#anyway the funniest possible outcome of that would be obi

[kirayaykimura]

Hotel AU

The hotel bar was mostly dead. There was a very drunk man in the corner, a woman taking a work call in the opposite corner, and Shirayuki. At the bar. Waiting. 

“He’s late,” Obi said, wiping down a glass behind the bar. 

“He’s working,” Shirayuki replied. She was trying to give him the benefit of the doubt, but that was kind of hard to do when she was doing him a favor and he was 42 minutes late. 

“He’s the one who-” 

The rest of Obi’s (most likely) valid observation was drowned out by Raj loudly throwing himself onto the stool next to Shirayuki and sighing out, “Oh, good. You’re still here.” 

She exchanged one last, fortifying look with Obi before plastering on her most polite smile. 

“Hello, Raj,” she said. “I hope everything is going well.” 

He seemed to debate with himself for a split second before walking his fingers along the bar towards Shirayuki’s hand, saying, “Well, it’s better now that you’re here.” 

“No,” Shirayuki said. 

Raj yelped as a cold spray of tonic water hit him in the side of the face. 

“I didn’t get you, did I?” Obi asked her over Raj’s spluttering. 

“A little,” Shirayuki said. “It’s fine.” She dabbed at a few stray droplets on her neck. 

“What was that for?” Raj asked. 

“I think you know what that was for.” 

Raj grabbed a handful of napkins with a petulant glare and started dabbing at his cheek and chest. 

“You were doing so well last time,” Shirayuki said. “What happened?” 

“Nothing!” Raj flailed his hands dramatically, then let his shoulders slump, defeated. “Nothing happened at all. We ate dinner and then I took her home.” 

“That sounds nice.” 

“Yes, but it doesn’t sound like a date. I wanted it to be a date. I want her to know that we’re dating.” 

Shirayuki blinked. “I think if you call it a date, she’ll know.” 

Obi huffed out a laugh that he quickly turned into a cough. 

“It sounds like it didn’t end the way you’d hoped,” Shirayuki said, steering the conversation back on track. “Did the rest of the night go well?” 

Raj shrugged. Oh dear. 

“It was fine,” he said. 

“What did you two talk about?” 

He waved a bored hand and said, “The hotel, my family, the chalet, skiing. The usual stuff.” 

“That’s what you talked about. What did she talk about?” 

Raj gave her a blank stare. 

Okay. She’d known this would be a challenge from the beginning, but sometimes she was struck by just how clueless he was (not that she should have been given the way they'd met). He’d apologized and seemed like he was really trying here, so she gathered all her patience and said, “Ask me a question.” 

“What?” 

“Not the kind of question she meant, bud,” Obi said, “but it’s a good start.” 

Shirayuki fought off an amused smile as Raj looked even more confused. 

“We’re supposed to be pretending I’m Clara, right? Ask me a question like you would if you were out with her.” 

There was a long pause before Raj asked, “How am I supposed to know what to ask?” 

She knew he was a little self-centered, but had he really never tried to get to know another person before? She didn’t know whether to be frustrated with him or pity him. 

“Hey,” Obi said, drawing both their attention to him. He leaned his elbows on the bar to bring himself eye-level with Shirayuki and said, “You were telling me something about lichen earlier.” 

Oh, that was right! She’d completely forgotten, but- “They found a species only found in Pennsylvania all the way up in Maine. Isn’t that exciting?” 

Obi smiled fondly at her, then gently gripped her chin between his thumb and forefinger and turned her to face Raj. 

“See this?” Obi asked. “This is what happens when a woman is enjoying herself in a conversation. You should want to make her look like that all the time.”

Raj hummed. “I suppose it is a rather attractive expression.” 

Obi hit him with another spurt of tonic water. 

“In general!” Raj said. “I wasn’t hitting on her.” To Shirayuki, he said, “Not that you’re not lovely, of course, but I have my sights set elsewhere.” 

Shirayuki had no idea how to respond to that, so she slowly said, “Thank you.”  

“Practice,” Obi said. He picked up a glass and got back to cleaning. “Ask the lady a question.” 

Raj looked absolutely stumped for a beat before he asked, “Is that your natural hair color?” 

“Not that,” Shirayuki and Obi said at the same time. 

Raj threw his hands up in exasperation. 

“Go back to pretending like I’m Clara,” Shirayuki said. “Is there anything you’re curious about with her?” 

“Well,” he said in a way that reminded Shirayuki of trying to push a wheelbarrow across her grandparents’ pasture after a long summer rainstorm, “she mentioned boats once.” 

Shirayuki and Obi both perked up. 

“Oh?” Shirayuki said. “That’s something. What did she say?” 

“Obviously I told her about father’s yacht-”

“Obviously,” Obi said under his breath. 

“-and she mentioned wanting to travel by boat some day, so I said I could take her out and she said no.” 

Shirayuki and Obi waited for a beat, but it appeared Raj’s story was over. 

“You should have been a textile magnate with the way you spin yarns,” Obi said. 

“Alright,” Shirayuki said. “Did you ask her anything else?” 

“What, like, ‘Why would you turn down a trip on a yacht?’ You were the one who told me no means no and I shouldn’t push.” 

Patience. He was trying. In his own way. 

“Yes,” she said. “I meant, you could have asked her about her interest. Maybe she turned your offer down because she was only interested in small sailboats, or wanted to go on a cruise.” 

“Or she said no because a strange man she doesn’t actually know offered to take her out into international waters. Alone.” 

Shirayuki and Raj stared at him. 

“I’m just saying.” Obi threw his hands up in surrender. “My first thought would be, ‘What if he murders me.’”

“Huh,” Shirayuki and Raj said. 

“That never crossed my mind,” she said. 

“Mine either. Though we wouldn’t have been alone, obviously. Sakaki would have accompanied us.” 

“Oh good,” Obi said. “It would have been two strange men instead of one. Much better.” 

“Yes, yes. I see your point.” Raj waved a dismissive hand. 

“And you,” he said, sending a pointed look Shirayuki’s way. “Don’t go on boats with strange men who may or may not be murderers.” 

“That only happened once.” 

She was kidding. Though she did go on a questionable hiking trip once…

Obi heaved a world-weary sigh.

“So I simply ask her questions about herself,” Raj said dubiously. 

Shirayuki would have been concerned by the fact that Raj seemed to be calculating how best to manipulate this girl into sleeping with him if it weren’t for the fact that this was the third time he’d met with Shirayuki. The first time was to apologize and make amends. He swore he was turning over a new leaf and a new girl - one who didn’t work for his father’s hotel this time - had caught his eye and he wanted to learn what not to do from a woman he’d done everything wrong with. The second time had been to plan how to ask her out, during which he’d confessed what had caught his eye about Clara. 

Apparently she worked at the doggy day care center he usually left his maltese, Baroness Von Trapp, when he traveled. Normally, he sent Sakaki to drop off the Baroness, but Sakai had been out sick and that was that. Raj had met the sweetest, most gentle girl he’d ever encountered. She also had a pin of some online role-playing game he also played on her ID lanyard, which had convinced him they were soulmates, and she was slightly taller than him, which apparently really worked for him. 

“Who would’ve thought the lecher would believe in soulmates?” Obi had asked once Raj had left that second meet-up. 

“I think it’s nice,” Shirayuki had said. “He’s really changed for the better.” 

“Let’s not be too hasty, now.” 

Shirayuki chose to hold on to her belief that he really had changed - or was changing - for the better and took his question in good faith. 

“Look,” Shirayuki said, “I think we’re getting a little too in the weeds here. Just have a conversation.” When he looked like he might protest, she added, “A conversation where you both talk, not one where you tell her how rich you are.” 

Raj thought about it for a moment before saying, “Fine.”

“Good luck!” she told him as he excused himself to call Clara and ask for a second date. 

“He should be a case study for the detrimental effects of not properly socializing your children,” Obi said once Raj was out of earshot. “But enough about him. You were going to tell me why lichen in Maine is so exciting.”

Shirayuki blinked. “I thought that was just an example.” 

“Partially,” he said, leaning his elbows on the bartop to bring himself closer to her. “But I am interested. I like hearing you talk about things you’re excited about.” 

“Well,” she said, pushing past the awkward, clumsiness that came with doing something for the first time, “I could tell you over dinner?” 

“Careful, miss,” Obi said, amused. “That sounds like a date.” 

“That is what I was going for.” 

His amusement seemed to turn to discomfort even as he tried to play it off with a glib, “I don’t think your boyfriend would like that very much.” 

Her boyfriend? She didn’t have one. The last person she’d dated was- 

“Oh no,” she said. “I forgot to tell you.”  

“Tell me what?” 

“Zen and I broke up.” 

“What?” 

Obi stood up straight so fast his elbow knocked a glass off the counter, which he deftly caught before it could shatter on the ground. 

“Are you okay?” Shirayuki asked. She peeked over the edge of the bar to make sure nothing else fell. 

“I should be asking you that.” 

“Why? You’re the one who knocked things over.” 

“Not- nevermind. When did you and Zen break up?” 

It was August? So…

“A few months ago.” 

“Oh my god. I just saw you both last week! You looked the same as ever.” 

“That was kind of the problem,” Shirayuki said. 

Absolutely nothing had changed after they’d broken up aside from the fact that he never tried to randomly kiss her anymore, which was honestly a win. She loved Zen, but in the way she loved all her friends. 

“Huh,” Obi said with all the gravitas of a man whose worldview was shifting in real time. “I’ll be damned.” 

He thought she was still with Zen, so- “Is that why you rejected me last week?” 

Obi nearly dropped the glass he’d just caught. 

“Please come here before you break something,” Shirayuki said. 

Obi obeyed. Once he’d taken the stool Raj had vacated, he asked, “When did I reject you?” 

“After drinks with Yuzuri and Suzu.” 

She’d been tipsy and bold and hadn’t wanted Obi to leave, so she’d asked if he wanted to come up to her apartment for coffee. Or more alcohol. Or putting his face on her face. (She’d only offered the first option.) Obi had given her a lopsided smile and said, “Probably not the best idea.”

“The night you asked me to come up to your place and I was trying very hard not to touch you because you were with someone else?” 

“You wanted to touch me?” 

“Shirayuki. It’s almost a full-time job keeping a friendly distance from you.” 

Oh. 

“You don’t have to do that anymore if you don’t want to,” Shirayuki said. Then, to prove her point, she put a hand on the closest part of him she could reach, which happened to be his knee. Then, because she realized in real time that what she was doing was weird, she pulled her hand away and sat up straight again. 

Obi gave her a ridiculously fond smile. 

“Now that you know I’m single,” she said, “does that change your answer about dinner?” 

She could feel her hands start to shake in her lap, so she balled them into tight fists. There was nothing to be nervous about. This was Obi, after all. Even if it all came crashing down…well. He wouldn’t let it in the first place. 

“I would very much like to go to dinner with you,” he said. With a sly slant to his lips, he added, “While we’re rewriting history, I’d also like to fix the part where I turned down your offer to come up to your apartment.” 

“I’ll see what I can do.”

#obiyukibingo22 #i know i've already used the idea before but i firmly believe if shirayuki and zen ever break up she'll forget to tell at least one person #it's just not a big deal! they're still friends! #anyway the funniest possible outcome of that would be obi #obiyuki #my fic #snow white with the red hair