Legal Drug Fan Fiction ❯ In Your Arms ❯ The Evils of Suggestive Product Placement ( Chapter 1 )

In Your Arms

 

The Evils of Suggestive Product Placement

 

Theme: #1 - lip balm

Disclaimer: Characters belong to the greatness that is CLAMP. I am merely borrowing so that I may manipulate the hot boys to my liking.

 

 

 

 

Between the two of them, there was nothing more hated than lip balm. Whenever a shipment of the dreaded product came in and needed to be stocked, it was usually a mad dash for a “bathroom break” or “mopping in aisle six” or whatever excuse could be found to avoid Kakei and being assigned the daunting task of shelving it.

 

Now, thanks to Rikuo's “I think somebody needs help at the front” (the lying bastard), Kazahaya was stuck setting up the displays for the damn things. Both of them hated the product so much because they had to set up the small boxes which would hold the lip balm and then set up the smaller containers in whatever manner was deemed to be suggestive selling by the manufacturers. Today, such a display was a pyramid (how this made people want to buy lip balm Kazahaya did not know), but the task was time consuming and frustrating.

 

Grumbling to himself the whole while, he managed to curse everything and everyone from Kakei to Rikuo to his own lack of quick thinking this morning to the fact that apparently lip balm needed to come in the flavor of every fruit in existence in order to be profitable.

 

Being the unlucky soul that he was, that seemed to set the tone for the remainder of the day. A child had spilt some soda, onto Kazahaya's shoe nonetheless, and he had to clean up the mess, a hoard of giggling school girls had practically mauled him while asking where to find the notebooks and he'd had to skip his lunch break due to a small rush at the cash register.

 

Usually during closing, Rikuo and Kazahaya were made to go around the store and look at the shelves and floor to fix anything of out place. Normally, they split the store in half and finished their respective areas in about the same amount of time. It was mostly misplaced items or people who picked up something, only to change their minds and were too lazy to return it to its original placement, therefore leaving it on whatever shelf happened to be closest to their reach.

 

As fate would have it, when Kazahaya was making his rounds he noticed that in aisle two, his pyramid of peach lip balm had been disturbed and was now a mess scattered across the shelves and on the floor. Tempted to leave it, he almost actually succeeded in turning away from the aisle, until he thought of Kakei's kindness in giving him this job and his trust that was present but still partially unearned. Leaving the cursed items on the floor would be no way to repay such a debt. While spending ten wearisome minutes rearranging the display and alternately wondering if those who came up with the display designs actually had brains, (because honestly, was it really such a great idea to place such light weighing things in the shape of a pyramid?), his absolute exhaustion from the day began to catch up on him.

 

Rikuo had already left the store, which meant it was left to Kazahaya to lock up and take care of a few other things and twenty minutes later, he was finally scaling the steps to the third floor.

 

The one reason he did not mind when Rikuo left early was that it usually meant dinner would be almost ready when he arrived home. Sure enough, when he pushed open the door, the smell of food wafted over to him and made him remember that he'd had to skip lunch earlier that afternoon.

 

Totally forgoing any kind of greeting, Kazahaya made his way into the bathroom, peeled of his clothes, tossing them into the hamper, and stepped into a hot shower. The water and steam helped relax him and not much later, in comfortable low rise pants and a long sleeve shirt, he was feeling almost revived from his crappy day. That did not change the fact however, that he was ready for nothing except to eat and then fall asleep on whatever flat surface presented itself to him first.

 

Dinner was a simple affair and was ready when he re-entered their kitchen area.

 

A towel still draped over his head which he was using to dry his hair with, he gasped in surprise as Rikuo grabbed the two ends of the towel around his neck and sharply tugged, bringing Kazahaya flush against his body and straight into his arms.

 

Mouth still partially open in surprise, Rikuo bent down and captured his lips, bringing their mouths together into a raw and passionate kiss. Backing them up against a nearby wall, Rikuo pressed their bodies together and his left hand dropped down to rub maddening circles on Kazahaya's right hipbone where his flesh was exposed between the low rise of his pants and his shirt.

 

Sinking into his lover's embrace, wrapping his arms around the taller one's neck, they sampled each other's lips and mouths, when Kazahaya thought that he tasted a hint of that peach lip balm from earlier on the other's lips.

 

He still hated those damn things and the stupid pyramid displays he was forced to arrange them in, but as his tongue traced along Rikuo's lower lip before dipping into his mouth, he suspected that maybe he didn't hate lip balm as much as he thought he did.