Chapter Text
A few days ago Tsukasa had pestered Akito into giving him his LINE details, claiming that he ‘needed’ his number because ‘what if the tree we share our lunch period under is suddenly struck down and you have no way of knowing,’ which was insane for two reasons: one, why would that ever happen , and two, how would a tree be stuck down in the school yard and Akito wouldn’t hear something about it. But he humoured him anyways, they exchanged information and went on with the rest of their lunch.
At the time, Akito thought he’d never need to contact Tsukasa, simply giving up his details just to shut Tsukasa up. But once he’d returned home and realised Tsukasa had apparently expected Akito to just magically know when and where to meet him, he would now have to exercise his use of Tsukasa’s LINE contact.
Theoretically, this is a completely normal situation. A situation Akito can be calm and cool in. Theoretically. In reality, however, it’s been forty-five minutes since he sped up to his room, locked himself inside and stared at his and Tsukasa’s empty text log as if a message would write itself if he willed hard enough.
He paced his room for about ten of those minutes, eyes locked onto the screen as he scrolled himself into oblivion as he attempted to work himself up to sending a god damn message. He groans at himself, annoyed, before slumping down onto his bed.
This is the first time he’s ever going to message Tsukasa, which shouldn’t be a big deal, but for some stupid reason it is. He feels like a stalker, he’s gone through Tsukasa’s account enough times now to know that he’s been on and offline twice in the past forty-five minutes, his profile picture was taken by someone in his troupe at what appears to be a practice session and that his bio is simply a smiley face and a star emoji. While Akito is taking another glance over his profile (his birthday is in may…) he hears a loud crash come from Ena’s room, causing him to drop his phone square onto his face. He yelps, and just as he’s about to scream back at Ena about what the hell she was doing, he noticed a faint vibration coming from his phone. He scrambles to pick it back up from where it slid down to his chest and flips it over.
Dread fills him as he takes in the screen, Tsukasa’s profile picture blown up as the call attempts to connect.
“Shit shit shit shit shit-“ once his body catches up to his brain he moves to end the call before it can start to ring on Tsukasa’s end, but before he get his brain and body to cooperate, the calls connects with a click and he can hear Tsukasa’s muffled voice coming from the speaker.
“-ello?… Akito?”
Akito decides in a split second that letting the call go completely silent is probably a lot weirder and a lot more awkward than saying hello back, that’s what he decides anyways. What he does is let the call go completely silent, save for Tsukasa’s occasional ‘hello’s and ‘are you there’s.
“Well uhh- if you’re not there then i’m gonna go-“
Akito panics and shoves the phone to his ear, “ah- hey…hey. Uh. Senpai.”
Akito’s going to go hide in a ditch somewhere and never come back out.
“Akito!” Tsukasa sounds loud and normal and it gives Akito a slight bit of relief, “Everything okay?”
Akito’s about to fumble his way around a sentence again before he manages to stop himself. Be chill. Be normal and fine and your usual self and everything will be fine.
Akito doesn’t get like this. He doesn’t fumble and he doesn’t drop his phone on his face and make accidental calls to stupid boys he stupidly gave his number to. He curses at himself inwardly and takes a deep but hopefully not noticeable breath.
“You didn’t give me any information on the whole ‘going to the mall’ thing,” he says as smoothly as he can for a guy who just had to give himself a mini mental pep talk.
Tsukasa makes a noise akin to that of a cartoon character, “I completely forgot about that part I am so sorry Akito!!!!” He all but yells down the phone.
“Stop yelling, it’s a phone, i could hear you if you whispered. It’s fine,” hearing Tsukasa’s shouts actually helps him relax funnily enough, he feels like he has control back of the situation, his cheeks have cooled and his heart isn’t beating faster than it should be. Well, only slightly.
Akito sits up in his bed, confidence coming back to him, “so, the mall?”
“Ah yes!,” Tsukasa exclaims then goes quiet, a moment later he hums into the mic, it’s low and warm and something about it makes Akito feel hot all over. He swallows harshly and tries not to think too hard about Tsukasa’s voice and the way it vibrates through him.
“this Saturday? I’ll send you a link to a cafe i frequent, we can meet there at 12!” He can hear the smile and the slight excitement seeping into Tsukasa’s voice, “if that’s alright with you,” He adds a breath later.
Having a time and place to meet is making this all feel more real and Akito’s starting to get nervous. And a bit of something else. He doesn’t want to say he’s excited though of course. Doesn’t want to say it.
Akito clears his throat and nods before remembering Tsukasa cannot see nor hear his nod, “yeah. Yeah sounds good.” He hopes he sounds more relaxed than he feels, or at least that Tsukasa doesn’t notice. Which it appears he doesn’t.
“Awesome! That’s great i will see you then!” Tsukasa sounds happy and it makes Akito’s stomach squeeze in a way that feels oddly good.
Akito lets himself smile knowing Tsukasa isn’t there to see it. They sit silently after that, neither knowing what else to say. That is until Akito hears an odd noise come from the other end of the call.
“Did you just yawn?” Akito says and he’s still smiling for some reason. Smiling about hearing Tsukasa yawn. What is happening to him.
Tsukasa grumbles before he replies, “yes i just yawned. Stars get tired too, you know?! I must get eight hours of sleep every night if i want my skin to stay looking this healthy,” He says all too pretentious.
Akito can’t help but laugh at that, “you sound like my sister. Although she sleeps far too .. weirdly for her to be saying that sort of thing.”
Tsukasa yawns again and Akito pokes fun again. Tsukasa talks about his sister and Akito finds himself listening, they somehow get onto the topic of their groups and how their singing related activities are going. Akito begins a ramble about how things have been going for him and Tsukasa is getting quieter and quieter and then Akito can hear snores coming from the other side of the phone which stops him mid sentence because he realised Tsukasa had fallen asleep to him talking. Not only that, he’d been talking to Tsukasa for the past two hours and now that he’s sleeping he feels this weird feeling almost as if he missed talking to him. God Akito needs to get his feelings straight. He puts the feeling down to annoyance that he was passed out on mid conversation.
He doesn’t exactly know what to do now, but hanging up feels wrong. Instead, he gets up and changes into his pyjamas, flicks off the light and plugs his phone in before setting it down on the pillow next to him. He settles himself in his bed and lets himself feel how tired he’d gotten.
“Goodnight, Tsukasa,” he whispers into the darkness.
He’ll let tomorrow morning Akito deal with this inevitably embarrassing situation he’s created, for now he’s going to let himself enjoy the moment and drift off to sleep happier than he’s been in a while.