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I.
In a tired cliché, Valentine's Day brings him to a nondescript restaurant, embellished but ultimately forgettable. The tablecloths are a lovely shade of red, but with a faded quality to them — washed too many times, kept for too many years without replacement. It adds to the mood of a special, if inexpensive night.
Seijuurou needn’t worry about such things; he's here for a different reason. If he is to be alone, it's better to be so in the midst of the crowd.
In any case, he isn't alone in his solitude. The pianist tinkling away at old love songs is ignored by most in the room, though if he minds, it doesn't show, his focus monopolized by the keys. Seijuurou is impressed.
Emboldened by this awe, or perhaps by the glass of red cradled in his palm, he stands, dissolves the distance between himself and the pianist, and sets said glass atop the piano. The pianist tears his gaze from the keys, brows knotted by irritation, lips parted by the insinuation of a snide remark.
It doesn't come. He stares at Seijuurou instead, a ghost surprised to be noticed. Seijuurou meets it without hesitation, the two of them twin magnets.
"You looked lonely," he says, self-assured. An indecipherable expression crosses the pianist's face — likely annoyance, given his response.
"I wasn't."
"It wasn't a question." Seijuurou doesn't apologize, but his smile is placating. "Would you care to help me finish the rest of this—" A vague gesture at the wine. "—when you're done?"
"I won't be done until closing time."
"That's fine, —?" He gives ample pause at the end, expectant. Instead of a protest, the pianist concedes.
"Midorima Shintarou."
With a smile transformed by approval, Seijuurou picks up the glass again. "I'm looking forward to it, Shintarou-san."
"Likewise," he hears Shintarou whisper as he makes his way back to his table, or perhaps imagines it.
It would be nice, if he didn't.
Midorima is used to being alone. He's not an easy person to swallow, with eccentricities in spades. Few came to discover the peculiarity of his cartography and still continued their exploration; Midorima cherishes them all, however reluctant he is to express the sentiment.
He's working on it; it's not an undertaking that's without reward. At present, the gaze of said reward is warming his nape with its intensity, because Akashi Seijuurou is as intense as Midorima is strange. Midorima doesn't glance over his shoulder to confirm it, and doesn't have the allowance to, with his focus occupied by the piano keys underneath his fingertips. Once, Akashi mentioned being impressed by said focus. Praise from him is difficult to forget.
Midorima's pulse had stuttered then. It stutters again now, as his repertoire reaches its end. Soon, Akashi will walk over to him, or perhaps he will walk over to Akashi first, and they’ll walk home together.
He’s used to being alone, that's still true. But it's nice knowing he doesn't have to be.
II.
Seijuurou's smiles are not hard won, nor are they easily given. Nevertheless, one escapes as he approaches Shintarou, whose ensuing frown he can already see from several feet away. Unless someone has observed him from various proximities, it's not all that distinguishable from the expression he often wears, but Seijuurou has done precisely that, these past few weeks.
Enough time to familiarize himself with the downward curve of Shintarou’s mouth when he's displeased; enough time for Shintarou to recognize his footsteps without looking up from the keys.
"You again," says Shintarou, his taped fingers graceful, his playing uninterrupted.
"Not the most courteous greeting to a most loyal patron," says Seijuurou, amusement obvious in the tilt of his head.
Shintarou wrinkles his nose. "'Stalker' is also a fitting term."
"I like the wine." The lie makes Shintarou scoff. "And the company." The truth, however, makes the corners of his stern mouth twitch.
He feels the same, Seijuurou's certain, and he’ll get Shintarou to admit it sooner or later.
Of this, he's certain too.
Someone like Akashi can hardly be obscure to the press. 'Influential,' the magazines call him. 'The emperor,' a biography says. All of them as true as they are incomplete.
Of this, Midorima is certain, despite Akashi's candor. He's kind and assertive in equal measure, but the absence of mystery doesn’t reveal a full story.
It's not unusual, for a relationship in its inception. The problem is that it isn't fair on Midorima when Akashi already seems to know him so completely, a book with the pages thumbed through and the corners dogeared.
"You played my favorite song," Akashi tells him on one of his breaks. Midorima mentally sifts through his setlist.
"Which one?"
"I wonder if you could guess it," says Akashi. By some stroke of luck, Midorima does.
Quietly, he tucks this knowledge away, safe in the valve of his heart reserved for moments like these.
Some victories are no less sweet for their triviality.
III.
The fourth time Seijuurou asks to see him outside of the restaurant, Shintarou averts his eyes, as always, and nods, for the first time. Which isn't to say that Seijuurou was counting.
"They say this number is unlucky." Seijuurou is pleased, and ineffective at hiding it. "I'm now inclined to disagree."
"I wouldn't be," mutters Shintarou, which does plant some doubt in Seijuurou's mind. It doesn't take root, as Shintarou shows up promptly at the appointed hour and place wearing his usual scowl, though his fingers are unusually bare.
At some point in the future, Seijuurou will find out that they're warm to the touch, tender despite the callouses, and as careful as they are elegant. For now, he refrains from touching them, merely motioning towards an unplanned evening.
"Shall we?"
It's not that Akashi becomes careless as the days pass. On the slim chance that he is, it's nothing if deliberate.
In a restaurant fancier than Midorima's workplace, Akashi offhandedly mentions that he prefers white wine to red. On one of their walks home, under a sky polluted by city lights rather than stars, Akashi confesses that he can't name any constellations.
During a slow night, Akashi sits beside him on the bench without warning, and turns his solo into a duet.
When they finish, Midorima's eyes are narrowed behind his glasses, affronted at the suddenness and manner of the reveal. Akashi merely lifts one shoulder in a shrug, a smirk teasing at his lips.
"One can hardly resist the temptation to sing along, if one knows the song."
IV.
Shintarou is made of contradictions. For all his logic, he has a penchant for superstition; for one so seemingly cold, he is gentle on the phone with his sister. He tapes his fingers because he'd rather not tempt fate, yet he said yes to Seijuurou, who is as fateful as they come.
Shintarou also doesn't talk as often as most of Seijuurou's acquaintances, though that doesn't mean he has little to say. When he does speak, Seijuurou becomes not unlike the fabled emperor, oblivious to being caught without his clothes on.
"Are you doing well?" Shintarou would ask, with a sidelong glance that won't hide the slightest furrow of his brow. It's not a query as to whether or not Seijuurou has had a good day; it pries deeper than that, a surgeon's gloved palm cradling an organ.
"No," Seijuurou would say, just to watch the worry flit across Shintarou's face. "I'm doing splendidly."
Midorima doesn't believe in perfection. No such thing exists in music — only what comes close to it: a chord struck with the optimal timing and pressure after a lifetime of practice. There is no such thing as a perfect person either, but Akashi, in his tailored suit and measured words, is closest to the definition.
In comparison, Midorima is stiff and uncomfortable, his social ineptitude rendering him out of place in formal events, even if he is the guest of honor's plus one.
Left without much of a choice, he weathers the evening moderately, aided by several flutes of champagne. It doesn't occur to him until they're on the ride home that he'd been involved in a game of charades the whole time — not until Akashi loosens his collar, not until Midorima loses him to the view out the window.
A sigh doesn't escape Akashi's lips as much as it peters out. Midorima's gaze flickers away.
He's never had a taste for games like these.
V.
In Seijuurou's family home, there was no room for bad habits. His father's omnipresent gaze didn't allow it, and neither did Seijuurou's well-bred instincts.
However, Seijuurou relents that there is one particular bad habit he cultivated in secret, privy only to him and his chauffeur. A small rebellion, and, regrettably, his most significant one.
It originated on his first day of middle school, when he'd tapped on the partition and told his chauffeur that he will be walking the rest of the way to the school gates.
Seijuurou's propensity for being unstoppable began when he was a child, and the habit persisted since. Fancying himself a prince disguised as a pauper, he navigates the city as a common salaryman would, without the trappings of status and wealth.
The dangers are many, though Seijuurou looks them all in the eye with a smile.
He does the same when someone stumbles into him, spilling their coffee — fortunately iced — on Seijuurou's coat.
"Shit, sorry—" The man starts to say, though he stops upon seeing Seijuurou's face, ruefulness set aside for cheerful recognition. "Oh, Akashi, it's you! Been a while!"
Seijuurou stares. "Pardon me; have we met?"
The man blinks, slowly, expression turning into one of inexpertly masked alarm. "Ah, no, I just thought you were— anyway, I'm sorry, I wasn't paying attention..."
"Clearly," says Seijuurou, though not unkindly. "You deploy more care into crossing the street, I hope."
"Haha, yeah..." The man, previously cavalier, changes his tune. "I, uh, gotta go... I'm sorry again!"
The man disappears into the Tokyo crowd as a chill settles on Seijuurou's skin. It must be the coffee drying on his sleeve.
There are few people Midorima would consider more headstrong than Akashi, but a certain Takao Kazunari would prove a worthy contender. Midorima has been seeing Akashi for several months, and Takao has been insistent on being introduced to him for nearly as long. When their schedules align — and when Midorima's apprehension at his best friend and his... Akashi meeting wanes — he finally concedes.
"I have no idea why Shin-chan's been hiding you away," says Takao, an arm slung around Akashi's shoulders within minutes of learning his name. "Do you, Akashi?"
"This is why," says Midorima, though his displeasure goes willfully unnoticed. Akashi’s answering smile is playful.
"I don't. Perhaps he's embarrassed by me."
"Or by me! For shame, Shin-chan."
"This was a mistake," mutters Midorima, though he's inclined to think otherwise when Takao laughs, Akashi following close behind.
"It was a pleasure meeting you," says Akashi, completely sincere, when they part ways. Takao grins over his shoulder halfway across the street; a driver hits his brakes abruptly to avoid running him over.
"Woah!" exclaims Takao. Akashi's laughter deafens Midorima to the driver's angry beeping.
"Be careful, Takao-san."
VI.
Rarely does the future catch Seijuurou off guard — he's been told, sometimes nervously, that his intuition segues right into prophecy — and the same is true for his personal life. He'd foreseen the demise of each of his previous relationships, as easy as mapping out the path to triumph in shogi.
(Perhaps this metaphor is part of the problem.)
He's too distant, the tactful ones would say. He makes too much money, the more daring ones would add. Plainly, he's impenetrable, his walls too difficult to tear down.
Shintarou — callous, gentle Shintarou — is the exception. The way he looks at Seijuurou is curious, not at all like how one might look at a locked safe.
He looks at Seijuurou like he's the gold inside: valuable, prone to being stolen at any moment. Shintarou reached for his hand the other day as if someone might do just that, at the expense of his ears going bright red.
Seijuurou didn't comment on it, though he did squeeze Shintarou's fingers briefly with his own.
Never would he have predicted that Shintarou would hold his hand first.
They weave a routine, late into the night or early into the morning, once Midorima is relieved from his shift. He'd say his polite goodbyes to the waitstaff, tuck the sheet music he no longer needs under his arm, and step out into the evening air where Akashi would be standing on the sidewalk, holding two cups of coffee. After offering him one, Akashi would take Midorima’s free hand in his own.
Tonight is the same. Silence blankets them, as it has on every other night before. Midorima sips his coffee too quickly and burns his tongue when Akashi tears the silence in two.
"How was your day?"
A question so simple should only require honesty, shouldn't it? "I'm considering a career change."
Akashi manages a noise that isn't quite a laugh. "That bad?"
"Musicians want to be heard," says Midorima. "And I can't be heard if no one is listening."
"I listened," says Akashi, his voice burying more than it betrays. "I heard you."
Chastised, Midorima stays quiet as Akashi continues, "you don't know how privileged you are."
What a statement from the city's most eligible bachelor.
Akashi couldn't have heard him think it, yet he still untangles their hands.
VII.
Much to Seijuurou's dismay, he's explicitly barred from lavishing attention on Shintarou for his birthday. The day itself might have even passed unannounced, had Seijuurou not accidentally glimpsed a greeting on Shintarou’s phone.
"Why didn't you tell me?"
"I don't recall you asking," says Shintarou, though his tone softens upon looking at Seijuurou. "I have no need for extravagance. Please. Consider your presence enough."
"That's rather flattering," acquiesces Seijuurou, "But it's a paltry distraction from your cruelty. What are boyfriends for, if not to spoil to the point of nausea?"
Shintarou pauses. "Boyfriend."
"Is there a problem?"
Every soul in the restaurant holds their breath, in the space between Seijuurou's question and Shintarou's reply. Or so it seems to Seijuurou's ears.
"I would have appreciated being told, is all," says Shintarou, after he's chewed and swallowed.
Seijuurou gives him a victor’s smile. "I don't recall you asking."
The earth doesn't turn for a singular person — this is something children are taught. It stands to reason that it won't stop for a singular person either, but Midorima is compelled to believe otherwise as he reads the note between his trembling fingers.
Takao-san
Akashi Seijuurou has had Midorima Shintarou erased from his memory. Please never mention their relationship to him again.
Thank you.
LACUNA INC.
Midorima's glasses begin to fog up. It makes meeting Takao's gaze a near-Herculean task. “What is this?”
Immediately, Midorima regrets asking. Takao is not a serious person, but neither is he cruel one, and any notion of this being a practical joke is revoked by the pity in his eyes.
"I looked them up. I didn't want to— I mean, Akashi doesn't seem like the type to pull pranks—"
“He's not."
"Right. So I wanted to make sure..." His gaze on Midorima is wary, as if waiting for the initial cracks to surface. "They're real, Shin-chan. And I know it's gotta be tempting to find out for yourself, but—"
"I won't go see him," says Midorima, more resolute than the sudden weakness in his knees suggests. "Thank you for your concern, Takao."
He must have said something in response, but the words seem distant from where Midorima is standing. They’re no longer on the same wavelength; Takao is still part of the turning world.
Midorima can only watch as it leaves him behind.
VIII.
Forbidden as he is from spending too much on Shintarou, Seijuurou resorts to other ways of showing his affection. He has taken to wrapping Shintarou's fingers, sometimes lifting Shintarou's knuckles to his lips while he's at it. (Shintarou protests, but doesn't pull his hand away.)
The same impulse leads him outside Shintarou's workplace minutes before closing time, holding two cups of coffee.
He checks his watch, tilting his wrist carefully as to avoid spilling the cup's contents. This mild impatience causes him to miss the exact moment Shintarou steps out the door; Seijuurou glances up and Shintarou's already there, motionless as he stares.
"Surprise," says Seijuurou, tentatively. When that fails to warrant a reaction, he clears his throat, feeling hot under his collar. "Forgive me. You don't like surprises; I knew that. I shouldn't have—"
"I was surprised." Shintarou speaks at last. "But it's not a bad thing." He makes his way towards Seijuurou, wrapping a hand around each of Seijuurou's own. "Which one is mine?"
"You're not angry,” says Seijuurou instead of answering. Shintarou's palms are warm. He should keep them where they are a while longer.
"I'm the farthest from it," says Shintarou, and though he isn't exactly jumping for joy, Seijuurou is satisfied. He releases one of the cups into Shintarou's grip.
"Good. I plan to make a routine out of this."
Shintarou hisses under his breath as he takes a sip. When Seijuurou asks why, he mutters about burning his tongue.
He had lied to Takao then, in a manner of speaking. Someone as methodical as he is had to seek out the address on the card: the clinic apparently responsible for erasing him from Akashi's memory.
"Our files are confidential, Midorima-san," says the secretary, apologetic and unsympathetic all at once. "But it was apparent that Akashi-san has been unhappy for a while."
Midorima should be more surprised than he is. How long had he known this, without doing anything about it? How many of Akashi's false smiles had he ignored; how much of his dissatisfaction had Midorima written off?
How often did he wait for Midorima to ask him what was wrong?
"Midorima-san." The secretary's voice snaps him back to the present. Her hands are hovering over the computer keyboard. "Would you like to schedule an appointment?"
The implication is clear: would he like a world without Akashi?
A world where a certain shade of red doesn't make him pause. A world where the love songs in his setlist aren't meaningless anymore. A world where his chest is empty instead of aching.
A world that turns.
At his sides, his hands are fists, his knuckles white. They throb in remembrance of Akashi's lips across them.
"No," he says. "I don't."
IX.
Envy is not a sensible emotion; it has no place in Seijuurou's mind, much less when Shintarou is involved. Shintarou, who had chosen his current profession over something more lucrative.
Shintarou, who had the luxury of choice.
"How was your day?" asks Seijuurou, on one of their nightly walks after Shintarou's shift. Shintarou considers his words an awfully long time.
"It went well," he exhales. "I'm happy where I am."
"Happier than you would be if you were a doctor?" Seijuurou alludes to a conversation they'd had days ago, of who they could've been if things had been different.
"I love music," says Shintarou, straightforwardly. "I don't love medicine."
"I love shogi," says Seijuurou. "Yet here I am."
A crease appears on Shintarou's brow; Seijuurou reaches up to smoothen it out with a fingertip. "So serious. I was joking."
He smiles until the frown has left Shintarou's face. Someone like Shintarou, bound only to his obligations to himself, could never understand why someone like Seijuurou cannot be the same. Perhaps he'd find Seijuurou ungrateful for it.
Though it's not in Shintarou's nature to pry, either way.
On Valentine's Day, Midorima is asked to come in earlier. He had expected this; more reservations meant peak hours would be moved to a time prior. What he hadn't expected was to be working this year, but that's neither here nor there.
The crowd aside, it's an ordinary night. Or it would've been, had he kept his attention where it ought to have been instead of letting it idly wander.
He sees Akashi before Akashi sees him. Midorima is quick to look away, but it's futile. Soon enough he feels the heat of a familiar gaze, the weight of a familiar smile.
Maybe if he directs all his focus on playing, Akashi won't be inclined to approach.
Maybe if Midorima doesn't react to the wine atop the piano, he'll leave on his own.
Maybe...
Midorima sets his jaw against the burn in his eyes as he glances up. Something unfriendly hangs at the tip of his tongue, but the sight of Akashi's face up close after months without renders him speechless. He struggles not to pound his fists against the keys as Akashi parts his lips to speak.
"You looked lonely."