"I know I'm a taller errand boy than you're used to having but I do still have an upper limit," he called out, watching her pull a dress off the rack and hold it up to her shoulders.
"Oh." She looked up, concern in her eyes. "Should we go?"
"...after this one," he said, shifting his arms to make room for at least one more bag. It was only fair, he told himself, mostly to drown out the part that knew he wanted to see her in the dress she'd picked out.
The guilt warred with the justifications in his mind, and mostly he just sat back and let them fight. It was an old song at this point, six months into Yusuke's extended Makai resort cruise or whatever the fuck he was doing. It just made him tired, at this point.
Because Kuwabara did want to see Keiko in nice dresses, because she looked nice in dresses, and when she looked nice it made her smile. He liked her smile. He liked most things about her, in fact. And frankly he was tired of feeling bad about it on behalf of someone who wasn't even there.
"How do I look?" Kuwabara looked up as Keiko stepped out of the dressing room and actively clenched his jaw to stop it falling open. There were probably words for the cut of the collar and the way the skirt fanned out over her hips and the way the sleeves draped off of her shoulders, but he didn't know them. He just knew how it made her look, and the way how she looked made him feel.
"You look nice," he managed to get out. "I mean, you always look nice, but you - " He clenched his jaw again to stop his own rambling. "You look nice."
Keiko's eyes sparkled with mirth. "You've said that in every store."
"You always look nice," he repeated in protest, and Keiko just laughed.
"Would you like me to bag that for you, ma'am?" The clerk edged closer to Keiko, eyes darting up to Kuwabara's face every few moments. (That was one thing Kuwabara would give Yusuke; the way the employees treated anybody who looked "rough" was exhausting.)
"...no," Keiko said, and Kuwabara's heart dropped a little before she looked over at him and smiled, an expression on her face that he couldn't quite read. "I think I'll wear it out, if that's alright."
