Work Text:
“It’s not working,” Nozaki-kun says suddenly, and Sakura looks up from the page. They’re working on the final issues at the moment, and while she doesn’t need to do much beta, she’s been given charge of part of the inking. Mikorin is going full-speed with the effects, and barely looked up when she put his habitual coffee down in front of him an hour – no, three hours ago, and when did it get so late? Other than that, they’re the only ones in. Hori-senpai and Wakamatsu aren’t needed until the first inks are done, the lucky bastards.
“What isn’t?” she asks, half-focussed on the scratch of the pen nib outlining Mamiko’s hands, brushing enormous glossy tears away from her enormous glossy eyes as she laments about how cruel Suzuki-kun is, to invite her to an amusement park and then leave to meet another woman.
“It isn’t”, Nozaki-kun repeats, and that gets her interested enough to wander over and see what’s giving him grief. Ah. Oh. Um.
“Nozaki-kun…. I….. didn’t think Let’s Fall in Love! ♥ was this kind of manga……” He looks at her with desperate eyes. “B-But it’s such an interesting twist! So unconventional! No one would be expecting Mamiko to unhinge her jaw like that and eat Suzuki-kun’s nose at the end…” Crap! He looks even more miserable! That can’t be what he’s trying to draw at all!
“U-um, then, is she perhaps being eaten by him?” No! No good! That’s still not it!
Nozaki slams down his mechanical pencil – no, he stops his hand at the last moment and sets it down gently – and kicks away from the desk. “It’s not working! I can’t draw it at all!”
It’s a long shot, but she might have cracked it. “Nozaki-kun… were Mamiko and Suzuki…. standing behind a piece of the scenery? Like, a piece of furniture or a-“
He shushes her with a hand and starts drawing furiously. “There! That’s it!”
On the page, Mamiko and Suzuki are standing a little too close to be staring at each other like that, but… “ah, I don’t think that’s quite right…”
He beams. “Of course! Suzuki is too stylish a guy to choose something like that!” He grabs his pencil again, and triumphantly pushes the amended page towards her. He’s added an extremely crude floral pattern to the mugs covering Mamiko and Suzuki’s faces. It won’t work!!!
“Huh, huh, what’s the fuss, huh, what’s going on?” Mikorin leans over Sakura’s shoulder, and scrutinises the problematic page. The flush starts on his cheeks, meets on his nose and turns his whole face red in an instant. Ah. Still, it’s kind of cute. “N-no-no-Nozaki, is it really okay for them to do this…?”
“Yeah. Ken-san approved the boards last month. Just forty minutes after I sent the final revisions to him!” Well, it’s always nice to see Nozaki-kun happy, but she still has no idea what’s going on.
“What did Miyamae-san approve?” Don’t say ‘the boards’! “I mean, what on the boards, exactly?”
Nozaki-kun stares at her blankly; Mikorin tries his hardest to get even more red. “Ah, the kiss scene, of course.”
The kiss!!! !! ! “So that’s what you were having trouble with? Hmm.” She tries to think about the angles, and the posing, and the various body parts overlapping. “Ah, even I’d have a lot of trouble with that. But, Nozaki-kun, have you really never had to draw a kiss before?”
“Well, I always found a way around it…. in Boyfriend in the Darkness she never saw him, in Forest Fairytale he turned into a puff of smoke, and in Wonderland the light shone so brightly nothing could be seen at all.”
Of course. Nozaki-kun, have you been breaking girl’s hearts all along? “You can’t avoid it this time?” He shakes his head. “You promised Miyamae-san?” He nods furiously. Oh, geez. Ok. “Well. In art club, when we’re having trouble drawing something, we use references, so maybe you could…”
He gestures to his laptop. Ah. He’s already google image searched “kissing”. What exactly were you expecting, Nozaki-kun ?
“It’s no good. No one has Suzuki’s warm and gentle charm! No one has Mamiko’s earnest and pure love! None of these images are the kiss they would share.” If you compare them to a perfect dream in your head, nothing will do, Nozaki-kun. Mikorin is nodding. Not him too!
“Well, then, what else could we try? Your pose dolls?” He no-nos that. Ok, no lips, fair enough. “Could you look at other manga?” He’s horrified! So they don’t have the angle he wants to draw – uh, no, not quite, he’s worried that no one has Mamiko’s hair ribbon. “Um, well, then, maybe… live models…?”
It’s such an audacious suggestion! She can’t believe she just said that! He- Nozaki-kun, he’s nodding?!? Really??!?!?
“If… you… it might work… it might work!” She can feel the flush rising in her cheeks now, poor Mikorin must be feeling effects similar to massive blood loss. “Yes… yes. Sakura! Thank you! Now, kiss Mikoshiba.”
…
…EH?
“Mi-Mi-Mi-Mikorin! Mikorin!! Why should I kiss Mikorin!!!!” She can’t look at either of them!
“Because,” Nozaki-kun says slowly, the page ready and waiting in his lap, “I need to see it and draw it. So I can’t be doing the kissing. And besides, you’re both here. Is it that much of a problem?”
Well- it is? But. If it’s for Nozaki-kun, and if… Mikorin doesn’t mind too much…….. She glances up at him, and – he’s puckering up?? He can’t even keep his eyes open! Is he really okay with this?
Nozaki shifts, and wow, she can’t look at him at all, but – for Nozaki-kun! She can do this! If you give your first kiss away for your crush it’s like… giving it to them, isn’t it? It is! It’s just semantics! She’s basically giving her first kiss to Nozaki-kun!!! That’s it! Do it for Nozaki-kun!
Mikorin leans in a little closer, and his breath smells like milky coffee, and he’s trembling. She spares half a second’s thought to how cruel it is for Nozaki-kun to ask his dear friend to do this, but then Mikorin’s lips meet hers, and it’s, it’s. It’s a little warm, and a little wet, and it feels like he’s… not quite kissing her yet? Courage! She shifts her weight onto her toes, leans up, and, ah, this is kissing? It really does taste like coffee. Mikorin is so gentle. He presses against her very tentatively, and she – when did she take hold of his arms? When did he put his hands by her waist? He can’t bring himself to touch her! They’re just hovering there! Stay strong, Mikorin!
It’s nice though, it really is. Maybe they can think of this as a kind of practice and… do it again? Nozaki-kun will need to draw more kiss scenes, won’t he? No--Nozaki-kun!! He’s tapping her shoulder! Mikorin looks like he’s dying!!
They jump apart. “I think”, Nozaki-kun says gravely, “I’ve got the forms down now.” She daren’t look at the page.
“It’s done?”
“Well. I’ve drawn a kiss, but it’s not really Mamiko and Suzuki kissing… I need to understand how they’d feel, as they share their first real lover’s embrace…” Now she’s dying!
“S-s-so-so-so you need to… to kiss……..” Mikorin manages, and immediately covers his face again.
“Yes.” And as her eyes flutter closed, and her lips part just a little, Nozaki-kun…. kisses Mikorin.
He – he- he- he kissed Mikorin??? Wasn’t she waiting?? Wasn’t she clear that she was waiting? He kissed Mikorin? He wasn’t going to kiss her? Wh- how is this going to help?
The boys release with a faint slurping sound Sakura recognises in the pit of her stomach, and, ah, oh no, oh god he- he- Nozaki-kun – he—
“Ok”, he says. “Ok. That’s Mamiko sorted. Now for Suzuki-kun.” He swoops down and kisses Sakura.
She can’t breathe, or, maybe, she doesn’t want to? Would that be it? Would that stretch this moment out forever? Nozaki-kun has his arms at her waist, but isn’t she Suzuki-kun in this scenario? Shouldn’t she take charge? She winds her arms around his neck and oh thank god he leant down, oh his shoulders are broad, oh, she’s moving, they’re moving, he straightens his back up and she’s dangling in the air, held up by the two points they join, her hands linked behind his neck, his arms tight around her waist, their mouths, their mouths, his mouth, on hers, kissing her, oh god, oh god. He tastes a little bit sour and a little bit like Mikorin (or maybe that’s the traces of Mikorin on her tongue?) but perfect, so perfect, and the kiss isn’t ending and she never ever wants it to even if it feels pretty much like kissing Mikorin with less gravity. It’s Nozaki-kun! How long has she dreamed of this moment? His arms, his breath on her cheeks, Mikorin whining behind them, his lips, Mi-
Mikorin whining behind them?!
They break apart, flushed, panting, her feet still dangling in the air. This is the most flustered she’s ever seen Mikorin. “Hey- hey”, he says, pawing at the bits of Nozaki-kun that are keeping Sakura up in the air, “come on, hey.” Nozaki-kun obediently loosens one arm, and if Mikorin is trying to break them apart now, like Mikorin doesn’t know about her feelings, she might not ever be able to forgive him, but he doesn’t push them apart? “Yeah, ok, this is better, ok, continue.”
Sakura feels like laughing, like she’s too full of happiness and it’s bubbling out, but Mikorin is pushing into any space they create, and Nozaki-kun still holding her up, so she holds it in, and says, “do you need to do more, for, for reference,” and Nozaki-kun says “yes” and Mikorin pushes in and says “me too, me too”, so the book can wait a little before going to print.
She leans up for kisses again, and again, and again and again and again and Mikorin pulls back, “wait, wait, hang on, why was I Mamiko?” and then she really does laugh, and Nozaki-kun does too, and Mikorin tries to hide his blush and grumble, but he’s so close she can see the veins and arteries standing out on his ears. He really is cute. But please, don’t remind Nozaki-kun about the manuscript just yet, Mikorin. The deadline can wait. Let’s do this a little more.