Work Text:
Day 12 - Confessing Love
Lev stared down at the little box.
His large palms dwarfed it, the small blue velvet box, with a pretty sky blue ribbon that nearly matched it in color.
The petite, adorable little box contained nothing that significant. A necklace. A golden cage holding a small glittering rhinestone. However, the box represented, in its very existence here in Lev’s grasp, a wish.
A wish for the future, or at the very least, a wish for something more than right now.
Now…I’ve just got…to ask him.
Uppers asking lowers for courtship was a frighteningly common thing in high school. The place was a web of broken trust and attempts at finding love, after all. But in this secluded corner, outside the volleyball gym where Lev was sitting early in the morning, none of that status quo bullshit mattered.
All that mattered was that any second now, sure as the sunrise, Morisuke would come up the path leading to the gym. He’d be there, and Lev would stand up, and scrape together every ounce of his courage, and ask for permission to court him.
…and he’ll say yes. Right?
The daunting prospect of being turned down assailed him, and Lev nearly pocketed the box, about to try another day.
Like he had for the past three weekends straight.
But time was finite in this little microcosm called high school. Morisuke was a 3rd year. He’d be gone far too soon, off to university, off to bigger and better things.
If Lev would be recalled as nothing more than a goofy kouhai, or desperately missed as an alpha, bound with ties of love, well, that all came down to his decision at this moment.
He gripped at the box a little tighter and continued his wait.
At long last, he heard the softest humming from around the bend of the building, and his heart leaped into his throat.
He’s in a good mood today.
Lev’s subconscious managed to add on this realization, noting the pleasant humming Morisuke was doing.
Lev stood up, heart hammering against the walls of his chest, and tried to get his breathing under control as he turned in that direction like a man about to face a wild beast.
…I can do this.
No ferocious lion came from around the corner, though. No, instead, it was Morisuke, in his bright red Nekoma sweats, hands tucked into his pockets.
His jacket was zipped all the way up to his chin, and his sports bag was slung over one shoulder. The long strap let the bag hang almost to his knees, where it swung back and forth in a rhythm with his steps.
Morisuke blinked quizzically at the sight of Lev standing there, with his wide stance, as if he were ready for a fight.
“Uh…good morning?” The omega tried, tilting his head to the side, clearly somewhat concerned.
Lev took a deep breath. “Good morning!” He practically shouted, still clutching the box tightly in his fist.
Morisuke leaned backward slightly at the greeting. “Uh…ok. You ready to go inside?”
“No!”
Morisuke, at this point, was merely at a loss for words and stood there staring at Lev expectantly.
If he didn’t want to go inside, well, what were they supposed to be doing, then?
Lev took a few steps forward, closing the distance between them to about five feet or so.
He thrust his hand out, with the box and its slightly rumpled ribbon, and declared the words with all the brashness, all the intensity, and all the shamelessness that could come to be expecting of him.
“Will you allow me to court you, Yaku-san?”
The words hung heavy in the silence, with nothing but the early birds chirping and the far-off drone of traffic, daring to break it.
Morisuke looked down at the box, then up at Lev’s face, then down at the box, then up at Lev’s face again.
He repeated once more for good measure.
“I…uh…what?” Morisuke was even more at a loss for words than when he’d been so confused early, and he took a stutter step backward, putting up his hands.
“Look, if this was for some stupid bet or something, just….”
“Bet!?” The word gusted from Lev’s lips with the force of a hurricane.
“Bet!?” He nearly shrieked this again, and Morisuke seemed even more confused.
“Y-Yeah, or whatever it was that made you do this, just…please drop it. It’s not cool.”
“Not. Cool.” Lev repeated, having dropped his volume to a whisper. Morisuke lowered his hands again.
“I just…I get it, ok, make fun of me, whatever, I’m sure some assholes put you up to it, but I don’t think….”
The way the omega looked so oddly deflated, for some reason, got Lev horribly angry.
“It’s. Not. A. Bet.” The alpha forced these words out robotically, and Morisuke furrowed his brow.
“Then what is it?”
Lev actually felt his eye twitch. “A proposal, Yaku-san. A proposal I’ve been psyching myself up for for the past two months since I bought this damn thing.”
He gestured again, pointedly, with the box in his hands.
It seemed to dawn on Morisuke that Lev wasn’t messing around, and immediately his face went about five different shades of red.
“N-No…no, you…you’re…actually asking me?”
“YES!” At this massive exclamation, Lev thrust the box forward again.
“Just. Please. Answer me. I’m so tired of waiting.” Indeed the alpha looked close to tears. He was so thrown by Morisuke’s previous response, and the omega stuttered helplessly.
“I-I, I mean, but you’re…you’re…you’re you like just look at you, and I…I can’t…I'm not....”
Lev was only further befuddled by all of this and heaved a long-suffering sigh.
“Just say no. Just say it. I can’t take it much longer.”
“Wait, no! I’m not saying no! I’m saying yes! But I just don’t understand why you’d….”
Yet that was all Lev needed to hear.
“Yes!?” He cried out, and all the energy that had been sapped from him returned twice-fold. He looked ready to jump in the air and click his heels.
Morisuke, still trying to reason with what was happening, just planted his hand to his forehead. “I mean…yes. Yes. I accept, but I don’t…why would you ask me?”
Lev just took another happy stride forward, still cupping the box.
“Because I like you, Yaku-san! Why else?”
The auburn-haired omega looked up to him, still not quite grasping his new reality.
“Just because you…like me?”
“Uh-huh. A lot.” Lev said, back to his shameless self with no adjustment time needed.
Moriuske's face was burning so hot it may very well have been the sunrise after all.
“Here! This is for you!” He declared, taking Morisuke’s hand and firmly plopping the box into it.
Morisuke stared down at the thing like it was a ticking bomb. “You really…mean it?”
Lev crossed his arms. “Of course I do! I’d never do something so mean as ask you as a joke, Yaku-san! That’d be awful!”
Morisuke looked up at him again. At this alpha, so gorgeous he may as well have been chiseled from a block of marble, eyes lit but with some sort of fond emotion, Morisuke was too terrified to pin.
And he felt his cheeks, flustered and burning, twitching. The corners of his lips turned up,
For the first time since this whole roundabout conversation had started, the omega smiled, and his eyes glossed up. As if he was about to burst into tears.
“Y-Yeah, it would be, wouldn’t it? I’m sorry I accused you like that.”
“That’s ok! You said yes! I’m so happy you said yes!” Lev threw his arms into the air in celebration, and Morisuke watched him the entire time with that confused yet pleased smile on his face.
Courting.
And all the ups and downs that might come with it.
Be it Morisuke’s now uncovered self-worth issues and Lev’s lopsided personality traits, those were all bare to see now.
However, as Morisuke would think to himself as he fiddled with his new necklace that night, perhaps exposure wasn’t such a bad thing after all.