The restaurant also offers delicious dessert, naturally, and Jaeha continues to feel extremely satisfied by how this date is going. He's especially satisfied by having positively surprised Haru with the nice food, when Haru had mentioned that he wasn't too much into food.

And Jaeha himself is not really that into it, actually; it's delicious, don't get him wrong, but it's not about the food. It's about how it's so romantic and nice and the atmosphere is great and he's only a little bit embarrassed by how much he's enjoying himself and feeling like a successful boyfriend. 

The Jaeha of six months ago would be very incredulous about all of this. The Jaeha of now is very smug about that.

Mmmm dessert. They should also swap bites of dessert, naturally. For completeness.

When they get home, a small face is peeping out at them from the window. Judging.

When they open the door, Cricket is there, on the back of the nearest couch.

It's just as well, the kimono inhibits getting carried away and tearing off each other's clothes anyway. "Hi, kitty! The portions were tiny so I didn't save you any, sorry."

"That's all right." He looks at Jaeha.

Jaeha is heroically refraining from tearing the kimono off Haru anyway. It's too beautiful to be torn off, even if the fact that it's beautiful and also on his Haru makes him want to ravage Haru right there and then.

"Good evening, Cricket."

Cricket looks at Jaeha, and at Haru, and at Jaeha again.

"I GUESS you're okay," he pronounces eventually, with great reluctance. "...FOR NOW."

And then he flaps away to his wing of the house with noisy wingbeats.

He has WON. At LIFE. He has SUCCEEDED. He has the HIGH SCORE. He is UNBEATABLE. Everyone else can go home, Jaeha WINS FOREVER.

Jaeha must kiss his Haru, right this second.

It's a giggly kiss. "Congratulations?"

"Cricket thinks I'm okay!!!!!"

"For now!"

"Haru-ya I would like to get you out of this gorgeous kimono and make my extreme good mood your problem. That's what I would like to do." He has blanket permission to carry Haru places but the kimono makes that harder to do safely, which is really unfortunate because he really really really wants Haru right now.

"Problem? Is it a problem?" They can head for the vicinity of the closet where he stores the kimono.

Yes they can. Although Jaeha might need to stop him on the way there again for another kiss, this one a dipping Hollywood kiss. "That is up to you, I suppose."

"Hmmmmm, decisions, decisions." Off with the obi oh so carefully.

But once it's gone there's more Haru for Jaeha to put his hands on. If this makes continued undressing take more care and be more difficult, well, Jaeha has been known to enjoy a challenge.

...Haru takes Jaeha's hands, affixes them like they're clips to the collar of the robe, and steps straight through it. "There, that'll save some bother, though of course now I've got a wee bit of backlash, how shortsighted of me -"

Okay Jaeha is going to need to exercise sufficient care to make sure the kimono does not suffer unduly and then his hands and mouth are about to be rather busy. Sufficiently so that if Haru wants them to make it to a bedroom he is going to need to be intentional about it.

Oh, no, right here is fine!

It's a good thing Haru isn't that backlashed, too, because it means Jaeha can do Haru's favourite sex position without worrying too much about fluid exchange efficiency.

"I managed to schedule an appointment to meet my mother," Jaeha tells Haru the next morning.

"Yeah? When is it?"

"In two days. At 2:45PM. She managed to pencil me in."