Author's Notes: I thought I was over writing for this particular crack pairing. Apparently, I was not.

Warnings: Fluff. And Taiga being a silly perv. :D

xXx

Perfecting Dates

xXx

Sometimes, Taiga would wonder why he and Riku can't have a peaceful date.

It wasn't that they fought or argued or had any other problems other couples had whenever they were out (they were perfect together, of course, and were very much above squabbling that led to broken dates and relationships). They always begun and ended their dates blissfully, too, since Taiga always directed their dates and he was the kind of boyfriend who knew how to give his Riku a wonderful time. In fact, aside from one little constant detail, their dates were always just as awesome as Taiga was.

"Huh?" Riku gave him the 'finely raised eyebrow of skepticism' when Taiga complained about the little constant detail ruining their dates.

"I'm sorry, but it's not me," Taiga told him gravely over their cake slices and iced lattes. Across from him, Riku started frowning. "It's you. You have to stop that, Riku-chan. For the sake of our dates."

Riku crossed his arms over his chest and begun tapping his foot under the café table. "Stop what exactly? You're not making sense, Taiga."

"Stop that!" Taiga made vague vertical motions with his hands. Riku uncrossed his arms, leaned back on his chair, and did a poker face. Taiga shook his head. "Not that. Okay maybe it was that, I think, but it wasn't just that!"

"Taiga, I won't understand what you're complaining about unless you use other descriptions aside from 'that'," Riku sighed, taking his eyes off Taiga and focusing instead on his chocolate cake.

Taiga pouted and thought hard about being descriptive. "Oh! Okay, I know!" he said while snapping his fingers. "Remember our first date?"

Again with the eyebrow (which was kinda cute, so Taiga didn't really mind being on the receiving end of the action). "Yeah?"

"And it was sort of like today, except we were sitting outside and eating sandwiches. Then there were these cute girls who passed by—"

"And they had nice breasts. Why yes Taiga, I do remember you telling me that. Loudly. Twice. " Riku sipped his latte and looked as icy as his drink. "And this is about me being the problem, how?"

"Er, I'm still sorry about that." Taiga fidgeted. "But I totally have a point, Riku! Just listen!"

"Hm. I'm listening," Riku said, though his tone still made the back of Taiga sweat in a way that wasn't good at all.

He had to be descriptive was it?

Taiga took a deep breath and tried very hard to be descriptive (while avoiding stories that would make Riku even more pissed). "So these girls passed by, right? Then, a few seconds later, two ugly punks bumped into them and the punks were like 'Oi, you bitches look where y'er goin',' and the girls were like 'Excuse me, but you weren't looking!' and the punks gave them this pissed look," Taiga did a scary, incredulous face, "And were all 'Whatcha' say, bitch?'" At this point, Taiga had unconsciously begun stabbing his strawberry cake.

"The poor girls got scared so they said sorry and backed away, but the punks won't let them. Everyone else was backing away, too, but you," he waved his fork around before pointing it at Riku, sending cake crumbs flying over the table. "You went and left our table to get behind them. You said 'Hey, they told you they were sorry already,' in this really hot voice. Of course they got angry! You were so much sexier than they'd ever be, so they gave you the pissy face instead!"

"You do realize that you did say that I was there, right?" Riku said, trying to hide his smile by sipping more latte. "So I'd know the story, too."

"But see, you don't get the point!" Taiga tried very hard not to smile after seeing Riku's smile. He was serious here. And descriptive. "You got them angry, and I would have totally saved you from getting pulverized, but you beat me to it when you pulled a Rodeo Drive on them and took their belts from their loose pants. Their kitty boxers were so gross that they got embarrassed and ran away." He grimaced—the boxers on the punks were not a nice thing to recall (putting those boxers on Riku, however, was another story Taiga'd love to see and hear right about now).

Riku shook his head, easing Taiga's scowl by feeding him chocolate cake. "So I'm the problem why, again?"

Taiga accepted the cake feeling much better once he thought of Riku and boxers and Riku without boxers… "One," he said in between chewing and reminding himself not to get side-tracked, "you didn't let me save you."

The forked clinked loudly when Riku forcefully dropped it on his plate. Uh-oh.

"Save me? Are you saying that I needed saving? Excuse me, I don't need to act weak and needy in this relationship just because I'm the bott—" he blushed, and crossed his arms over his chest again (Taiga would have thought the action cute had he not been mentally flailing over having pushed one of Riku's angry buttons. And he tried so hard not to avoid doing so, too). "Tch. That's excessive chauvinism."

Taiga, in an attempt to appease the miffed boyfriend, tried to feed him strawberry cake. He could see the waitresses trying to look over their booth (possibly curious with all the clanging of forks and plates, and not to mention Riku's rising tone and use of difficult vocabulary). He chased them away with a soft glare that demanded privacy.

"I thought we were through with this whole 'I'm faster than you, better than you' deal," Riku continued, oblivious to the audience behind him. "Saving me, you say. Are you still trying to imply that I'm not strong enough? Is that it, Taiga? Well, we could always settle this anytime you want."

"Sorry, sorry." The waitresses dispersed. Relieved, Taiga tried poking Riku's lips with whipped cream. "Okay, so maybe that wasn't point number one, I'm sorry Riku." More poking. Riku stubbornly closed his lips as he gave Taiga an all-out glower. The look was still as scary as it had been when Riku first used it on him during a football match.

How Riku managed to get such an aura despite having a sticky white mess on his lips was beyond Taiga (The sticky white mess would have made for a very nice image, too, had it been on another expression—Oh! Taiga knew what to do now!).

"Hey Riku~ if you don't eat this, I'm licking the cream off of you." Taiga licked his lips.

Riku promptly opened his mouth, eating the cake and licking the cream off of his lips on his own. Situation solved. Taiga grinned to himself.

Riku rolled his eyes. "So, you were saying something about your first point, Taiga?"

"Right," Taiga nodded enthusiastically at the chance for redemption. "One, you left me alone to save other people. Which was really nice and heroic of you, but you left me alone and didn't even wait for me to help out, too."

"Because you didn't have to." Riku was calm again. "I was fine on my own."

Taiga shook his head and tried to feed Riku more icing. "Of course you were. I know that, everyone knows that, but there's this… principle of things and relationships."

"Which is?" Riku asked, expertly dodging the icing that Taiga was trying to smear on him again (darn him).

Taiga focused his gaze on Riku, looking as though he was getting ready to execute one of his Wolf Fangs. "Being in a relationship means that we're together now, Riku. You're not alone anymore, and therefore you don't act alone."

Riku stopped for a split second; which was all Taiga needed to successfully put icing on the side of his lip. Riku was so awed by his words that he didn't even notice the mess.

It took a lot of self-control for Taiga not to blurt out a haughty 'Just as planned'. "Then there's point number two," he said instead. "But before that," Taiga stretched over the table and happily licked the icing off of Riku's lips (he hoped the waitresses weren't there to see that, 'cause if Riku knew that they saw it… well… Taiga didn't want to go there). He got a mean flick to his forehead, but it was so worth it.

"Second point, please."

"Okay. Number two, when you do do that whole saving thing alone, the savee—"

"The savee?" Riku did a half-snort as he enunciated 'say-bee' mockingly.

"The people you saved!"

"The 'savee'?" Riku repeated like a parrot (and Taiga offhandedly remembered how he didn't really like Riku's parrot).

"The savee," Taiga stubbornly continued, "suddenly swarm all over you. Just you—and er, I'm not saying that I'd be fine if they were hanging all over me or something, just to make it clear. And anyway, with them fussing all over you, it's not our date anymore." He slides down his chair into a slouch. "I don't get my cute Riku all to myself and that," he pointed at Riku, driving the point home, "defies the major principle of all dates, right?"

"It's not like they didn't leave, which they did after saying 'thank you'. They hardly disturbed our date," Riku said, waving his hand around and swatting Taiga's finger away.

"They did, too! They took minutes away! Minutes that we could've used to lovingly staring at each other while drinking smoothies."

"We don't do that." Riku grimaced. "You would rather grope me, anyway."

"You're missing the point again!" Taiga said, because he couldn't argue about the whole groping thing when it was undoubtedly true (and Riku knew it). "They asked for your number!"

"No they didn't." Riku made a face that told Taiga that he wasn't as confident with his answer as he usually was.

"You're not even sure, aren't you? And why not? Because that wasn't the only time that happened," Taiga huffed. "They did ask for your number—you can bet I'd remember something like that. It was during the second time you did the whole helping thing when the girl didn't ask for your number." Taiga straightened from his slouching position, looking very sure and proud of his memory.

"Well, those things don't happen often anyway," Riku retorted.

"Yes they do," Taiga said, his face caught between a smirk (for getting something right) and a frown (from realizing how sad the situation sort of was). "Those things happen all the time. During every single one of our dates. It's not just the girls, too! The dudes looked like they had a thing for you—especially that one time with the shitty hat—he was staring at you with adoration!"

"He was not." Riku looked like he was trying to recall all their dates, and Taiga can tell, from the way the younger boy was biting his lip and looking slightly guilty, that he was (actually) right. Wow.

"He was! Why wouldn't he?"

"He was not," Riku tried to say with finality (it totally lacked its usual authority).

The long, determined stare Taiga gave him made Riku look away. Hah! Guilty! Taiga took a victorious bite of his cake. "I think I know exactly what the problem is now, Riku. And it's definitely you; not me."

"Fine, what's my problem?" The conceding look Riku had made winning so much sweeter (Taiga wasn't sure what he thought won exactly, but he hoped the prize would have something to do with Riku and kitty boxers and Riku without the kitty boxers)

Taiga paused for effect, and slowly announced, "You're too cool."

Riku opened his mouth, closed it, opened it again. "What."

"You're too cool," Taiga repeated. Riku's reaction was a bit far from the admiring gaze he wanted, but an astonished look was just as good (his answer was so brilliant, after all. So much so that he should get a bonus! 'Riku with icing on top' sounds like a good bonus). "So stop being cool, Riku. It's ruining our dates."

"What?" And before Taiga could open his mouth to tell him off again, Riku said, "Okay, wait. So I left you alone, and focused on other people who were possibly—though you're just being delusional, I swear—flirting with me. What does that have to do with me being cool, and why do I have to stop being 'cool'? I don't even—I'm not—that's just called having a sense of moral, Taiga. You know, not letting other people bully other people because it's wrong? Helping other people when they need it? Wasn't all of that just you being jealous?"

Hold it. Did Taiga hear right? Jealous? Who was jealous?

"Me. Jealous… Me?" Taiga spluttered. "I am not! And you, with your 'sense of moral'! That's totally just you trying to say 'being cool' in a more humble way. Which is really cool, you know, and you should stop being like that 'cause it's really, really bad for our relationship."

Riku did the prissy, incredulous face Taiga did before, though he made it look one hundred times cuter.

"I told you—and I'm not wrong, I just know it. It's not me, it's you. Stop being too cool." Taiga pouted and took a prissy bite off his cake just to show how he could be cute and prissy, too.

Riku rubbed his forehead, shielding his face from Taiga's view. But Taiga can clearly see him holding back his chuckles. Why he wanted to laugh, Taiga didn't have a clue.

"Okay, okay. It's my fault, not yours."

Taiga raised an eyebrow (which was sort of hard; he didn't know how Riku made it look so easy to do). "You'll stop being cool?" At the back of Taiga's mind, Riku's quick concession was rather fishy. If Riku thought that by smiling and saying nice things, Taiga was going to be dissuaded from his requesting his fantasy prize, then he thought wrong.

"I'll stop." Riku took the strawberry garnish from the top of his chocolate mousse cake and gave it to Taiga. "Here, as sorry for 'being too cool', you can have my strawberry."

This offer, however, was another issue.

Taiga nodded enthusiastically before eating the fruit. "That was definitely a problem in the making Riku, that coolness of yours." It tasted really sweet. Hey! Maybe he should ask for a Riku with icing and strawberries on top. "Would've ruined our future perfect dates."

"Yeah. Good thing you thought about it. Was it hard?" Riku smirked around his straw as he drank his latte.

"Nah, not at all." Speaking of hard, Taiga really wanted to have his prize soon. "Hey Riku, I got an idea. Why don't I help you get over your coolness later? Actually, how about right now? Your place is close, right?"

"Sure, sure, yeah. Let me just…" Riku made a move to get his wallet.

Quickly retrieving his, Taiga beat Riku into leaving money on the table. "I'll pay today, so let's go." In seconds he was up and pulling on Riku's arm, escorting him out of his chair.

He expected Riku to frown at him again, to take both actions as another blow to his manly pride, but it seemed that Riku finally understood the whole 'not-acting-cool' thing.

"Really? Thanks," he answered, looking all nice and cute with no hint of 'cool'.

Taiga was so proud of his Riku. "Aha, was I too much?"

"You? Too much? Never."

The chimes on the café door twinkled as they left the store.

"So Riku, I was thinking. About my prize…"