It was quite a nice restaurant, American style. The place appeared to be quite high-class - not something that would have been too out of ordinary in the US maybe, but it was a bit more special seeing they were in Japan. Arikado still couldn't figure out how he had managed to get himself into this though. 'This' was of course getting dragged out to eat with Julius Belmont, not that the younger man knew that to be his real name.

"So what are you getting?" J asked while studying the menu. "I told you, you are eating something. You look like you live on coffee and salad. So damn thin..."

Arikado shook his head. J had just suddenly appeared to pick him up and told him that he had a reservation at a restaurant and they were going out to eat right now because Arikado was too skinny and needed to eat something. He had tried to object and say that he had paperwork to do, but it had been in vain and here he was now, sitting in a restaurant.

Fact was, he didn't really need to eat that much. He could eat, of course, being a half-human, but thanks to his vampire side he didn't really need it, as long as there was blood available. He had his connections with the church to take care of that, and then there was J, who most of the time didn't even notice being an involuntary donator. While eating food would have kept him alive, it was the less appealing option as he didn't share humans' sense of taste.

"I, ah..." Arikado studied the menu. If he was being forced to eat something, he was at least going to pick something that didn't take too much effort. "They do have these salads..."

"You wish," J said, staring at the dark-haired man. "Skinny! Eat!"

Arikado shook his head again. "You really shouldn't have bothered with all this, J. I am perfectly fine eating at work, and-" He was about to come up with some excuses, but a waitress came to them to ask if they had decided yet, and he shut his mouth.

"Being that thin can't be healthy, Arikado, and you're eating something now. I'll take..." J turned to the waitress and made his order - a steak of some kind, Arikado didn't really pay attention. He was preoccupied with trying to come up with an idea how to get away. He figured that lying about needing to go to bathroom and then vanishing wouldn't work, because then J would never shut up about it and would just drag him somewhere to eat later.

"Arikado?" J asked, then waved his hand in front of the older man's face. "Hello? You still here? So what do you want?"

"Really I..." Arikado started to explain again, but he then just sighed and picked up the menu again. He glanced at it quickly and picked one of the most non-repulsive looking items on it. "Ah... This chicken looks good to me," he said quickly, just to get J off of his case. "I'll take one of those."

The waitress wrote something down on her notepad, then smiled at them. "Would you like something more to drink? Anything special to drink with the food? There's some specials on the menu, and I could recommend you some wine if you're interested."

"Hmm. Wine," J answered before Arikado had a chance to say anything. "This one here is the house special, right? We'll have a bottle of that. You do drink wine, don't you Arikado? You keep some bottles around your apartment..."

"That's-" Arikado began then gave up. Julius was apparently quite determined. "That's fine."

"I'll bring that wine over shortly, then," the waitress said. "And your food will be prepared soon. Just call me if you need anything."

She left, and Arikado sighed again, defeated. It really appeared there was no way out of the situation. "Was this really necessary? You should know better, J. Unless you haven't noticed, I have always been like this. I could eat anything and it would not make me less thin."

"Kind of hard to not notice," J replied, his voice hinting something Arikado was quite well aware of. Well, he did sleep with the young Belmont, after all. "I've always wondered about it, and maybe I just got worried, hmm? You eat now."

The dhampir didn't bother coming up with a counter-argument. J attempted some idle conversation while they waited for the food, but Arikado was about as chatty as ever, and settled for only short replies, and the younger man gave up soon and concentrated on sipping his wine as soon as it was brought. Arikado, meanwhile, was hoping someone from work would call him in all of a sudden, although it was highly unlikely. He had the night off, and unfortunately, J had known that.

Their meals were brought in a while later, and J grinned widely as he looked at his companion. "Looks good, doesn't it? Eat!"

Arikado stared at his portion, silently cursing the fact that this American-style restaurant also obviously had American-style size of portions. He could have easily settled for half of the chicken on his plate. "I doubt I can eat all this," he said, although he guessed his complaints were going to make no difference.

"Then you can't," J replied. "But I didn't bring you here for nothing. It's hard to get a reservation here you know. And the food's really great, or so I've heard. So enjoy it."

J seemed to be enjoying his steak, at least, Arikado noted as he studied the younger man. He nibbled on the chicken meanwhile, eating only a few bites. It didn't taste bad - well, not that anything ever really did - but he just knew he wasn't going to be able to finish the thing. Since it was obvious that he was stuck there, he did try to pretend to be eating whenever J took a moment to glance at him, but in the end, he didn't manage to eat too much.

He did manage to a glass of the wine at least, but in the end, as J finished his portion, most of the chicken was still on Arikado's plate, and he sat there, looking uncomfortable. "I really can't eat more, J," he said, appearing apologetic. "It's not that it wasn't good, I just..."

The younger man stared at him and sighed. "You're hopeless, you know that?"

"I suppose. I... can take it home with me and try eating later?" Arikado offered, hoping to get J to shut up. He knew he would probably forget about the thing existing and never eat it, but as long as it would please the younger man.

J shook his head. "Well I guess... And dessert is obviously out of the question. What am I going to do with you?" He apparently didn't feel like arguing more though but just asked for the bill and paid for the food. Arikado got the rest of the meal for taking home, and they left. He couldn't, however, get rid of the feeling that J was sulking, although the younger man did his best to hide it.

"I'm sorry," Arikado said when they got back to his apartment. "I guess I'm not much of company when eating out. And I really can't eat much. Just... not used to it. You shouldn't worry about me, I'm fine, and my health is quite fine as well."

"Worth a try," J mumbled. "I'm not giving up that easily you know. I am going to get you to eat something if it kills me." He sat down on the couch and sighed. "I'll figure out something, sooner or later. You really need to eat something. You know me. I'll do anything."

Arikado sat next to the younger man, then smiled slightly. "Determined, I see. Well then, could you look that way?"

J tilted his head. "What are you up to now? Well if you insist..." He turned to look away. Arikado learned closer then grabbed J by the collar. He cut the man's throat slightly and moved in to suck on the wound.

"You said you would do anything," Arikado murmured. The Belmont descendant's blood was quite sweet and desirable.

"Uh, yeah," J mumbled as a response. "I don't see how your strange fetishes have anything to do with you not eating enough though. But I'll figure out something you like, I'm certain. There has to be something that would make you..."

J was talking too much, the dhampir concluded. It was a good thing he knew exactly how to distract the younger man from thinking too closely about how to get him to eat more.

Author's notes:

A random challenge entry as usual. This is an older idea I've been joking about with a friend, so when the challenge title was "Food"... Here we go. Yeah.

- Lady Harken (March, 2006)