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Ann's goal for this date was simple: hold her new boyfriend's hand.
In theory, it was exactly as simple as sidling up beside him and slipping her palm into his... except Akira only seemed to let his hands leave his pockets when he was sprinting.
In theory, that meant that all she had to do was ask for his hand.
(Literally, not metaphorically or colloquially and not in marriage.
At least, not yet.)
And in theory, all that meant was opening her mouth and saying all four words of, can we hold hands?
In theory.
She was still working herself up to that part.
She just kept getting... stuck. Stuck on that knob of his throat (that she maybe kind of wanted to bite), stuck on that misleadingly docile slouch (that she definitely wanted to hug), that fond little crooked half-smile that lifted his mouth whenever he looked at her (that she didn't really know what to do with; all she knew was that it made her heart stutter and her face heat every time).
And this was a date. A really really real date.
She hadn't realized just how much she'd longed for this until she had it.
It was about an hour in that she finally saw her chance. They'd finished sharing their snack-slash-dinner of takoyaki and crepes, and for whatever reason, hadn't put his hand back in his pocket.
Even better, it was the hand closer to her! She totally had this.
She edged closer and closer, closer until she could almost feel his body heat, until she might brush his shoulder if she leaned a little too far to one side—and let the backs of her knuckles brush the backs of his.
He shot her a startled sideways glance, eyes dark behind the frames of his glasses, then lifted his hand away from his side just enough that hers slipped right into it on their next stride.
She had it.
It was bigger than hers, slightly damp from having been in his pocket all day, very warm. Long, elegant fingers held her carefully, and accommodated her sudden impulse to slot hers through the gaps until his fingertips rested on the sensitive skin of the back of her hand and the heel of his palm almost brushed her wrist.
For all the nerves she'd felt plotting her way into this situation, they were nothing on the storm of butterflies she was feeling now. Happy embarrassment glowed warm in her stomach, hot in her face, sharp and tingly in the very deepest pit of her stomach.
This was a little more... stimulating... than she'd thought it would be. She was glad she hadn't asked outright—she might not have been able to handle this if he had any idea how much she'd wanted it.
She spent the rest of the date with all of her attention absorbed by that point of contact, every little brush and gentle squeeze sending another jolt through her whole system, panting over the world in a sweetly electric haze. It was a good thing he wasn't really one for conversation; she could only manage nods and the occasional hum when he spoke.
Which was why the heavy sigh he let out when they settled into their last stop, the Ferris wheel, was a real surprise.
"Sorry," he mumbled as he slouched back against the seat backing.
"Huh?" Now that she was looking, he actually seemed pretty tired. "Sorry for what?"
"Well," he said after a pause, "The date was a mess, wasn't it?"
"It was?" Ann echoed, then thought about it.
...A lot really had gone wrong today, hadn't it. She hadn't really been paying attention, so the details were fuzzy, but they'd gotten told off by some fussy tourist, hadn't they? And the movie they'd planned to see hadn't actually been playing when the website said it would be playing. And they'd been out of stock everywhere for that one novelty flavor of candy she loved.
But it had been a lot of walking looking for it and that meant he'd been holding her hand the whole time and she just... hadn't noticed any of it.
Oops.
"Not... the romance of your dreams."
The amount of chagrin and shame in his words made her blink. He actually looked pretty down about it.
Akira never looked down about anything. 'Quietly seething' was the closest she'd ever seen him get to an emotional flatline.
"Really?" she asked, because that was news to her. "I mean, I got to hold your hand."
He stared at her like she'd said something bizarre, and she found herself flushing.
"I... guess that's a pretty silly date-goal, huh." Silly or not, she wasn't really ashamed, though. "But I think it's pretty close to my dreams."
He kept staring.
And staring.
And staring.
"...What?" she said when she couldn't take the awkwardness anymore.
"You're so unfair," he finally said, breathing something that might have been a laugh as he looked away. The lighting was too uneven to tell, but she thought he might have been... blushing?
Ha. In those dreams of hers, maybe.
She'd take that gentle squeeze of his fingers, though, the strength and care of the grip making her hyperaware of every last inch of herself.
Then he raised their linked hands and shifted to face her, meeting her questioning gaze with inscrutability—inscrutability that melted into Joker's sly mischief as he pulled her knuckles up to his mouth.
He gave Ann a single second to think, wait, is he...? and then laid a kiss there, one eyelid dropping in a wink and a faint smirk playing around his mouth.
Ann squeaked.
Fiery tingles suffused her face, goosebumps prickling her limbs, heat jolting in the pit of her belly and the rest of her gut going for gold in acrobatics. Looking directly at him only left her feeling even more discombobulated, and the one point of contact between them just burned.
She wrenched her hand away, clapping it over her mouth, and—
And Akira's sly look faded as he glanced away, rubbing the back of his neck.
"...That was more embarrassing than I thought it would be," he admitted wryly, rough and low and toe-curling.
Just 'embarrassing.'
Why was he so composed all the time?! It just wasn't fair.
Ann's throat made all kinds of weird noises as she tried to formulate a coherent response, demand answers, ask him to do it again—anything, really.
He took her stammering as the second and said, "We didn't get to see the movie, but you were talking about how much you were looking forward to that scene, so..."
She'd wanted to see it for the romance of it all, but now she was pretty sure she was ruined for romantic scenes in movies forever. They could try all they wanted, but they'd never top this. Not ever.
She couldn't even bring herself to stammer this time. There was something struck in her throat, and her cheeks were starting to hurt.
She scrambled for her own composure for a while, long enough for their carriage to pass through the peak of its run and begin its descent, and she almost, almost had it when the carriage jostled... and sent her colliding into Akira.
It wasn't far, it wasn't much, but all of her nerves came rushing right back.
Well, most of them.
Somehow, it was easier to slip her hand into his, just because she missed the feeling. Somehow, it was easier to swallow down her nerves and kean in just a little closer, even if it felt like her heart was trying to beat right out of her chest.
Somehow it was easier to push the tightness out of her airways and say, "Hey, do you think... we could keep walking around like this for a while? I... want to spend more time with you."
This time, she was close enough to hear his breath catch, just a little hitch, just for a second.
It was just the tiniest clue-in that maybe, maybe he wasn't always as composed as he looked.
His voice was perfectly steady as he squeezed her hand again and said, "Sounds like a plan."
Speaking of plans, Ann had a new one for the evening: break his composure for real.