Disclaimers: Everyone knows that I don't own Weiss, right?

Warnings: yaoi, Ran/Ken, ficlet of very little plot

Author's Notes: This is just a silly little ficlet I got the sudden urge to write.

Buttons

By Rapunzel

Sometimes, on nice days when things in the shop were fairly calm, Omi liked to simply sit with his eyes closed and listen to the world drift on around him. The sounds of cars out in the street, of people chatting all melded together into a soothing hum. If he tried to, he could even pick out the familiar sounds of the shop from the background. Footsteps on the shining floor, the noise the hose made as Youji watered the plants, the sound of Ken cursing...

Omi opened his eyes. Wait a minute, why was Ken cursing?

Curious about the cause of that particular sound, Omi abandoned his perch behind the counter and followed Ken's voice to the quarters in the back of the shop. There he found his friend sitting on the couch, a long sleeved shirt in one hand and a needle and thread in the other. He appeared to be cursing both items with unusual vehemence, and Omi raised his eyebrows at some of the more colorful words Ken was using. As he watched, Ken experimentally poked the needle into the shirt, only to end up stabbing himself in the finger. Grunting in pain, he stuck his finger in his mouth, still mumbling obscenities around it.

"Ken-kun," Omi said, "what are you doing?" He simply had to ask. The spectacle in front of him demanded it.

"Um thowing on buthons," Ken said, talking around his injured digit.

Unfortunately, Omi was not a very proficient speaker of finger-in-mouth-ese. "What?"

"I said," Ken said, taking his finger out of his mouth and inspecting it, "I'm sewing on buttons."

And once Omi took a closer look, he did indeed appear to be doing just that. There was a small pile of buttons in a bag sitting on the arm of the couch, and one or two of the buttons already on the shirt looked a little uneven, suggesting that Ken had already dealt with them.

"But Ken-kun," Omi pointed out, "you don't wear button-down shirts."

"I know," Ken said, scowling at the garment in his hand. "But Aya does."

"You're sewing buttons on Aya-kun's shirt?" Omi asked, not quite able to believe it. Aya liked to be neat, and his clothes were no exception. Somehow Omi couldn't picture him willingly submitting his shirts to Ken's mending when uneven buttons were the end result.

"Yeah," Ken said, "I... ow!" Talking had evidently distracted him to the point where he jabbed the needle into his finger again. Jerking in pain, Ken once again stuck the digit into his mouth.

" 'At hurt," he said indistinctly around the finger.

"I'll get you a band-aid," Omi offered. Actually, the way Ken was going, he was considering just bringing the entire first aid kit and being done with it, but he didn't say so. He turned to leave the room and nearly ran smack into Aya, who was coming in.

"Ow," Ken repeated, taking his finger out of his mouth. Looking up and catching sight of Aya, he glared. "I'm going to bleed all over your shirt, you bastard."

Aya just shrugged.

"Aya-kun," Omi said, pausing in his errand because now that Aya was here, he just had to ask, "why are you making Ken-kun sew buttons back onto your shirt?"

"It seems only fair, since he was the one who took them off in the first place," Aya replied.

Ken just scowled. "It's not fair," he groused. "I swear you deliberately make it difficult for me. I don't wear shirts with buttons."

Aya raised an eyebrow. "I refuse to choose my wardrobe based on the fact that you have no patience."

"It's hard to get them undone!" Ken protested. "I mean, you try getting the damn things through those tiny holes when you're in a hurry. It's faster to just grab and rip."

"Like I said, you have no patience."

"I didn't hear you complaining at the time," Ken said.

Aya frowned at him, the faintest hint of a blush staining his cheeks. "That's beside the point. The point is that you were the one responsible for their removal; therefore, you get to be the one to fix things."

Ken scowled at him. "I still think it's not fair."

"If you hate doing it so much, then why don't you simply stop ripping them off in the first place?" Aya asked.

A rather satisfied smirk crossed Ken's face. "Because even with all the jabbing my fingers, I still say it's worth it." He eyed the Aya suggestively, the smirk growing larger and more speculative.

"Um... guys?" Omi said, feeling a little left out of the conversation. It was like they had entirely forgotten that he was there. Of course, given the intensity of the stare Ken was now fixing on Aya, that was entirely possible.

"Ken," Aya said firmly, the hint of red returning to his face, "don't even think about it."

The intensity of Ken's gaze did not abate.

"In case you hadn't noticed," Aya went on, "I'm wearing one of those shirts with buttons that you hate so much. That's bound to mean more mending for you."

Ken shrugged. "What's one more added to the pile?" he said, laying aside the garment he'd been working on and rising from the couch.

"Um... I'll just go back to the shop and help Youji, shall I?" Omi asked, edging towards the door. He had a feeling that clothing other than the mended shirt was about to start flying, and he didn't want to be around when that happened.

As before, neither of the other two paid any attention to him. Ken was too busy stalking towards Aya, while Aya seemed to be debating whether or not to dissuade him. Omi reached the door and fled just as Ken reached his target. As the door closed behind him, Omi could have sworn he heard the faint clicking sounds of buttons bouncing off of hard surfaces.

At the sound of the hastily closed door, Youji, who was still watering the plants, paused and glanced up. Seeing Omi standing with his back pressed to the door and a mildly shell-shocked expression on his face, he turned off the water and came over, looking faintly concerned. "Chibi? What's going on?"

Omi raised wide blue eyes to meet his. All he could think to say was, "I think Ken-kun's going to have a lot of sewing to do in the near future."

Owari