Chapter Text
The first time Kanbara Akihito meets Nase Hiroomi is not under ideal circumstances.
That was to say, Akihito would have preferred if the state of affairs had been different, perhaps fate could have let him be more suave, maybe with a flirty demeanor that left the Nase boy jaw-dropped at such a fine specimen of a freshman, while Mitsuki fumed on at his undeniable charisma.
But instead, he gets to meet Nase Hiroomi while he is disheveled and half-asleep, his shirt rumpled, his jacket hanging off him and thirty minutes late for a project meeting with his sister. Akihito doesn’t even know his name.
Nase stands in the doorway as the hand that opened the door for Akihito—he touched the door; I want to be that door ran through his mind unceremoniously—goes up to his head as his next destination, where a fluffy towel is wrapped carelessly around wet hair. Akihito’s eyes follow, mesmerized, as an unchecked droplet of water slides down the side of Nase’s face and maybe other people—other people that stared at water dripping down people’s faces from a shower, yes, of course; but god damn it the boy was so beautiful Akihito couldn’t think of a single reason why people wouldn’t stare at him—would notice the way the droplet caught light and sparkled rainbow, but instead he was fixated on the smooth creamy skin that it was seated on.
But these are all merely distractions, because Nase is dressed in a pair of jeans and a towel around his head, and his upper half is bared for all to see. Akihito might have been inclined to feel jealous, but he really had nothing but a weird-as-fuck infatuation-at-first-sight with the guy and was too busy trying to spare only a few seconds indulging in the outline of abs that isn’t quite engraved into his skin and leaves a lot to the imagination, especially those with the likes of Akihito.
“Are you here to see my beloved imouto?” he asks, but the weird phrasing doesn’t really matter anyway because the first thing Akihito thinks is he’s a family man, that’s hot and Akihito really thinks he needs to reevaluate his life, starting from revamping his mentality.
“You okay?”
“Huh? Um—um, yeah,” Akihito says. Brilliant, Kanbara. That’s definitely how you go impressing hot-as-hell sophomores that you’re completely infatuated with.
“Are you here to see…who’re you here to see?”
“Um…Mi...” and for a second he forgets every single word he’s ever learnt, with the possible exception of an embarrassing bout of word vomit that’s stuck in his throat right now but that’s probably the reason why he can’t say anything except “uh”s and “um”s. “…Mi—”
“Mitsuki,” Nase finishes for him, almost reverent in his tone and something in Akihito’s mind finally slots together properly and shoots out okay, that’s a little weird, only for him to consider, but he probably just likes Mitsuki a lot. Sibling love’s not something you see every day, that’s nice, and he wants to slap himself until he stops sounding like a fifty-year-old cat lady. Not that he knows any, but still.
“Um, yeah.”
“Miitsuki!” he turns around and yells, hand still scrubbing through the towel to dry his hair. “Your friend’s here to see you!”
“He’s not my friend,” a female voice comes through the hallway scathingly, and yeaaap, that’s definitely Mitsuki. No one else, Akihito believes, would possess such a cute voice that brought forth images of adorable girls, preferably adorned with gorgeous glasses, and use it in a way that could cut like glass but still bring forth a melodic sound. Truly a piece of art, Nase Mitsuki.
“You’re late,” Mitsuki says, dressed in a pair of lilac pyjamas and Akihito narrows his eyes and retorts with, “Yeah, but you look like you’ve just gotten out of bed!”
Mitsuki blinks once, twice at him, a perfectly confused face. “Why would I waste my good clothes on you?” she says, absolutely bemused, and Akihito sighs. Mitsuki turns her heel and beckons him with a wave of her fingers as she walks on without looking back.
Akihito tries to convince himself the feeling of a pair of eyes set on him is only wishful thinking as he follows Mitsuki into her room.