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Shuichi considers himself undateable. Not likeable by any means. Not that entertaining to others. Too boring. Much of a burden. Too caring? That's how people of his age put him as such. So he was not that surprised when people never ask him to dance with them on prom night, or ask him to dates the past couple of years.
He was used to receiving no love or affections. His uncle's stoic coldness, his cousin's absensence from their small house, and his parents' tendencies pf anger got him used to the feeling he will never be loved by anyone. He was also uncomfortable with receiving praise for his services as a detective. Shuichi felt useless- but he liked that kind of style. Shuichi has no interest on pursuing love-
-that is, until he found a pink letter.
It started out normally enough. Shuichi would avoid everyone's gazes, learn to be like the wall, and become a stone slate in classes, never answering his teacher's beckons until they truly call for him.
He goes to meet Kaede and his other friends (if they don't mind being called like that) for lunch, and he sits down on his usual seat-at the furthest one, far from any civilization. Shuichi was poking at his food with his fork-he never ate much- when the others were talking about their prom dates.
Shuichi was not a party person. Nor was he a good prom date. He gets singled out by the others, ignored like he was some invisible glass. He looks at Maki, who was too cryptid to even converse about prom dates, and she looks back. There was something in her eyes that make Shuichi jump back, even just a little bit.
He looks at Kaito, who was laughing and smiling at everything they say. Shuichi always felt the need to talk to the man, but he was denied advances due to his social awkwardness and their social class. Kaito was a man with admirers, with real friends, while Shuichi was just a nobody.
Then they lock eyes. It was not an intimate moment; Shuichi felt like he was overstepping his boundaries. But he couldn't look away, because somehow, Kaito's gaze was like a spell. A temporary spell, as it was broken once someone calls for Kaito and he turns away.
Shuichi knows he has no right to be disappointed, but this was the first time someone has ever looked at him like that. He sighs to himself, getting up, feeling like he has lost his appetite due to Kaito Momota staring at him. He trudges up the hallways and onto his locker. He opens his bland green locker when it falls to the ground.
A pink envelope. A scented one, even. Confused, he reaches down and picks it up, smelling strawberries from it. Where did this come from? He had no doubts that this letter belongs to another person, not him, because there is no way a person would give this thing to him... right?
"Oh my god you got one", someone says, and Shuichi turns to find Maki looking at the envelope, bewildered.
"I'm sure it's just a mistake", Shuichi replies, squashing hope inside if it was meant to be his. He flips the envelope over, looking for a name, perhaps who this was addressed to originally. But all he found was a name written in cursive.
To Shuichi Saihara.
"Well?" Maki raises a brow concerning Shuichi's silence. He looks over and over, but could not find the name of the sender.
"This must be a prank", Shuichi mutters to himself as he opens the envelope-to still find no sender- and start to read it.
His eyes widen as he skims the letter again, thinking this was too good to be true. Someone decides to prank him by sending him a letter inviting him to prom as a date. That's unbelievable.
"That's something you don't get everyday", Maki replies in a deadpan voice, looking at the letter over Shuichi's shoulder, but actually having to look over it.
"This has to be a joke." Yet he can't help but hope that this was not a joke, that this was the reality that had been so cold hearted to him for a long time.
"Maybe it isn't." Maki looks into Shuichi's eyes, and he can see flames dancing over it with certainty. It was like she knows who sent this letter to him, but was keeping her mouth shut.
After the first letter, more and more letters seem to flood from Shuichi's locker, all of them asking the same question: Would you like to go to prom with me? But most of them don't even have a name.
Some of his friends told him to hope, to dream of a possibility that maybe, just maybe , he could get a date. Shuichi thinks to himself if that was a possible solution, if he can be as appealing as the others who had won so many dates. Some of his friends (like Maki, who wasn't even helping) told him that this was some kind of joke, that someone was trying to humiliate him.
Shuichi tries to ignore the paranoia surging through him- which is strange, he never denies the feeling of paranoia- and starts to feel sick, as if someone had given him the flu. Maybe he had one.
It makes Shuichi feel like he can do what's impossible. As he runs towards his locker to see and seek for another letter, someone was all ready there. Shuichi was flabbergasted and shocked to see Kaito Momota, opening his locker and slipping in something. Shuichi guesses that it was a letter of invitation for one of the clubs he was assigned to, but he sees the familiar pink envelope slip by.
"Kaito?", Shuichi asks uncertainly. The boy looks at him with a slightly surprised look. Then it turns to a proud grin, then a disappointed scratch on the head.
"Oh man, I was going to surprise you the day before prom night", Kaito says with a disappointed look, but in his eyes, he was smiling wide.
Shuichi was still uncertain though. Why would Kaito invite him to prom night? To humiliate him? To create a running joke? To blackmail him? To do something he didn't ask for? He was overwhelmed by this sensation, as his brain comes up with more and more ideas and situations turn ridiculous. He didn't even realize he was crying until Kaito was standin over him, his thumb stained with tears. His tears.
"Hey, dude, stop crying, you're making me ubcofortable." Kaito's voice was surprisingly gentle and soft, unlike that half-shout half-talk he always uses to converse with people. Shuichi keeps his head down, already embarassed that a stranger has seen him cry.
"Is this some kind of a joke?", Shuichi asks under his breath with his head down. He hopes Kaito hasn't heard it, but truth be told, he had.
"No." Kaito's voice was so firm, that he wanted to believe that he was joking. Shuichi looks up to find Kaito, staring at him with a smile. A smile that sent tingles throughout Shuichi.
"Why would you go for me?" Shuichi was now looking at Kaito with a leveled head, his eyes looking up at Kaito's deep purple ones. "Everyone thinks I'm undateable. Unloveable. Even my family thinks of it as well, like I'm some kind of outcast. So why? Why would you choose me as a prom date?"
Kaito smiles, then sighs loudly. "I know it ain't sincere and sounds clichè or whatever, but I like you. Like a lot. Ever since you came to this goddamn forsaken school, it was like an angel came down to tell me of good tidings. Shuichi, stop telling yourself you're undateable and unloveable, because, hey, you are dateable and loveable. I don't give a fuck to what others would say, and I certainly as hell will kick their asses if they talk shit about you."
When Kaito finishes his speech, Shuichi's tears have dried, and a hopeful gleam was on his eyes. He bites his lip, and hesitantly takes a step near Kaito, and the other respomds by lowering his head, so that they were-sort of- the same height.
And then Kaito leans in, and their lips collide. While they were off doing their own thing, Shuichi's thoughts became more and more positive, as his heart yearns for hope that, one day, someday, this man will be his husband, forever, until death parts them both.
After a few seconds, they break apart. Shuichi and Kaito then realize a lot of students were now around them. Shuichi did not like the expressions they send to them, and, overwhelmed by his anxiety, quickly hugs Kaito, and inhales his perfume. His nostrils smell lilacs. Kaito was a flower person, and he never knew that. He then hears Kaito baring a growl.
"Get back to you classes, all of you", Kaito says, and just like that, everyone scatters. Shuichi lifts his head, relieved that he wasn't confronted with a crowd anymore.
"K-Kaito?", he looks up at the man, and the man turns his head back to him with a smile.
"Yeah?"
"The smell of the envelopes were, um... delicious?" Shuichi wanted to facepalm himself, but Kaito laughs in agreement.
"I like strawberries! And lilacs as well!" Kaito then kisses Shuichi's forepalm, like he was some sort of damsel and Kaito a knight in shining armor. Maybe he is.
"See you in prom?" Kaito sounds hopeful, yet uncertain at the same time. Shuichi smiles back, restraining himself from crying in front of Kaito.
And just like that, it seems like a happily ever after for the both of them.