Chapter Text
It wasn’t supposed to be anything.
Just a quick late-night live. Maki and Nicholas, bored, half-dressed in sweats and tank tops, sitting side by side on the floor of the dorm rec room with a shared bag of chips between them and a giant beanbag off to the side.
Nicholas started it on impulse. Fans had been asking where they were, what they were doing, if they were eating or breathing or planning new chaos. He figured ten minutes wouldn’t kill anyone.
What he hadn’t counted on was Maki being like this.
Not chaotic. Not loud. Not even teasing.
Just… soft.
Quiet.
Distracted.
The live had barely started and already, Maki’s eyes had drifted off-screen. Like a compass finding north, over and over again.
Nicholas noticed it at the two-minute mark.
Then again at four.
Then again—again—when he was mid-sentence and Maki was clearly not listening.
Nicholas smirked.
The comments noticed too.
“Why does Maki keep looking off camera?”
“bro HELLO we are right here 😭”
“he’s not even trying to hide it 😭😭😭”
“WHAT IS HE LOOKING ATTTTT”
“blinking rapidly to decode the reflection in his eyeball”
Maki blinked out of whatever soft haze he was in when Nicholas nudged him hard.
“What?”
Nicholas raised an eyebrow. “You wanna join the live or just… make goo-goo eyes at the wall?”
Maki flushed. “Shut up.”
Nicholas tilted the phone slightly away and leaned in. “Are you seriously being like this right now? You’re so obvious it’s embarrassing.”
“I’m not being anything,” Maki muttered.
“You’ve looked over there ten times in five minutes. You’re practically levitating.”
“I’m not—!” Maki started.
Nicholas turned the phone back around with a grin, addressing the comments.
“So everyone wants to know what Maki keeps looking at.”
Maki made a strangled noise.
“I feel like it’s my moral responsibility to show you,” Nicholas said solemnly. “I’m only doing what’s right.”
And then—slowly, dramatically—he turned the phone.
The angle shifted. First the edge of the beanbag, then a pair of socked feet, then—
Taki.
Curled up on the couch in the corner, hoodie drawn over his head, knees tucked in, face turned away from the light.
Asleep.
Or at least pretending to be.
There was a book half-fallen beside him. One hand resting near his cheek. The gentle rise and fall of his chest.
Maki’s gaze never left him.
The comments exploded.
“IS THAT TAKI???”
“YOU MEAN TO TELL ME HE WAS RIGHT THERE THIS WHOLE TIME”
“the way maki is LOOKING at him i’m going to eat drywall”
“don’t touch me i’m fragile”
“you know he’s not even thinking straight”
“why is this so much more intimate than a kiss i’m losing my mind”
Nicholas turned the phone back, wheezing with laughter.
“Maki,” he said, between wheezes, “you are so done.”
Maki just shook his head, covering his face with his sleeve.
“I didn’t even know I was looking,” he mumbled.
“Yeah,” Nicholas grinned. “That’s the worst part.”
They ended the live ten minutes later.
Nicholas went off to his room, still chuckling, still muttering something about “he’s not even my boyfriend and I’m embarrassed.”
Maki stayed behind.
The room was quiet again. The phone was off. The light from the hallway spilled in soft gold across the floor.
He crossed the space slowly, kneeling beside the couch.
Taki wasn’t asleep.
Maki knew the moment he opened his eyes and whispered, “They saw me, didn’t they?”
Maki nodded.
Taki buried his face deeper into the hoodie. “Ugh.”
“Hey,” Maki said gently.
Taki peeked at him, one eye barely visible.
Maki smiled—tired, crooked, full. “You weren’t doing anything.”
Taki sighed. “Did you really have to stare like that?”
“I didn’t mean to,” Maki admitted. “I didn’t know I was.”
Taki snorted, small and fond.
Maki reached out, brushing his thumb over Taki’s wrist. “I wasn’t looking at you because I wanted them to know. I was looking because I couldn’t not, you look so soft I just want to keep you in my pocket.”
Taki blinked. “That’s even worse.”
“Sorry,” Maki said. “Kind of.”
Taki moved over, wordlessly making space on the couch.
Maki climbed in beside him, pulled the blanket up, and let Taki curl into his chest.
No one saw that part.
“You do realize,” Yuma said, voice calm and dangerous, “that you’ve just revolutionized the entire shipping discourse.”
The room groaned in unison.
It was breakfast, or the team’s version of it — plates of toast, scrambled eggs, and someone’s failed attempt at pancakes stacked haphazardly across the table. Maki had barely sat down when Yuma launched in like he’d been waiting all morning.
Nicholas choked on orange juice. Harua looked way too delighted. Jo had headphones in but was definitely listening.
Maki blinked, fork halfway to his mouth. “What?”
Yuma leaned forward with a smirk. “I’m just saying — for months it’s been ‘Maki x Harua’ this, ‘Taki x Yuma’ that, and now? You two looked at each other across one beanbag on live and the internet is in flames.”
Taki flushed across the table, eyes dropping to his plate.
Maki glared. “Yuma—”
“I’m not mad,” Yuma added, faux innocent. “I’m just saying I used to be a fan favorite.”
“You still are,” Jo muttered without looking up. “Just not in this show.”
Fuma stormed in from the hallway, holding his phone up like it had personally betrayed him.
“It’s already going viral,” he snapped. “You’re trending in six countries. Six. Do you know how many articles I’m going to have to filter before the managers see?”
“Wasn’t my idea,” Maki said, raising his hands. “Blame Nicholas.”
“I am blaming Nicholas,” Fuma said. “But you’re the one who kept looking at him like you were writing wedding vows in your head.”
Harua giggled into his cereal.
Taki shrunk slightly in his seat.
Maki scowled. “I wasn’t—”
“You were,” Yuma said gleefully. “Honestly, the way you were staring? I thought you were gonna start narrating a love poem.”
Maki stood. “I’m done.”
“Aw, come on,” Yuma called after him. “Don’t make me carry the Yuma x Taki ship solo now—”
“Stop saying that!” Maki snapped from the hallway.
Nicholas turned to Taki, deadpan. “You know he was definitely searching that tag at midnight, right?”
Taki smiled into his tea.
They didn’t talk about it again until hours later, when the dorm was quiet and the world had slowed.
Taki was curled up on Maki’s bed, legs tucked under a blanket, half-asleep and half-watching the soft flicker of a movie neither of them were really paying attention to.
Maki sat beside him, back against the wall, one hand lazily stroking through Taki’s hair.
They hadn’t said much since breakfast. They didn’t need to.
This — the quiet, the closeness, the way Taki let himself exist fully in Maki’s space — was enough.
Until Maki muttered, almost under his breath, “Yuma x Taki, seriously?”
Taki looked up, blinking. “Are you still on that?”
“You didn’t deny it.”
Taki snorted. “You weren’t exactly subtle about the Harua rumors.”
Maki grimaced. “Yeah, well. Harua’s prettier than me. I can’t compete with eyelashes like that.”
Taki rolled over, head settling on Maki’s thigh, blinking up at him slowly. “I never liked Harua.”
Maki raised an eyebrow. “You liked Yuma?”
“I never liked Yuma either,” Taki said flatly.
Maki looked down at him, heart doing a slow, weightless spin in his chest.
“Good,” he said softly. “Because I can handle rumors. I just… don’t want to feel like I waited too long and someone else got there first.”
Taki reached up, fingers brushing lightly against the side of Maki’s face.
“You didn’t wait too long,” he said.
Maki leaned down slowly, hair falling into his eyes.
“Can I kiss you?” he whispered.
Taki smiled. “You don’t have to ask anymore.”
The kiss wasn’t urgent. It wasn’t a fireworks moment. It didn’t burn or crash or demand anything.
It was slow.
Careful.
Like a thank you. Like a promise. Like all the quiet “almosts” they’d survived had finally curled into something soft and steady.
Taki’s hand curled into Maki’s shirt. Maki pulled him closer, their legs tangled now under the blanket, their breaths syncing without trying.
When they pulled apart, Maki kept his forehead pressed to Taki’s.
And whispered:
“I love you.”
Taki’s eyes softened, wide and warm and full.
“I love you too.”
Maki didn’t move for a long time.
He just held him, the movie forgotten, the rest of the world silent.
This was his now. Not just a look. Not just a maybe.
Taki was his.
And he wasn’t going to waste another second pretending otherwise.
And if Maki created a fake Stan account the next day just to push the Maki x Taki agenda..... it really is no one else's business