Prompt: 036 ~ Smell                                                                                                                                                        May 2011©
Fandom: ViViD
Focus: Koki x Kira
Word Count: 1,397

            “Ohaiyo, Kira-Chan!”

            Kira was still getting used to working with the rapidly rising stars of PSC’s ‘baby band’. ViViD’s members, though younger and less experienced than their label-mates, they were no less spectacular musicians, and the world was beginning to take notice. ViViD’s talents were getting them the respect of their colleagues, and they were following in the footsteps of their PSC Sempai with the addition of a semi-permanent female addition. They weren’t quite popular enough to really require Kira’s presence, she wasn’t yet needed for fanservice catering to a male fanbase, but the equal treatment that PSC was giving ViViD marked them out as a band to be watched.

            As the current golden girl of a not-quite-famous popstar company, and Kira been the perfect star recruit of PSC for ViViD. It was something of an uneasy truce between the companies, the not-quite-famous company, being a pop-producing machine that undermined PSC’s efforts to create true art, was one that PSC could be sure of dominating if worse came to worse and Kira’s company decided to try manipulating her work with ViViD.

            Considering how much tension there should have been between the two camps, her assertion that popstars were artists too, and the PSC standpoint that only musicians really made music, Kira didn’t really feel any innate animosity. Everyone in ViViD was being exceptionally nice to her, and she was still getting used to it. They were being nicer to her than most people in her own company had ever been; the overwhelming friendliness of the band was difficult to say the least.

            And that wasn’t the only thing Kira needed to get used to. As the chipper drummer of the band suddenly cartwheeled over the couch Kira was sitting on to land on his back and stare up at Kira with bright smile to repeat his shouted ‘good morning’ from moments ago, Kira was again forced to reconcile the strangeness of a grown man somehow pulling off being so dang adorable. It took a lot of getting used to; Koki took a lot of getting used to.

            The drummer’s teeth were crying out for braces, the general concept of maturity didn’t exist in his universe, and his overwhelming demeanor of innocence belied his massive body of experience, both in the musical industry and the wider world. Koki was undeniably and impossibly cute, and he managed to pull it off without looking the slightest bit ridiculous for it. Being so cute, so sweet and friendly, was just Koki’s natural state of being.

            And more than that, his nature wasn’t just puppy-dog cute, not just the ‘aw isn’t that cute?’ sort of adorable. Koki was ‘god, he’s so sweet’ adorable. It was a genuinely attractive, gentlemanly sort of adorable. Once Kira had gotten used to it, had gotten over thinking it was strange, she found it, surprisingly, genuinely attractive.

            Kira returned Koki’s greeting with a timid smile, she’d only very recently gotten used to his exuberance.

            Tumbling over himself to sit up on the couch with his smiling face swooping in only inches from Kira’s Koki said enthusiastically a third time, “Ohaiyo!”

            Kira still wasn’t quite sure how to respond to a third good morning greeting. She barely could rationalize two of them. As he grinned at her, she simply stayed silent.

            The little drummer didn’t seem to notice, let alone to mind. His apparent lack of a bubble of personal space preoccupied him as he commented, “You smell really good again! Kira-chan always smells really good!”

            “Eh?”

            “Like pomegranates,” Koki explained, adding, “Like pomegranates and honey-suckle! It’s a nice smell, almost as nice as Kira-chan!”

            “Eh?”

            Kira was at a loss. She’d only just begun to grasp the conversational procedures of discussing musical things with ViViD, she hadn’t yet managed to figure out how to talk to them when no real work was being accomplished. As a freshly graduated trainee, Kira wasn’t used to being talked to like her opinion mattered at all, let alone with people who didn’t make any sense to begin with.

            Flopping down onto his back so that his head was in Kira’s lap and he was looking up at her with a smile, Koki blinked his eyes over his brightly colored contacts and asked, “Is it perfume? What kind?”

            “I don’t really wear perfume,” Kira replied, instinctively brushing aside a few strand of the bubblegum pink hair that had flitted into Koki’s eyes. “But my shampoo has pomegranate in it.”

            Koki nodded soberly, as if Kira had told him a deep secret of the universe. “Kira-chan’s smell isn’t heavy like a lot of girls, it must be because you don’t use strong perfume.”

            “Why do you care?” Kira wondered, surprising herself with her audacity to question the motives of an elder.

            Sitting up abruptly and twisting to stare directly into Kira’s eyes, Koki exclaimed, “It’s important!” He made sure that she was listening before he went on, “Smell is the strongest form of memory, and it’s important to be able to remember!”

            “But I’m right here,” Kira countered. “And I’m going to be right here for the next five years at least. What does it matter that smell is the strongest form of memory, since you don’t have to remember me at all?”

            “It’s a reminder anyhow! I’ll be able to think of Kira-chan whenever I smell pomegranates or honey-suckle!” Koki explained. “I mean, I can’t walk into a sweet shop without thinking of Saya-chan; she smells like sugar, even Shin admits that.”

            Kira took a moment to think about the girl. Saya was a rookie model and a school friend of Ryouga’s girlfriend. Kira had only spent a limited amount of time with her, but even so, she couldn’t deny Koki’s assertion. “She really does smell like a cupcake.”

            “See you remember smells, even when you’ve never really thought about them,” Koki said. “Like how Ryouga smells like cinnamon.”

            “And Reno-san smells like artificial strawberries!”

            Koki nodded enthusiastically. “Yup! It’s his hairspray!”

          “I sorta think it makes him smell like a lollipop,” Kira mused. “Well more like a sour strawberry gummy candy.”

            “Yeah, if anyone smells like a lollipop, it’s Shin!” Koki agreed. “He smells like a watermelon chupa-chup, and that weird cologne of his that doesn’t really smell like anything . . .”

            Nodding, Kira added, “It doesn’t smell like anything, but it smells warm.”

            There was a moment of silence as the pair agreed solemnly over Shin’s smell, and then Koki asked, “What do I smell like?”

            “Don’t you know?”

            Koki shook his head like a dog, his energy stretching out into the very tips of his hair. “It’s hard to know what you smell like, yourself. You just sort of smell like you, you know?”

            “I know what I smell like,” Kira countered.

            “But did you before I told you?”

            “Yeah. My shampoo is pomegranate and my soap has honeysuckle in it.”

            “And what about the peaches?”

            Kira accused, “You never said I smell like peaches.”

            Leaning in a moment to put his forehead on Kira’s shoulder and take a deep breath of her scent, Koki murmured, “Yup, underneath the soapy stuff, Kira-chan definitely smells like peaches.”

            “Really?”

            Koki grinned as he lifted his head. “Yep! Like peaches that are just about ripe.”

            “I’ve never noticed that.”

            “See? It’s just you smell,” Koki reasoned. “So you can’t really smell it.”

            “And no one’s ever told you what you smell like,” Kira asked.

            “I’m always the one telling them!” Koki replied.

            Kira cocked her head to one side and inhaled deeply. She closed her eyes, trying to pick out the smell that was just Koki, the smell that was hidden by cologne and hairspray and soap.

            “Yah! Are we gonna get started or what?” Reno was calling to them from the edge of the common room. While Koki and Kira had been distracted, Shin and IV had made their arrival, joining Reno and Ryouga in the practice room. By now everyone was all tuned and warmed up, and all that was left was to drag in Koki and his victim. “Come on, everyone’s waiting.”

            Koki leapt up, pulling Kira by the hand behind him. Just before they reached the door, Kira stopped, holding Koki back too. She smiled at him and announced, “Koki-san smells like cotton candy!”

           With that, Kira trotted after Reno and refocused on her work with ViViD, rather than her personal conversations.

                                                                        ♡♥Finite♥♡