Ignoring what he’d said before his tongue touched the eclairs, Karin punched the air and cheered.
“Yes! I impressed the connoisseur! Victory tastes oh…so…sweet.”
Suddenly in an incredibly good mood, the baker hummed a little tune and stuck out a finger to sample some of the chocolate that’d been left on the plate. Mmmm, chocolate. Her favorite thing. Cake could disappear off the face of the planet entirely, as far as she cared. But chocolate wasn’t something she took lightly.
"I wish I had a camera. Your expression was even cuter than most peoples’, can you believe it? Wow, you’re precious.”
The detective blinked at the enthusiastic response and glanced over at her, mouth still full of eclair, filling near dripping from the rest of the pastry in his hand. A pink tint settled onto his cheeks and he tried to smile, brows furrowing first, then slanting up toward each other in sheepish despair.
Hakuba gave himself a moment to turn his head, chewing and swallowing the food before licking the chocolate off of his lips. He reached for a napkin, blush steadily deepening the longer he took to get any sort of response out.
“Ah,” he finally offered, laughing softly at himself. “I’m not usually referred to as ‘precious,’ Kanoya-san… but I’m very pleased that you are pleased. And this, as you might have guessed, is exactly what I was hoping for. Thank you."
He looked back to the eclair, considered a moment, then took a much smaller bite. As much as he didn’t want to be caught embarrassed and unable to converse, he really wanted to finish the perfectly wonderful baked good.
