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Akihiro puts the first plate he’s cleaned on the drying rack. He still has all of the team’s used dishes to go, but he doesn’t mind; Haiji’s cooking sits comfortably in his belly, he has no projects he needs to work on, and it’s a nice warm evening with a mild breeze coming through the kitchen. It smells like summer, and Akihiro smiles to himself – it’s kind of incredible to smell all these subtle scents again, like plants and rain and summer, after years dulled by smoke.
A few dishes in, he’s quietly humming the tune that’s been finding him again and again in the past week or so. The team had gone out to enjoy a festival together, and there, Akihiro heard it, sung by a young girl and her mother as they walked with their hands swinging between them. He doesn’t think he knew the song before, but it sounded nice, relaxed and oddly familiar, and ever since, fragments of it have been stuck in his head. He’s been humming it every day, while working on projects and out on jogs, while doing the housework.
Actually, it’s not just the song that’s been lingering in his mind – that whole night has. Like he’s been drifting back to the tune, his mind keeps replaying images and scenes from that night, all of them revolving around Yuki. It’s what keeps distracting him during the day and what he falls asleep to at night.
Now, too, he can’t help thinking back to the festival, and how good Yuki had looked in his gray-blue yukata, his collarbones just barely peeking out, the line of his neck elegant and perfect. Akihiro’s not sure how long he’s been attracted to him by this point, but it feels like he’s more handsome, more beautiful by the day. It’s not all about his looks, either: Yuki is smart, dedicated, funny in a way that’s just a little mean, and under all his cold prickliness, he’s kind and protective too, in his own awkward way. Plus, frankly, Akihiro finds even his prickliness inexplicably cute. He’s got possibly the shortest fuse that Akihiro’s ever seen, but somehow, he doesn’t mind that either – Yuki only ever blows up about trivial, insignificant things, and cools down just as quickly. The only time Akihiro’s seen him be genuinely angry was when that red-haired kid was messing with Kakeru, he’s pretty sure.
As he keeps working on the dishes, Akihiro’s mind drifts to memories from the night of the festival, like the two of them sharing a tray of takoyaki, or how, when he saw Musa’s longing looks, Yuki immediately gave him his ring-toss prize. Yuki eating shaved ice, Yuki lit by fireworks. Yuki trying to find the ugliest pair of masks for the twins, that terrible, attractive smirk on his lips.
That quiet moment at the end of the night.
In the week since the festival, Akihiro’s replayed every moment with Yuki countless times, but there’s one he keeps coming back to even more than the others: the one they shared right here, in the kitchen, just the two of them.
After the team had come home from the festival, Akihiro and Yuki had somehow ended up here, leaning against the counter and talking even long after their glasses were empty. Akihiro remembers each detail about Yuki with perfect clarity – how nice his lips looked and how much Akihiro wanted to kiss them, how the collar of his yukata didn’t lie quite flat against his skin so that it showed a sliver of a perfect shoulder, how he laughed at one of Akihiro’s stupid jokes. How comfortable and warm it was here with him.
How, when an easy silence fell over them, and Yuki just kept looking at him with those dark, beautiful eyes, Akihiro could no longer resist, and started to lean in for a kiss.
But then, King had called from out in the hallway, and Yuki turned towards the voice, breaking the moment. The worst part of it is, Akihiro has no idea what kind of reaction that was. Before looking away, Yuki wasn’t leaning in, but he’d kept Akihiro’s gaze and wasn’t drawing away either. When he did turn away, it was casual, not startled. It wasn’t really the reaction of someone who just got interrupted seconds before a kiss, or even seconds before jumping back from an unwanted kiss, so Akihiro isn’t even sure if Yuki knows what he was about to do. After all, he’d just barely started leaning in when they heard King.
Then again, Akihiro thinks he’s caught Yuki sneaking glances at him here and there in these past few days, and he’s picked up on some tension between them too, so maybe, Yuki knows exactly what was happening, and feels uncomfortable or grossed out knowing someone like Akihiro is into him.
With a sigh, he turns back to see if there are any dishes left on the table. He almost jumps when he sees Yuki leaning in the doorframe.
“How long have you been standing there?”
“Long enough to know that you still haven’t been able to get that song out of your head,” Yuki says with a grin.
Akihiro huffs a laugh. “Yeah. I don’t mind it too much, though.” He gestures to the table. “Grab those for me? Since you almost gave me a heart attack…”
Yuki picks up the last few plates and a pair of bowls and brings them over to the sink. Akihiro watches as he rolls up his sleeves, and thinks, again, how good it is that he quit smoking. Yuki smells like he always does: fresh, clean, familiar. He smells nothing like rain does, but somehow, his scent gives Akihiro the same comfortable, contented feeling he gets when he sits by his open window before it starts to rain and the smell of it drifts over to him.
Instead of leaving Akihiro to deal with the remaining dishes, Yuki starts drying one of the clean ones with a towel, then puts it away. When Akihiro finishes with one, he puts that on the rack for him too, and they continue like that in comfortable silence for a while, until Yuki starts humming. Akihiro recognizes the tune immediately; it’s the one that’s been stuck in his head for a week. He smiles to himself and joins in.
It feels good, being this comfortable with Yuki, standing so close that their elbows touch sometimes, doing nothing but humming and doing the dishes together. There’s none of the uncharacteristic tension between them now that Akihiro thinks he’s noticed before, and he thinks, maybe, things are fine. Yuki probably never realized what he was about to do that night.
They finish up the dishes in what feels like no time at all.
“So, the song’s got you too, huh?” Akihiro asks, turning to face Yuki properly now.
Yuki smirks. “Yeah, thanks to you. Maybe I shouldn't hang around you so much,” he says, but there’s no bite to it.
“Sorry about that.”
For a few seconds, Akihiro thinks Yuki won’t answer.
But then, he says, “Hey, senpai.” There’s a hint of a blush on his cheeks and he glances away at the end, and Akihiro’s heart flips in his chest.
“Yeah?” he manages.
“On the night of the festival, were you going to kiss me?” Yuki is fully blushing now, but he’s looking straight into Akihiro’s eyes, gaze steady. Akihiro isn’t sure what he was expecting, but it wasn’t that, definitely not this directly. He feels caught; he can’t really tell what Yuki is thinking with the question, and it makes him nervous.
Still, he doesn’t want to lie, and maybe getting his feelings out there will help, so he answers, “Yes.”
Yuki seems to take a big breath. Then, still looking up at Akihiro, still red, he says, “Kiss me now, then.”
Akihiro does.