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Chikage isn’t scared of many things, but he also has a set list of things he likes. Somewhere along this Venn diagram of intellect, the things overlap. Of course you don’t like the things you’re scared of, but in this case, it’s complicated.
Chikage feels a multitude of emotions towards a particular set of emotions he has for Itaru, and fear just so happens to be one of them. The gears are always shifting in his head, and he thinks, while looking at Itaru, that he likes the way he feels.
It’s a brush of fingertips when Chikage hands him a stack of papers at work, the fluttering of Itaru’s eyelashes when Chikage catches him stirring awake first thing in the morning. Chikage likes the warm feeling in his chest when Itaru calls him “Senpai.” He likes the pouting face he makes when Chikage refuses to roll in one of his dumb gacha games even though he knows Itaru’s luck is garbage. Chikage likes the butterflies and the warm, fuzzy feeling in his chest, but it also scares him.
As if it hadn’t been obvious by now, it’s hard for him to open up to people.
Chikage can say he’s been more than vulnerable around Itaru by now, but that’s only because he’s methodically showed parts of himself to Itaru he’s wanted him to see in the duration of their… Relationship.
Relationship…… Chikage thinks, and he spares a glance at Itaru, who’s currently busying himself with one of his games.
“Chigasaki,” he says, and he calls again more firmly when Itaru doesn’t look acknowledge him right away.
“Yeah?”
Chikage leans forward from where he’s seated next to Itaru on the couch, breaching the other’s personal space,”Can you at least look at me when I’m talking to you?” Itaru smiles, wry and disingenuous,”Yeess?”
It takes a few seconds before Itaru reluctantly rests his phone in the lap of his crossed legs, attention diverted from pretty idol girls to Chikage. If it’s one thing Chikage appreciates, it’s how obedient Itaru is…… when he wants to be.
“I’ve been thinking about it, but,” Chikage feels his heart hammering in his chest when he looks away from Itaru and back again,”what are we, exactly?” He has to remind himself to smile after he asks, fighting the reflex to blush at how lame the question is.
Everything suddenly feels dry when Itaru looks at him. His throat feels dry, his palms, and his lips his tongue instinctively tries to moisten. Magenta eyes follow the motion, his gaze dropping to Chikage’s lips before lifting back up to his eyes.
“What are we?” Itaru mirrors, and it really doesn’t hit how lame it sounds until Chikage hears it in the other’s voice. No offense.
“Hm… What is that, a joke?” Itaru sounds like he’s joking, but if there was a punchline from either one of them, both were poorly executed. The tenseness in his shoulders makes them burn, and it’s from that signal of his brain to Relax Chikage realizes he’d stopped smiling.
“It’s not a joke.” He says, only because he realizes it’s become a bit too late to play it off as one. Itaru watches his eyes narrow and knows he’s wholly serious now.
And Chikage watches Itaru, all honey blond hair and highlighted tips; with his pretty pink eyes and the faintest of age lines adorning them. His heart shaped face and full peach lips that form a perfect bow when he purses them. His head hurts.
“It’s not… you’re not asking me out are you?” Itaru says, incredulously, and punctuated with the faintest of laughs.
Chikage smiles,”Wouldn’t you like that, Chigasaki.”
For a question, Chikage purposefully chooses not to say it like one. He doesn’t really want an answer, and Itaru senses that too. Chikage puts a wall in between them when he’s scared, and for that reason alone Itaru goes back to playing his game.
Chikage holds that encounter in his mind like it has physical weight. He thinks of it like it’s heavy; and it’s now he thinks about it again, when they’re alone again and Itaru is the one who starts the conversation.
Itaru looks just as thoughtful as Chikage feels, brows knitted and the wrinkled furrow between them shielded by his bangs. “I never thought it’d be like this,” a pause,”with you.”
“‘It?’” Chikage asks, just because it needs to be asked.
“You know, us.”
There’s a stretch of silence that ensues, but Chikage can feel that familiar flicker of fear in his heart that makes his blood pump. “‘It.’” Chikage quotes Itaru again, irritation present at the edge of his voice.
It’s now that Chikage realizes that it hadn’t dawned on Itaru yet. Itaru had simply never thought the ambiguity of their relationship made every interaction where they weren’t kissing or touching feel like walking on eggshells. It had only ever been Chikage, this whole time.
He looks at Itaru, the quality of his gaze shifting,”That’s rather awkward phrasing. Try again, Chigasaki.” He pointedly leans forward from where he’s seated on the edge of his bed, watching the other stand awkwardly near the window.
“…And like that, the heartless Senpai I know has returned.” Itaru scoffs.
Chikage looks at the back of Itaru’s honey blonde head when he turns fully to look out the window. The way his hoodie sits on his body dwarfs his actual frame. Chikage can see the sun highlighting the edges of Itaru, and doesn’t realize that there’s a hint of brown creeping up in his roots until he makes way to stand over him.
“What were you saying earlier? About ‘it’… ‘us’…? Me?”
When Itaru turns around to glance up at Chikage, his choice of words are,”I didn’t think you’d be this serious.”
Chikage can feel his heartbeat stop.
“‘Serious.’” He quips, mildly irritated from the frustration of not knowing. The room swells with that je ne sais quoi distinct to them, and it shrinks in on him.
“Yeah,” and sensing that’s not a good enough response,”the other day you asked what we were, I wasn’t…… Expecting that.”
Chikage can see Itaru’s lashes dip, eyes downcast away from him. He wills his breathing to slow, and Chikage lets the silence linger while they try to breathe through the tension, thick as warm spring petrichor and the humidity it brings.
“We’ve fucked, Chigasaki.” Chikage says flatly, and lets the blunt truth of it permeate,”We’re adults, I’m not gonna be in my twenties forever, I don’t do stuff like that with people I don’t…” he breathes again,”like.……”
Itaru looks up at him, unamused but somehow understanding; they’re the same age after all. “Though if you had told me, at that time, that that’s what you wanted to be then maayybee for my cute Kouhai…”
“You…” Itaru blushes and hits Chikage playfully,”You like that dynamic way too much.”
“Only cause Chigasaki’s irritated face is my favorite~” an unpleasantly pleasant smile.
Itaru considers the other for a moment, and it’s like the quality of the air has shifted along with the beat of Chikage’s heart. He smiles, and Chikage’s heart pulses erratically in response, knocking at his chest like a door.
“So it was a confession.” Itaru says, doesn’t ask, smugly folding his arms and leaning back against the wall. “I asked you if you were trying to profess your love to me… and you said,‘"Wouldn’t you like that, Chigasaki?'"
Chikage’s eyebrow twitches, but his smile is still on,”You’re looking happy,” he observes.
No hesitation. “Like I just pulled a SSR.”
Chikage half scoffs and half laughs in equal proportions.