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It’s cute, Yagami thinks with a grin. At least, he thinks so with the way Higashi had so casually walked into the arcade, trying desperately to seem aloof and cool. The casualness quickly slipping away when he spots Yagami sitting on a bench by a dying plant, eyebrow quirked. He knows Kaito omitted the fact that he was sitting this case out because of a cold when he called Higashi up for help. He knows that Higashi knows now too, especially when his upper lip curls in irritation.
“Higashi-san, what’s up, man?” Yagami greets him, his grin only widening when Higashi gives a glance around as if there is no possible way that Kaito had lied to him.
“Aniki…” Higashi begins, then trails off with a frown. Yagami doesn’t need to see his eyes behind his dark shades to know he’s glaring.
“Oh? I thought that was something reserved for Kaito--”
“You’re such an asshole,” Higashi interrupts. He gives a little huff before tapping the tiled floor with the tip of his shoe. “Aniki told me I was helping him with one of your cases.”
“I mean, you are helping with a case, so it was only a half-lie,” Yagami offers with a lazy shrug before standing up. “I’ll pay you?”
Higashi doesn’t say anything as they stand near the doorway of the arcade. It’s fairly dead for a Friday afternoon, but there are a few teenagers half-yelling at each other any time somebody got close to the high score of OutRun. The clerk who had been idly scrolling through their phone is now giving Higashi a shiny moon-eyed stare.
Finally, “You don’t have shit to pay me. Just buy me lunch next week.”
Yagami gives a hard slap against Higashi’s delicate shoulder before squeezing it. “I’m buying you the cheapest slab of meat at Kanrai for this one.” It doesn’t escape Yagami’s notice when the tips of Higashi’s ears turn red. He gives another brief squeeze before pulling him close enough so that he could speak in a whisper.
“Yagami-san, what the hell--”
“Shh,” Yagami murmurs. “I don’t want those kids or that girl at the counter to hear.” He adjusts his arm so that it’s slung over Higashi’s shoulders and he navigates him towards a UFO catcher. “So you ever heard of someone losing a 24 karat gold watch inside one of these guys before?”
“What--” Higashi’s voice is sharp and high-pitched enough that the clerk looks as if she wants to say something. She hesitates and falls back though when Yagami shoots her a wink.
“Not so loud,” Yagami says before he finally releases his hold on Higashi. He gives a gentle rap of his knuckles against the plexiglass of the machine. “This morning I had this hostess, a real cutie actually, come over to my office and told me she got a watch from a big-time regular. She lost it on a date here last night.”
Higashi looks aghast at that, mouth opening and closing as if he was trying to work out just how the hell that was possible. He finally settles on a quiet How while pinching the bridge of his nose. Honestly, Yagami can’t blame him. It was improbable. When the girl laid out the details of her missing watch all she told him was that she had lost it at the arcade. It had only taken him a few minutes of checking out the lobby before something shiny in the UFO catcher caught his eye and lo and behold, the watch was tightly nestled between a pile of oversized Bun-chans.
“I asked the clerk and she said that when they load the catcher, they end up dropping a bunch of the toys on the floor. It probably got swept up that way.”
“This is so stupid,” Higashi whispers, but then lets out a sigh. “What do I even need to do?”
“Just keep an eye out. I’m going to try to get the watch out using the claw--” Yagami pauses and then gives Higashi a sheepish grin. “By the way, you have some cash to spare for the machine? I’m broke until I get paid for this.” As if to demonstrate his point, he turns out the pockets of his jeans and jacket and shows off his empty wallet.
There was another moment of silence only this time Higashi’s eyebrow twitched. He very obviously has an insult on the tip of his tongue, maybe he wants to call Yagami a leech or broke or something. Higashi tended to wrinkle his nose when he was ready to snark something out and right now it was so scrunched it was a wonder that he could even breathe. It's endearing, he looks a bit like an irritable kitten.
The moment for an insult passes though and instead, Higashi gives Yagami a sharp huff before pulling out his pocket and handing over the yen for the machine. Yagami clasps his hands together and gives his best doe-eyed stare. "You’re so sweet to pay for our date, Higashi-san."
"If you call this a date, I will walk out of here and leave your ass to deal with this yourself."
The coloring from Higashi’s ears pools into his face and pink smatters his cheeks. It plays a stark contrast to the annoyed expression he wears as if he was aghast at the idea of being on a date with Yagami. It’s adorable and he wants to push Higashi’s buttons further to get a rise out of him, but he does have a job he needs to do. So he just gives a quick pinch of Higashi’s cheek before his hand can get batted away and turns his attention back to the UFO catcher.
“I’m pretty good at these things, I think,” Yagami says as he drops the yen into the machine. The lights start to blink as the machine trills to life, its carnival-like music filling up their corner of the arcade. “I usually get them on the first try--” He navigates the claw to position it above the Bun-chan that obscured the watch and then presses the button to grab it. The claw shakily makes its way down, half-assedly tries to grasp onto the animal, and comes up empty.
Alright, well maybe not that one. It was in a bad position, maybe the one beside it?
Tries two and three go the same way as the first, doing little to improve the situation except to scooch a white Bun-chan just enough to reveal a little more of the watch. Yagami drops another 500, then 1000, then 1500 yen into the machine only to not even get the toys to move in the slightest.
“I thought you were good at these, Yagami-san,” Higashi smirks out. He looks pleased with himself as Yagami turns around to concede defeat. “I hope you’re not bringing dates here. You wouldn’t impress them.”
“Hey!”
Higashi walks over and holds an expectant hand out to Yagami. “Give me the rest of the money.”
“Ooh, I never pictured you for the type to play these games,” Yagami says with a grin before passing Higashi the money.
He shoots him a glare. “I own an arcade, asshole. I know how these things work. Sometimes the kids get stuck and I help them out.”
Huh, color Yagami surprised. He didn’t think Higashi was a monster, but he never exactly pinpointed him as the sort of guy to help a kid win an Ai-chan doll. Then again, he had seen him on more than one occasion slip a kid an extra quarter or stay open past close because someone was this close to beating the high score and their mom wasn’t home yet. It was that sweet side that of Higashi that Kaito always boasted about but nobody got to see in action unless they paid attention.
The clink of a coin was heard and the machine lights up for the fifth time. Higashi navigates the claw with ease that not even Yagami could pull off with short and slow movements that minimize the claw’s shakiness. A tap of a button and the trill of one Congratulations! later, Yagami is holding one pink Bun-chan.
“See? Easy,” Higashi says, looking pleased with himself. “You just have to know where to grab on the body.”
Yagami oohed and ahhed for a moment before he says, “You’re cooler than I thought.”
As if he suddenly remembered that he was showing off to Yagami, Higashi lets out a little embarrassed huff and returns to the machine to root around for the watch. His second and third tries also result in prizes and reveal the watch a little more. It isn’t until Yagami is struggling to hold six Bun-chans does the watch finally presents itself as actually obtainable.
It’s when Higashi is digging around his wallet for 500 more yen when a smile cracks on his face, his long fingers pausing on top of a coin. It’s also when Yagami decides that for all of his pushing Higashi to get flustered and embarrassed, he likes his smile a bit more than the blushes that color his cheeks.
“What, I got something on my face?”
“Huh? No, it’s just…” Higashi gives a small pause, his smile widening ever so slightly as he shakes his head. “You look ridiculous with all those toys. What are you even going to do with them?”
Yagami let out a short hum before he answers as if he were thinking about it. “My office? Clients dig a nice Bun-chan. They’ll be right at home with the pinball machine.”
“That’s so stupid, Yagami-san,” Higashi snorts out, but his smile stays on his face. “You’re almost forty, you know. Your clients aren’t going to take your dumb ass seriously if you keep those things around.”
“Yeah, yeah. Practically an old man. It shows my youthful side though!”
Higashi gives a roll of his eyes before tackling the catcher one last time. He misses the watch on his first two tries but finally manages to pull it up on the third. He looks pleased with himself as he fishes it out of the prize cubby and presents it to Yagami.
“I could’ve done that, you know! I loosened up everything for you.”
“You’re so full of shit. You would’ve been here for hours if it wasn’t for me. Aniki never would’ve managed to get it either. You’re lucky that he called me and I showed up.”
“I’ll be sure to give a proper shrine offering the next time I go. Blessed be Higashi Toru and his god hands--”
Higashi mumbles something that sounds like prick under his breath before pulling out one of the Bun-chans from Yagami’s hand and replacing it with the watch. “I’m taking this as part of my payment.”
Oh, that was fucking cute. Yagami can’t help but give Higashi a cheeky grin before he says, “Hey, am I still taking you on a date next week?”
Higashi gives pause, his mouth working itself as if he was trying to form words but not quite getting there.
“It’s not--” he tries as color floods his cheeks once more. “Tch, whatever. As long as it’s Kanrai.”
The watch glints prettily in Yagami’s hand as he watches Higashi stand there with the Bun-chan in hand, fingers sinking into the soft plush of the bird. He looks as if he wants to say something else, but instead he fumbles out a later before hurriedly leaving. Yagami lets out a low laugh, the sound of it obscured by more hoots from the OutRun teens. Kaito was not going to believe what he missed, Yagami barely believes it himself. Still, at least he has the proof of five hat-wearing toy birds of Higashi’s hidden talents. Maybe next time Yagami could win him a Koro-Nyan to join that Bun-chan and maybe, that’d earn him another smile.