaurant. I don't know what sort of jarring aerobic activity she thinks she's going to do in here, but it's kind of cute. She'd wear boots and cargos to dinner, too, if she thought she could get away with it.

By the way, she totally can't get away with it. I don't get to see her in nice clothes very often and I'm not missing any opportunity to force her to wear them.

"It's not really a problem," she says eventually. "I'm just used to being able to quietly go about my day without anyone noticing me. It's really odd to have everyone know who I am." She paused, looking up at me. "And to know who you are to me."

I had thought she said she didn't actually mind people knowing we're together, but I guess it's one of those things you can theoretically be okay with and when it actually happens it's kind of weird. "You'll get used to it," I tell her. "Besides, they don't really know what we are to each other. They're just guessing."

She nods slowly. "Yeah, I know. Like I said, it's not really a problem. It's just different."

I unfold one of the menus and place it in front of her. "Order whatever you want," I tell her, smiling. "My treat."

Lara being Lara, she immediately looks for prices on everything. I watch her run her eyes over the menu, flip it, and then look around the room when she can't find them. "How do you know how much each dish is?"

I grin. "Good restaurants don't put the prices on their menus." I watch her frown at me. "Because anyone who cares about them can't afford to eat here." There's concern on her face and I wave it away. "It doesn't matter, anyway, I just got paid."

She doesn't look any less unsettled as the waiter returns with a wine list which he places in front of her. He also has a bottle of champagne which he very ceremoniously opens and pours an inch into my flute to taste. I test it by throwing it into the back of my throat. "Yes, it does appear to be alcohol," I tell him, using very polite language which I find to be an amusing contrast to what I'm actually saying. "You can leave the bottle."

"Are you sure you wouldn't like me to pour it for you?" he asks. He and Lara share a look like they don't know if leaving all of it with me would be a very good idea. It's hilarious.

It's terrible that I still enjoy messing with stuffy waiters. "You mean I can't drink it straight from the bottle?"

"Sam," Lara says, but she's got a big smile on her face. It's great to see it.

The waiter puts the bottle in the cooler beside the table, deciding to choose his battles. "As you wish," he says, and then leaves.

I've only had an inch of champagne, and I'm already giggling like I've had the whole bottle. Lara kicks me under the table, but she's also chuckling. "You got off lightly," I tell her, "I wanted to tell him I'm trying to get you drunk."

She lifts the bottle out of the cooler and fills my flute and then her own, and then examines the label. Then, out comes the iPhone and she's Googling exactly what we're drinking. She's hopeless.

"Lara," I tell her, my eyes rolling in their sockets. "Stop being such a tightass, I told you it's totally fine, I'm paying for it all."

She tucks her cell away again. "I'm just not comfortable with it. I don't want to get into the habit of you paying for everything. I can pay for myself."

"Uh, it's a date," I remind her. "Getting a free dinner off someone who wants to hit that is kind of the point."

"But who says you have to be the one paying?" she continues. "I know you're used to handing over your credit card when we're working because your dad just pays you back for expenses anyway. But you can't claim this. Why are we automatically assuming you're paying for it?"

Oh, my God. This is just ridiculous. "Lara!" I lean forward and putting my hands over hers on the wine list. "Okay, I get it, you can support yourself. I know, I watched you kill yourself with like a hundred jobs at college. But I invited you here and I'm paying, okay?"

She makes a face. When the waiter returns, she orders the antipasto and gives him back the wine list without even ordering anything from it. Well, I'm not about to hold back. I order the beef and matsutake. What's the point of coming to a really expensive restaurant if you don't get the most expensive thing on the menu?

Before our food arrives, I'm demonstrating my Japanese half by folding our napkins into paper cranes. Lara watches me, grinning. "Two down, nine-hundred and ninety-eight to go," she says. "Isn't that how many you need to make a wish?"

I pour the remainder of the flute down my throat, and 'walk' the cranes up to each other to touch their beaks. "This is going to sound totally corny, but my two wishes already came true."

She smiles warmly at me. I expect her to ask what my other wish was, but she doesn't. Instead, she just watches me from behind her bangs. "Yeah," she says, taking a dainty sip of her own champagne, "I'm actually in no hurry to fold the rest, either."

She looks up at me and gives me this bashful smile.

I wonder what the likelihood is that the restaurant will let me slide my chair over beside Lara's so I can snuggle her the whole time we're eating. Probably higher than the chance Lara would let me do it, even when she is smiling at me like that.

I can't wait to be home in bed with her, desperately trying to convince her that Yoko can't hear anything we're doing. I'm yet to win that argument, but I'm pretty certain she can't hold out forever. Those sounds she was making in Croatia… Oh, my God. I help myself to another glass and fill it all the way to the lip. I top up Lara's, too, but she's hardly had any. "Keep drinking," I tell her.

Just takes another sip, but it's small so I suspect she's just doing it to humour me. I mock-glare at her, and she raises her eyebrows and takes another larger mouthful. "Why do I get the feeling I'm downing gold-label champagne like it's house wine at some dingy pub?"

"You're not 'downing' anything. You've had maybe half a glass," I point out. Meanwhile, I'm finishing off my second and well into 'tipsy'. I actually look at the bottle when I fill my flute for the third time: it is nice champagne. I don't like my chances of remembering any brands I read now, so I just take a photo of the bottle with my cell.

She laughs at that. "Yes, better start taking photos. It means I won't have to tell you the story of what happened to you tonight tomorrow when you're completely hung over."

I take a photo of her, too, and then look at the screen as it loads. She's rolling her eyes at me in it, but she's still fucking beautiful. I don't know how she ended up being so much more photogenic than I am when my mom's the model, but I don't actually think I've ever managed to take a bad photo of her. Even when she's deliberately pulling faces. She's not even wearing any makeup and she's still just stunning.

"I'm right here, you know, you can actually look at the real thing," she says, grinning at me.

I look up at her, and hold the cell across so she can see the photo I just took. "You're gorgeous," I tell her.

She laughs. "And you are drunk already. One of my eyes is sort of closed in that picture."

This totally isn't drunk. I could still do a lap to the restrooms and back without falling over. I'm about to argue the point when our meals arrive.

It's on a plate the size of football field but I feel like I might need a magnifying glass to locate the actual food. For a moment I'm wondering if we messed up and ordered entrées instead of mains.

"I have a theory about these places," I tell Lara as I poke around my beef and mushroom fillet. "It's that the amount you pay for food is inversely related to the amount of it they actually give you."

Lara's antipasto is expertly laid out on the plate like a piece of culinary art. It's almost heresy that she doesn't take a photo of it before she starts wrecking it with her fork. "I have a feeling we'll need to stop by the Seven Eleven on the way home and buy sandwiches," she says. "I actually think in total they've given me five olives, two pieces of cheese and… whatever this is." She turns over a piece of brown mush to investigate it.

"It's a type of mushroom," I tell her, and then look down at my mushrooms. "Maybe it needs some expensive company." I put some of my hundred-dollar matsutake on her plate.

"That'll hold off starvation for at least a bit longer," she says, and then eats her five olives. Watching her mix the mushrooms together is hilarious for some reason.

She watches me suspiciously while I'm giggling at her, very slowly putting her fork to her mouth. After she's finished chewing, she says, "That's enough champagne for you, I think," and reaches for my glass.

I quickly lift it up and pour all of it down my throat, and then give her the empty flute. She looks from me to it. "You do realize these are more than one standard drink, right?" she says, using her I Used to be a Barmaid tone.

I'm grinning at her while she examines the glass. "Are you going to throw me out of the bar?" My head's swimming at little, but it's really pleasant and I'm certain that I don't actually look drunk yet. Of course, I only just threw back glass three, so there's a good ten minutes before it kicks in. I should probably use this time to eat my own meal instead of watching her eat hers.

I arrange the mushrooms and beef to make a smiley face, instead. Then I spend a good five minutes admiring my own genius and giggling uncontrollably.

"I would call you a taxi at this point if I were working," she says. "I'm almost ready to put ten quid on the likelihood I end up needing to carry you out of here."

I scoff. "Three glasses? I'll walk out of the place in my heels."

To demonstrate, I stand up and go to the restroom. It turns out I'm not as steady on my feet as I thought I'd be. I do, however, manage to make it there and back without breaking anything or injuring anyone. The waiters are all watching me with concern, though. I wave at them.

Lara has her head her hands when I get back to the table. I must have been gone longer than I thought, because our plates are gone. "Come on, Sam," she says, rubbing over her face. "Let's get you out of here."

She holds out her hand to me, but I sling my arm over her bare shoulder. "My ankle still hurts," I lie. "You'll have to carry me."

She looks around us. I notice a few people are surreptitiously watching, but this is a really rich crowd so I doubt they'll say anything. While she's looking away from me, she's exposing a whole length of smooth neck. I manage to succeed in not kissing it. To celebrate, I say, "Let's go home so I can do naughty things to you."

From behind us, a voice says, "Shall we call your driver?"

Oh, my God, he was right behind me when I said that last thing. I burst into laughter, but smother it immediately with my hand so it turns into a kind of loud snort. Beside me, Lara looks like she might actually be about to die of embarrassment. Even that's kind of hot. "No, it's fine," she tells the waiter. "I'll take her home." She looks directly at me as he leaves, saying, "Do I need to gag you on the way out?"

I know it's just her way of telling me to be quiet, but it sends my mind to a different place than she intended. She's pretty good with ropes and knots and wonder if we could somehow use that for nefarious purposes. It's actually something I've never done before.

She's helped me out of the main restaurant and into the elevator while I'm stuck in kinbaku-land.

It's one of those elevators with mirrors everywhere and I can see about eight copies of us. "We're so fucking hot together," I tell her as she chooses the 'G' button. When she leans back against the railing, I pose against her, pressing out bodies together and looking across in the mirror. I wonder about the possibility of getting my cell out and taking a shot.

She's rolling her eyes, but I'm sure it's affectionately. In the mirror I can see through to her bra under the armpit of the raglan tee. I put my hand through the hole.

"Sam," she says. It's a warning.

I totally ignore it. There's no one with us.

The most annoying thing about sports bras is that you can't get under them or over them. They're like a chastity belt for breasts. I try to kiss her, instead, but she won't let me. She puts her messenger bag between us as a final blockade. When I lean against it, her purse pokes me in the stomach.

Which kind of reminds me. "We didn't pay," I realize. Oh, my God, I can't believe I didn't notice. It's so terrible it's funny.

Lara looks smug. "Yes, we did."

That makes me take a step back. "You paid?" She smiles. That sly bitch! I smack her playfully. "You took advantage of how drunk I was to pay for the dinner I invited you to?"

"Well, you spent about fifteen minutes in the toilet, so I thought maybe you weren't feeling too good."

I narrow my eyes at her because I'm not sure if she's telling the truth or not. When her smile fades, she's got that poker face again. I just have no idea. "You should take up cards," I tell her. "You'd be really good."

She doesn't make the connection.

The elevator dings and we walk out onto the street. It's getting kind of cold so I hope it doesn't take us too long to get a cab. I still have my arm around Lara's shoulders, and my side is the warmest part of me.

She's looking at me with concern, and when I look back at her I fall over my stiletto. Because I'm holding her she comes right down with me. I hear a dull thump as I hit the pavement. Happily, I can't feel a thing except how cold it is.

Lara's expression… Oh, my God. Hilarious. You'd think I just got impaled on a pole or something. "Sam," she says, gasping. "God, that was your head!"

It was? Because Lara is kneeling over me on all fours, instead of worrying about whether or not I've just grievously injured myself, I pull her on top of me and into a firm kiss.

She makes a noise like she's just swallowed a fly and pulls away from me. She scrambles off me and stands a good five feet away. "Okay, I get it, you're fine," she says, and she sounds angry. She's looking around us. There are people everywhere, but this is Japan. No one's going to say anything to us.

"No, you're fine," I tell her. "So fine it borders on fucking gorgeous."

She helps me up, but she won't let me sling my arm around her any more as we catch a cab. She also banishes me to the other side of the back seat and won't let me touch her. I try repeatedly, anyway.

I personally don't really see what the big deal was about kissing her. Everyone knows we're together anyway, whether or not she plans to actually say anything about it. I mean, I get that she doesn't want to discuss it, but that doesn't mean that we have to walk around pretending we sleep in separate rooms.

Despite the fact she's giving me the Ice Queen treatment, I have big plans for what we'll do when we get home. However, while she's in the shower I accidentally fall asleep and I wake up the following morning without having ravaged her. Also, with a really awful headache. For a moment I can't figure out how I have it, because three glasses would normally never be enough to give me a hangover. As I roll over, I rest my head on a really tender part of my skull.

That's right. I bashed my skull in right before I kissed her in public and started World War III.

She's already awake and on her cell. She doesn't look very happy, and when she realizes I'm awake, she gives me a really hard stare. "Congratulations, Ms. Nishimura" she says, using the same name my dad's staff use to address me, and hands me her cell. "You did it again."

I take it, squinting at her. "I did what again?"

On the cell, there's a photo of us lying in the middle of a busy Tokyo street on top of each other and kissing. Most of the people around us are politely pretending not to look, but there's a couple of other people with their cells raised. Whoever took this photo took it at the exact second I had my mouth against hers, but because it's not video and they can't see that she pulled away immediately, it looks like we're completely going for it on the sidewalk.

Text on the image reads, 'I'm so straight I make the cops looks like Mexican drug lords.' There's another one beneath it that says, 'I'm so straight rulers use me to draw margins.' It only takes a few seconds to figure out that that photo of us has become the latest Meme. Oh, God, and possibly my tombstone.

"We're trending," she says, snatching her cell back. "And you're sleeping in another room tonight."