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Teru never liked pressure.
He experienced a fair bit of it when he was much younger: when he was strictly taught of the inherent dangers of apparitions, when he finally got his first sword, and when he was expected to slay his first apparition. Soon, all that dissipated into satisfied murmurs of and you said he was only eight? and claps on the shoulder from family members Teru didn’t quite remember the names of just yet.
(He could remember dozens of ways to catch apparitions off guard, dozens of ways to protect himself, dozens of ways to win.)
With the nagging feeling no longer being a constant in his life for a long time, it swallowed him whole in the situations where he couldn’t help feel that he was out of control. Teru would protect humanity at all costs, he would work through any conflict at hand and make sure no one died in his watch. No one meaning-
His breath caught in his throat at the sheer amount of blood seeping through the makeshift fabric bandage-tourniquet wrapped around his chest. Akane being the source of said crimson. As his supernatural form crumbled, leaving him in his school uniform, as did his condition, eventually making him unable to keep up with Teru’s quick strides and ultimately impairing his ability to walk at all. Slumping against a row of lockers in the somewhat eerie hallway in its emptiness, Akane winced, turning his head to the side and squeezing his eyes shut.
If he were the constantly unbeatable and unfazed man he was made out to be, he would scoop Akane up into his arms or hoist him onto his back and continue going on his way. Gentle, as to not irritate his wound further, but still hasty so he could make it to No. 1’s boundary before it was too late. Instead, he was frozen in place, stuck in the thick liquid that was time. Time that was running away from Teru so, so quickly.
In the thick liquid, Teru found himself gliding downwards, knees hitting the dirty tiled floor. Akane was still alive, but with every slow, shaking breath, Teru could feel a bit more of himself leave. This wasn’t supposed to happen - he could tell when someone didn’t have much time left, such as Yashiro, and Akane wasn’t like that prior to now. He wasn’t close to the far shore in any way besides his contract with School Mystery No. 1. Someone messed with the future. Someone messed with time.
Teru’s hand skimmed over the weak pulse fighting in the redhead’s wrist. His fingers moved to grip Akane’s, squeezing tight as if to try and comfort him (hell, who was he kidding, it was partly to comfort himself, too). Akane made no move to return the act, limp and submissive in his grip. Teru couldn’t blame him, but he still pleaded in his head for more of a reminder that he was not gone yet.
With his other hand he put pressure on the gushing wound. The fabric from Aoi’s clothing proved no good, especially after going through the wear of Akane switching forms.
“You’re not going to die,” the words were bitter in his mouth, as if it itself was calling bullshit on him. He knew lying would do Akane no good when he fought to keep his eyes from rolling into the back of his head. They twitched and fluttered about, unfocused yet still staring up at Teru. His jaw hung open in silenced wheezes of pain.
His desperation only increased. Nothing would do him good.
Was it giving up if the situation was unfixable?
So he sucked in a shaky, harsh breath, willing the frog in his throat to leap away, and frantically murmured words Akane would not care for in his dying moments. Words he only wished to hear from one girl.
“Come on, I love you!”
But Minamotos’ feelings didn’t trump their duty, never would, so he didn’t dare yell it for the world to hear. It was hushed, but still his tone revealed much more emotion than he would’ve liked to.
There was no reason to keep it down with no one around (his pride was there, Teru supposed) and no reason to hang onto the hope that the situation would resolve itself. Aoi Akane would die, bleeding out in a school hallway - the product of a puppeteer rubbing their grimy hands where they weren’t supposed to.
Having no words to describe something was truly the worst. Was he angry? Angry at No. 7, angry at Aoi, angry at No. 6, angry at Akane, even. Or more sad, upset? The thing was that no matter how hard Teru reached for a solid grasp on that suffocating feeling, he would miss.
Consumed in it, Teru hardly noticed any evidence of the nasty wound disappearing at first. It wasn’t the strangest thing, to be honest, that an effect left by the supernatural would vanish as said supernatural did. It was still unexpected, as Teru didn’t think the severance would go that far; although, he did still know for a fact that some remnants of the world beyond would remain.
Akane was groaning, blinking his eyes open lazily, and reaching up for him. His trembling, weak hand could hardly close, loosely gripping the black fabric of Teru’s coat. It was vulnerable, but how could it not be? To stare death in the face… He himself had done that a few times before on difficult missions, though most of the time Teru had been able to find proper treatment before he bled out in an undesirable place.
This will probably be the only time he ever reaches out to me , the thought intrudes. It was quickly pushed away when the half-supernatural (ex half-supernatural now, perhaps) seemed to become more aware of his surroundings. The pain cleared away as any evidence of his stab wound did, turning into shock which turned into a bleary, slowly clearing up awareness.
Akane remembered everything.
That was a bit of an overstatement, seeing as a gaping hole in your abdomen tended to make things hazy. Leave a hole in your memory, if you will. It was a hazy everything. At first, he tried to keep up with Teru’s accelerated walking, before giving into the unpleasant drip-like feeling that spread throughout his whole body, up from his stomach to his brain. There was nothing peaceful about dying, even as he felt his consciousness slip away as if sleep was going to take over.
Overall, an unpleasant experience. Aoi being lost to the far shore was still fresh in his fog-addled mind, which only added to the torture.
(Maybe that’s what helped him give into his folding knees. Akane never wanted to become a full supernatural, it was a disgusting thought, but Aoi… Aoi would be there with him. And as much as he loved her, they still had things to discuss. He knew her, better than anyone else in the world. Akane told her so; he detailed all the evidence that it was not the lies she believed surrounded her. Her behavior was off when she accepted the [interrupted] kiss and went over the details of their future date. It made his stomach ache as if the stab wound was still there, close to accepting the fact that Aoi’s facade was still very much present in the far shore.)
The everything he remembered included what Teru said. The first thing he said was just reassurance that he would live to see another day. Which, quite frankly, Akane couldn’t imagine why Teru would comfort him, a supernatural, and also hope for his words to come true if his tone of voice and expression that poked out through the blur said anything. He knew the exorcist wasn’t heartless, just unnecessarily cruel towards non-humans. Which included him.
The second thing was just a smidgen more jaw dropping. That was underselling it. If proclamations of love from supposed enemies was suddenly something of the norm, maybe not. But, it definitely wasn’t normal, and it almost single handedly roused Akane from near death.
Akane had whatever forces clogging up the far shore to thank for that, not Teru’s shocking comment.
When he was roused, his first thought was: I’m alive .
Shortly followed by: What the hell?
It was a lot to process, especially with the stress of nearly dying and Aoi actually dying. Which was why Akane definitively felt in no mood for confrontation right when he blearily blinked open his eyes, despite feeling less sluggish and free of the pain (and the mass amount of blood, oh god, it painted his torso and creeped his way up his throat and out of his mouth. It was a great surprise when he stopped tasting metal).
Some things needed to be addressed though. Facing that fact didn’t make it any less hard, but Akane would not sit by and watch as any acknowledgement of that day wilted away in the somehow pulled-off awkward air between the two student council leaders.
To want to be upstanding and actually be so were two different things, so for now Akane let himself fall victim to the harsh winds of grief, sitting alone at home. A talk would come eventually, he figured.
After all, Teru seemed to be a direct person. At least, he thought so. He had no problem expressing his extreme hatred for the supernatural. Teru had also come face to face with many confessions - to be able to reject them respectfully, he had to be upfront, right?
But when he came to Akane’s door, a bright smile on his face and babbling about a day off as if nothing disastrous in many regards had just happened, he found it hard to think of him as so. There were many opportunities for him to bring it up and have a serious, perhaps lengthy conversation about it - right when he picked up Akane against his will before they went to Yashiro’s and brought her around, when Yashiro and Kou were away talking somewhere in the Minamoto household, and now them alone again, searching for clues about No. 2.
It was a safe bet that if he tried to bring it up unprompted, he would be ignored or brushed off. Akane itched to talk about it despite it all, to discuss the seriousness of Teru’s time inappropriate confession or lack thereof…
He couldn’t exactly place the feeling when he thought too long and hard about the situation. It was uneasy, maybe. Burning. Undesirable, to say the least.
It wasn’t a wise resolution, but it sure as hell was one. Teru would gleefully ignore his past desperate words, and Akane would try to mimic his avoidance.
On top of everything happening, Akane didn’t need any more world-crushing things to process - the outburst of feelings from the exorcist should be pushed to the back of his mind.
He wasn’t all too sure that Akane had been coherent enough to hear what he had said or remember it at all. But based on the quickly disguised looks he shot Teru, inquisitive and more than confused, judging by his furrowed brows. So, he was pretty sure.
It wasn’t embarrassing, not quite. More just not knowledge he would’ve liked to share with anyone ever. Now that it was out there, there was nothing Teru could really do. Definitely not throw himself a pity party - I never had a chance in the first place, it’s not like this changed anything. His view on me has always been and will continue to be negative. It simply fueled his distaste further.
Dedicated work was also essential right now, sniffing out any remaining connections the wonders had to the near shore. Teru couldn’t afford being distracted right now, nor could Akane.
Yashiro and Kou were hard at work elsewhere, following a lead on the Red House. Knowing them, they would enter despite his advising otherwise.
“You said they’re headed to that cursed house?” asked Akane, the small talk stumbling out of his lips as an attempt to crumble down whatever tension stood thick between them.
“Mhm,” Teru didn’t look up from where he was digging through a dusty chest of things wedged in a small, hidden closet, “they’ll be just fine, though, if that’s what you’re on about.”
He narrowed his eyes. “And how can you be so sure?”
This time, he did turn to look at Akane, a neutral look on his face. “Yashiro-san and Kou are a bit impulsive, but in the end, they know what to do. They definitely aren’t clueless, I’ll give them credit for that.”
Akane agreed, he supposed. Even if Teru had tried a little harder to keep them out, the two of them would’ve ended up going anyway.
“What do you think we’re looking for in the first place?” He prompted. “A photograph, like with what they found for No. 3?”
Teru shook his head. “To my understanding, that was just because photography was important to No. 3 in some way. I don’t know much about the new one, to be honest - Kou always gets a bit cagey when he’s a topic of discussion around me.” He went back to digging in the chest, back turned to Akane. “Perhaps we’re looking for something akin to the wonders’ yorishiros? I’m not sure if No. 3 changed his after he was appointed, but he may very well have. That would mean we would have to find scissors or something for No. 2.”
It felt weird to discuss the wonders, strangely. He was part of them, sure, but had only met most of them briefly. There were very few meetings between all of them, and Akane never bothered to actively participate in any conversation they had, instead zoning out. He was more of a bellboy or a housekeeper to Kako and Mirai, hardly considering himself supernatural despite having Teru there to remind him of it every day of his life since they met. As such, he had no place taking part in supernatural business. He was an outsider looking in.
Of course, he still had regular contact with Kako and Mirai, he saw Tsuchigomori around the school as he was a teacher (thankfully, he never had him. Akane didn’t think he could stomach it, knowing who he was), and he had too many encounters with Hanako lately to not be considered unlucky. He was pulled along into a couple adventures with him and his little gang, ultimately being pulled into whatever hell reality this was by him.
“Wait, hold on, is that a latch below the chest?” Akane squinted his eyes, an irregular square of floor suddenly becoming clearer. Teru examined it, shifting the chest slightly away in the cramped space. Evidently, it was a trap door.
“Huh,” he commented. “Would you mind going down there?”
Akane sputtered in response. “ Alone ? Yeah, I definitely mind.”
Teru sighed, critically eyeing him. Was he trying to get rid of him? He couldn’t deny that the tension was a bit awkward. When they spoke, it was interrupted for a short moment, right before it consumed them again.
“Well, I suppose I’m not going to find much else in here,” he scooted the chest further to the side and Akane stepped over it, peering at the revealed trap door.
The latch opened down, revealing a ladder as he pushed it further. The outline of it was vague, as there was no light in the space. Akane pulled out his phone, switching on the flashlight function and shining it down. It illuminated the shiny (slightly dulled by dust) dark brown wood of it, matching the upstairs interior design. The rest of the area seemed very gray in comparison, both literally and figuratively.
“Go ahead,” Teru’s voice cut through his observations. “I’ll be in right after.”
“ You’re the oh-so-skilled exorcist here. I don’t have my supernatural powers anymore; if something were to jump out, I’d be defenseless.”
Akane turned to look at him, and he looked entirely unimpressed. “Nothing is going to attack you. Maybe a few rats, if you count that,” Teru tried to convince him. “And once again, I’ll be going down right after. As soon as you’re far enough down the ladder so I won’t accidentally kick your head or anything, I’ll be following in your footsteps.”
All too displeased, he grumbled as he gave in and descended down the ladder first. With his phone in his back pocket momentarily, it was practically pitch black. True to his word, Akane heard Teru start making his way down too.
Right when Akane’s feet hit the ground, he grabbed his phone and shined it in front of him again, having to squint to adjust his eyes to the light again.
The atmosphere was unwelcoming and unnerving. The basement was built for storage, it appeared, but was never finished. Insulation and support beams remained unhidden on the ceiling and some parts of the walls, the floor wasn’t tiled or anything, and if he had to guess, there wasn’t any heating or air conditioning. At least the lights turned on after some stumbling around with only a small phone flashlight to guide him to the lightswitch.
Akane’s vision suddenly focusing on the small strand of web in front of his path saved him. He jumped back, shoes skidding against the stone-like floor. The spider was somewhat big - brown and floating in place by its string. He repressed a shudder.
Teru looked toward him at the sound of his scramble. He squinted his eyes to try and see whatever it was Akane was facing more clearly. “Ah, are you afraid of bugs?”
“Not really. I just don’t like them touching me that much.”
“You’ll probably see more down here. It looks pretty unoccupied with all the dust and cobwebs.”
He decidedly grabbed the nearest thing, a rusty metal cup peeking out of a cardboard box, and smacked it into the spider, sending it hurling away with hopefully the message to not come back near him. (Akane didn’t have that much faith in a spider’s knowledge, but he still actively wished for it to scram regardless.)
With that, he got to work searching. Anything that intrigued him he set aside, digging in box upon box, hands growing grimy as a result.
But in the end, nothing struck him as potentially being what they were looking for. Akane puffed out a frustrated breath, head slumping back against the hard wall from where he sat with his knees to his chest.
Looking over to Teru with his dismissive expression and insistent shuffling around of items, he probably had the same luck. Almost every single container in the room had been searched to no avail.
“We’re not finding anything,” Akane finally sighed out, admitting it when Teru likely wouldn’t. “Can’t we call it a day for now?”
Surprisingly, despite all his dedicated searching, the other boy just nodded. “I agree. We can check out the other site tomorrow. I suspect our chances there will be better.”
He narrowed his eyes. “Then why didn’t we go there first?” Akane would take any opportunity to save Aoi (and No. 7 for Yashiro’s sake, he supposed. He still hated the bastard, but also couldn’t bear to see her sobbing partly for him at karaoke), but hearing that still ticked him. He wanted results as fast as possible too, and this just seemed like stalling now.
“This place was in closer proximity to us and smaller, so if it didn’t work out we wouldn’t be too wiped to try out the next one,” Teru explained. “Just didn’t want for us to get too tired. Don’t antagonize me, now.”
“I’m tired regardless of that. I can’t sleep, knowing that Aoi-“ his voice cracked on her name, and he pointedly looked away to hide as much vulnerability as possible.
Teru was similar, because when he collected himself and looked back to him, the sad, grieving forced smile molded up into another one of his neutral, untelling ones. What was he grieving about, Akane wondered? Was it Aoi’s death and unreasonable overall departure from the near shore, or did a reminder of his unmutual feelings jab at him at the mention of her?
The question was also: Was it unrequited? For what reason did his chest flutter at the thought of being close to him in a non-threatening way for once, then? Disgust? Which also raised the question of: Was it possible to fall for an asshole who had hardly ever been kind to him?
“We better get going,” Teru declared in lieu of a real continuation of their conversation. “Nothing is going to suddenly appear by standing here.”
Akane mumbled an uh-huh in agreement, climbing up the creaky, wooden ladder behind him. When he closed the trapdoor behind him, dust sprang into his mouth, eyes, and any other crevice it could find. His face scrunched up in disgust, he coughed and exhaled through his nose in an attempt to get rid of some of it.
The other boy watched from the doorway of the closet, seemingly seconds away from not waiting up. He glared at Teru as he rose to his feet. “How am I supposed to not antagonize you when I know you knew the dust would do that? And you made me go down there first?” Akane muttered, glare withstanding.
“Hey, at least nothing down there mauled you,” Teru pointed out, grinning. “In hindsight, going down first hardly affected you.”
Yet, in these moments, his grudge against Teru didn’t exactly grow. Akane would forever be bitter about the harsh treatment from him, but he couldn’t find it in himself to checklist all of the smaller things, especially not now when he thinks he could actually reciprocate-
And the ill feeling returned in his gut. He begged for his mind to change the subject. It unavoidably stuck, making him more angry than anything. Akane knew the verbal obstacles he would have to jump over to discuss the topic with Teru. Was he seriously expecting him to simply forget it?
The sun was still somewhat high in the air and welcomed them as they exited the temple. They went on their way, one ultimately unsuccessful place to dig through for clues checked off their list.
True to what he had said earlier, Akane was tired. He couldn’t see how sleep could come to him right now; he wasn’t exactly dead on his feet though, fueled by a lasting adrenaline. Which was why he didn’t protest when Teru waltzed past his own house and continued to follow him on his way, wherever that may be.
It was almost deja vu, what he felt when he trailed after Teru with slightly weighed down eyelids, going in the direction of downtown. Teru was energetic as usual, but at least now he wasn’t wearing that pineapple hoodie and god awful mandala pants. It was as if he had never dressed himself before.
He was led straight back to the same arcade they were in the other day. Entering the place, the sound of various machines from Pac-Man to racing games bounced around in his eardrums. It was nothing if not an overwhelming environment. But Akane cared more about for what reason he would take him there for a second time at the moment.
“Do you want to get tokens or do you have any change to use on the games?” Teru asked, looking back and forth between the token spitting machine and Akane questioningly. He was cut off before he got the chance to respond. “On second thought, we should probably wash our hands first. That sign says the restrooms are back there.”
He didn’t have to drag Akane around to get him to follow (Teru wouldn’t have now, anyway, seeing as he avoided physical touch with them like the plague). His hands were visibly dirty, shades of gray and… Sticky? It was a relief when he scrubbed it all away with soap and water.
Soon back in action in front of the token machine, Teru asked the same question as before.
“I don’t have any change or money to buy tokens with. You can buy some and play all you want, I don’t care.” He answered.
“No, it’s on me, then. You didn’t get to play anything the other day, so…”
“Yes, but-“
Teru was inserting money into the machine, to which it spilled coins into a paper cup with noisy clang s. He shoved it into Akane’s hands without looking and filled up a cup of his own.
Akane wasn’t one to waste money. He was obligated to use these now, he guessed. Saying no in the end to Teru in this situation was like denying something of a little kid on their birthday.
Arcades really were fun, to be fair. They also proved distracting, head too in the game to think about Aoi trapped in the far shore all alone or Teru building a wall between both him and Akane and him and his own emotions.
As his cup emptied and his eyes began to ache from the intense exposure to big screens, the thoughts allowed themselves to return to their front row seats in his brain. Akane’s gaze flitted over to where Teru was headed over to the claw machines.
It hit him that this was his chance to corner him. The atmosphere may make it a little less stressful - everyone focused on their own thing and chatting loudly with their family, all words overall blending into one. Hardly anyone would care to listen in on them. Silence and being alone, just the two of them, wouldn’t work out. Akane figured it was better to try than allow himself to sulk over the anxiety brewing in him at the mere concept.
Akane stepped away from the game he had been seated at and approached him, trying to act as nonchalant as possible. If Teru noticed him acting strangely, he didn’t point it out, instead acknowledging him briefly by looking at him through the corner of his eye.
He returned his eyes back to the claw machine with intensity, squatting down slightly to get a better angle on his shot. Finally, he pressed down on the big red button, causing the crane to descend and clutch in. A purple plush cat came up with it, dropping into the retrieval box. Teru smiled in celebration, this time squatting down all the way to take his prize.
“I really thought these would be harder,” Teru’s tone was bragging. “I mean, I never see anyone else win that often.” He placed the cat on the slightly slanted control panel. It barely balanced.
When he reached for another two tokens to insert, Akane impulsively reached his hand out to cover his. His breath hitched for a moment, and he could practically see the brief praying look on his face that Akane hadn’t noticed. Though, deep down, Teru knew that he did.
Obviously forming words typically wasn’t hard, especially since he was a literal teenager and far past the learning stage of his own first language, but they still managed to run away from him at lightning speed. So there Akane was, frozen as if his own stopwatch had been used on him.
“You can just say it,” Teru recommended vaguely. “Just tell me you don’t feel the same way and forget about it. We both know we can’t stall in our work.” He hardly looked upset about it, and if he truly was, he did an excellent job of disguising it.
Akane took a deep breath before responding. “No,” Teru blinked confusedly at him, silently urging him to go on and stop at the same time. “I won’t say that because… I don’t know. Actually thinking about it, I think I could. I could like you.”
He had never seen him so caught off guard, jaw slightly hung open. “What about Akane-san?”
“I love her, and despite her compliance that I always wanted, I know her. Ao-chan wasn’t her actual self in that boundary. Just her usual mask, at least, when it got romantic,” He looked up at Teru. “She doesn’t feel the same way, though I care for her even so. But I can harbor feelings for more than one person, you know?”
Teru chuckled. “So, a second choice?” He didn’t look too unimpressed despite the critical comment, just disbelieving.
The hand that wasn’t resting on top of Teru’s waved defensively in the air. “No, I can’t quite describe all my feelings out just… I don’t want to forget it. I don’t want you to, either.” The eye contact was straining, but neither split from it. “I think I like you, but for now, let’s just get Ao-chan and the rest back, alright?”
“No forgetting.” Teru stated, looking for confirmation.
“No forgetting.” Akane nodded as he confirmed.
“When we get back to this subject in the near future though, no more stonewalling, Teru.” The first name felt uncomfortable in his mouth due to its unfamiliarity. Akane didn’t consider themselves at the stage for first names just yet, but he allowed himself to use it just this once for comfort.
Teru chuckled. “What, did you pull a thesaurus out for this?”
“For the word stonewalling ? It’s not that obscure, really.”
“Uh-huh…” He raised his eyebrows tauntingly at Akane, a laugh in his grin.
The banter felt more authentic than it had been since the severance. The discussion lifted a good amount of the weight off his shoulders. It was euphoric to be able to think, hey, maybe everything will work out.