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“There’s something I never quite yet got to say.”
The busy streetscape almost drowns out Akira’s admission, the pitter-patter of footsteps and chitter-chatter of friends and family just loud enough to make his voice sound like the forgotten bass in any given song. Spring has an official date, issued superfluously by some guy who probably thought he knew best, but flowers are already in full bloom, the temperatures are creeping upward, and the third year of his high school career is tip-tip-toeing from the distant future into the closer present. Everyone seems happy, everyone seems content. Today is a good day. So he shouldn’t be doing this. He shouldn’t be bothering, not when he had so many chances way back when, when he could still pretend he had just a little longer to breathe in smog and feel trapped in jam-packed subways.
“Huh?” His comrade - self-appointed PR manager, number one Phan-Boy, friend - blinks, looks up. His phone screen darkens from inactivity, a half-finished text message all but forgotten in favor of giving his full attention to Akira. “Sorry, did you say something?”
The papers, snug tight in Akira’s hands, are heavy. When Mishima handed them to him, mumbling something about having “just started” and that “it’s still a long ways to go,” Akira already knew it was complete horse shit. Ink blotches pepper the pages, accompanied by enthusiastic chicken-scratch adorning several notebooks. He even spots a few inconspicuous food residue in the margins. Mishima never knows when to stop or take breaks; it’s either all or nothing with him. Some people might find it annoying, like Akira did in the beginning.
But now?
He fiddles with his glasses, gaze shifting towards the nearby storefront. An old man sweeps the entrance free of scattered trash and smiles at several jubilant children dashing inside with an exasperated father. Some famous author just released a new book, if the sign indicates anything. That’s probably why he found Mishima hanging around here in the first place. Akira stuffs his free hand into his pocket and chews his bottom lip. Now.
(“Hey, hey,” Morgana mewls from his bag, tail flicking against the back of his neck, “what’s the hold up? We gotta get moving, don’t we? Don’t wanna keep our ride waiting, right?”)
Looking back, it should’ve been obvious. Growing up in the middle of nowhere, he often tussled with his parents strict, self-serving ideologies, what with using leftovers to feed stray dogs or sticking his nose into anybody’s business that he deemed needed help. It’s how he got into this mess with that senator in the first place, rushing to save the day when anyone else would have turned the other cheek. It’s not like charity cases seek him, though - it’s the other way around. Some people need something to do with their hands; Akira needs to dismantle injustices and right the world’s wrongs. Everybody has a quirk or five, yeah?
Mishima just happens to be a long-term project. Or so he thought, starting this--this thing. One look at those bandages, vacant eyes, and purple-blue splotches got Akira’s cogs turning. A victim of cowardice, enslaved to some jackass’s power-trip fantasy decked out with enough oil paintings and lewd sculptures to fill a castle. He thought maybe he’d give this hopeless nobody a hand to stand up.
And Mishima took that hand and propelled himself straight into the sun with waxen wings crafted from his newfound and exaggerated self-importance.
“Kurusu?”
Mishima’s head tilts, brows furrowing in concern. He leans forward a bit, peering at Akira, who eloquently responds with an, “Um.”
“You doing alright? It’s not like you to space out like that when you’re not in class.” He grins. Then deflates. “Oh, right. When you weren’t in class. Sorry.” He pauses, and frowns. “No, but really, are you okay, Kurusu?”
But now they can talk like this. Sure, Mishima used to only prattle on and on about the Phan-Site forum requests (which inevitably tied into his own agenda), but they moved beyond that, finally. After slogging through Mementos and dragging the truth behind those sickly yellow eyes and confident smirk, after witnessing Mishima’s resolve to change himself without any aid of his heroes, after seeing him take a stand against cruelty when once before he would just shrivel and reluctantly accept it, he no longer needed Akira’s offered hand or a pair of fake wings. He found courage to meet Akira eye-to-eye instead of idolizing him, and the strength to walk on his own.
It’s no wonder why--why. Akira scratches the back of his head and rolls his shoulders to stall for time. He shouldn’t even be stalling. He has to walk the narrow street back to the train station, get to the crossing, and get a ride back to his old town. Today isn’t a day for new beginnings. He already tried this a month ago or so. Today isn’t a day to say something asinine and breech boundaries. Everyone knows that. Even the cat knows it, who grows more and more impatient with each flick of his tail.
But he always was and will be a problem child.
“Akira,” he replies.
Mishima does a double-take, almost reeling back from the sudden forcefulness in Akira’s tone. “What?”
“My name.” He takes a step forward. Good. Stepping up to a challenge is what he’s best at, be it against unruly Shadows or a burger eighteen times the size of his head. His hand reaches out with a prayer and a thin layer of sweat coating his palm before latching onto Mishima’s wrist. “It’s Akira.”
The wind almost wrestles the papers free from Akira’s side. A hush settles between them as the breeze tapers off. Mishima stares, dark eyes wide and bright in the noontime sun, lips parting to gawk at the sudden developments. He glances quickly to their hands, to Akira’s face, to his lips, to their hands again, and sucks in a sharp, nervous gasp. Good, now they’re both nervous. Akira knew those intimidation tactics, honed from demanding money and goods from flirty Shadows, would come in handy someday.
“I,” Mishima licks his lips, face turning rosey, “I already know your name.”
“Do you know how to say it?”
He answers his question with a multitude of others encapsulated in one word: “Me?”
(Why me. Why you. How. When. Am I reading the mood right. Are you sure you’re not just making a mistake right now. Aren’t you supposed to be leaving. Aren’t your real friends waiting. Aren’t you sick of me. Didn’t I annoy you. I know I got better but really. I know I’m out of your league aren’t I. What about you and Takamaki or the student president. Are you sure? You’re sure? You’re sure you’re sure?)
Akira smiles. His feet hurt from walking around all day, his throat stings from talking to a handful of people he never once thought would become important to him, his back aches from lugging around an irreplaceable lump of fur, but he feels great. Greater than great. Great enough to shoot God straight through the forehead with the power of maybe-Satan as the words, “Phantom Thieves, can you hear us?!” reach his ears amidst a choir of dreamers wishing for freedom to do what they want.
And this is what he wants.
“Do you know how to say it?” he asks again, then pauses before adding, “Yuuki.”
Mishima doesn’t pull away. He doesn’t move, doesn’t speak, for what feels like an eternity. If Akira squints, he can see steam wafting up from the top of Mishima’s head as his brain struggles to compute thoughts. His jaw flexes a few times, dead syllables sputtering from his lips, before wheezing out, “Is this why you invited me over for Valentine’s Day?”
It’s Akira’s turn to do a double-take before releasing Mishima’s hand and bursting out into a laughing fit. Tears sting at his eyes as he slaps his own thigh, doubled-over from the surge of overwhelming disbelief. The nerve. The absolute nerve. Akira returns from saving the day, from jail, a day before the most-purported romantic day on the planet, asks Mishima to come over to his place, and Mishima thought he got chocolate (shaped like a heart, no less!) as a symbol of Akira’s goodwill and friendship?
“You’re unbelievable,” Akira manages to get out between shaking his head and guffawing. He’s certain to have drawn the attention of other people, although he couldn’t care less. This idiot. This egotistical, brave buffoon. This oblivious, headstrong fool. Mishima seems to be at a loss as Akira wipes the tears from his own eyes and says, “I was confessing to you, like I am now, and again.”
“I never received chocolates before! How was I supposed to know? I thought you gave one to everyone. You should’ve just said it. Or told me the next day, after I didn’t get it! How am I unbelievable when you’re the one who acted like that never happened ever since?”
“Did you see anyone else getting chocolates from me?”
“Oh, my god,” Mishima says after a moment, slapping his own forehead, “you even lit candles.”
“And made dinner, don’t forget that.”
“Oh my god, you made dinner,” Mishima groans, slapping his forehead with his other hand in some half-baked effort to hide his shame. He freezes, shoulders raising, and peeks at Akira between his fingers. His voice comes out as a whisper. “You’re confessing to me?”
Akira swallows. His weight shifts from one foot to the other as he twirls his bangs between his forefinger and thumb. “Kind of, yeah.”
Mishima lets his fingers slip. His expression shifts from shock into something unreadable, lips drawn into a tight line. His eyes narrow as he invades Akira’s personal space, closing the distance to a mere few centimeters between them.
“Then say it.”
He can feel the words spill onto his cheeks. Mishima’s breath smells like raspberries, probably from downing another one of those god-forsaken energy drinks. His response-engine short-circuits and responds with a quiet, “What?”
“Say it,” Mishima says, pushing himself upward by standing on his tiptoes. He takes Akira’s wrist, the one weighed down by the mountain of papers gifted to him, and lifts it up to hide their faces from the rest of Tokyo for a few seconds. His lips are chapped, but it doesn’t matter. He’s a crappy kisser, but Akira didn’t give a damn. Mishima steps back, face reddening, and then continues, “If you won’t, then I will. I like you,” a pause, “Akira.”
Well, this didn’t go according to plan. Akira tries to respond, fighting against the raspberries still waltzing on his lips, and comes up with, “See, was it really that hard? Same amount of syllables and everything.”
Mishima rolls his eyes. “That’s it, I take it back.” He holds out his hand. “One kiss refund, please.”
“Do you have a receipt?”
“Sorry, I threw it away with my feelings. Can I talk to a manager?”
“Fine, fine. We’ll refund you - on the house.”
He pulls Mishima in by the collar of his dumb green volleyball shirt and kisses him. He can’t wait to come back to Tokyo during Golden Week, just to get better at this.
Man. He really needs to get better at timing. Oh well. Mishima will forgive him, eventually.
After all, that’s one thing Mishima’s taught him well - aside from patience, of course.
“I like you too,” he murmurs as he pulls away, grinning like the dork he knows deep down that he is, “Yuuki.”
*
“Dude, holy shit, what took you so long?”
Akira shrugs as he piles into the now-working van. He stretches and yawns.
“Had to finish up a couple of things.”
“You kept us waiting for like, an hour and a half, man.” Ryuji sighs and drapes his arm over the back of the seat after closing the van door. “Must’ve been pretty important, those ‘couple of things.’”
The van hums to life (Morgana appears pleased) and pulls onto the street, rushing by the Tokyo landscape. Akira hums with it and pulls out his phone, discreetly glancing at his new wallpaper. Mishima’s got dimples, apparently. Even with the slight camera blur, the selfie, with their cheeks mushed together and promises of seeing each other again soon exchanged shortly thereafter, can’t be anymore perfect. It buzzes with a new notification - a text message.
From: Yuuki
>listen, if you cause trouble back at your place, I can’t bail you out again, you hear?
>and I demand a proper date next time!
>could we go to the buffet or something fancy?
>I’ll pay with my royalties money ofc
>if I get published
>WHEN I get published
>anyways come back soon and safe okay??
>I already miss you.
To: Yuuki
>Me, too. <3 I’ll be back before you know it.
He smiles, and then pockets the phone before saying,
“Yeah, you know. Had to remind the moon that it’s beautiful and stuff real quick before I left.”