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You’d always liked pretty boys, but he was beautiful.
Noriaki Kakyoin was a junior. Standing at around 5’10”, he had pale skin and a muscular build. However, there was a delicateness to him, in his long, slim hands, in the way he moved like a dancer, in the graceful curve of his neck, in the delicate collar bone that showed through the white button down he wore. His arms were lean but not skinny, his legs long and thin, his hips like a woman’s and his broad shoulders and triangular torso like a man’s. You saw him often in the quad, sitting on a bench or gently grasping for a blossom on one of the many cherry trees. He was like a sculpture, like a garden fairy, like something that didn’t quite belong at a high school carrying textbooks, like something otherworldly. Even his face was strange and ethereal. His hair was a dusty strawberry color, soft and wavy, with tendrils and curly pieces that moved softly in the wind, and one longer strand in the front that refused to be softly slicked back with the rest and instead curled into a small, loose ringlet to frame his slim face. His jaw was soft yet pronounced; his fair skin blushed baby pink below his eyes and on his long, thin nose; his lips were soft and pink, his bottom lip fuller than the top; his lashes were long like a girl’s; his brows were strong like a boy’s yet neat; and his soft, kind eyes were a strange shade of violet, like an iris in April sparkling with dew. Those eyes on anyone else would have looked out of place, but on Kakyoin, they were perfectly natural.
You’d been friends ever since you bumped into him in the school library. He’d walk alone among the shelves, not making a sound, delicate and careful as he was. He’d run a long finger down a book’s spine, softly remove it, flip through it slowly so as not to tear a single page. You remembered you were doing some research yourself, so you’d found yourself in the same part of the reference section where he was standing silently, engrossed in a hefty tome. You’d needed an encyclopedia, so your eyes naturally flitted to the cover of the book he was reading. It was a book of poetry.
“Hey, are you doing a project on poetry? Dude, I wish my class would.”
He’d looked up, suddenly alert like a boy woken from a dream, and his soft violet eyes met yours. “Oh, actually, no.” His quiet voice was elegant and buttery, not in a false and honeyed way, but in a way that made it pleasant to listen to all by itself. It wasn’t a particularly deep voice either, and it wasn’t husky. It was soft in a surprisingly masculine way. “I just come here sometimes to read for fun. It’s nice and quiet here, you know?” He’d smiled a bit to himself, his eyes growing distant with fondness. “Nobody ever comes back here.”
“Yeah, you’re right,” you’d replied, taking in the calm that you’d never really noticed before. “It is nice.”
You were both silent for a moment. You’d realized that it was your turn to speak.
“Oh, Kakyoin, right? Pretty sure I’ve seen you around before.” And that was all it took.
The more you’d gotten to know him, the more strange you realized he was. Not in a bad way, though. He was strange in the best way possible. It was like the light never left his eyes, even if he hardly showed that side of him to anyone. Whenever you sat with him on the curb, his white sleeves rolled up and his elbows planted on his knees while he went on and on animatedly about the newest thing that had piqued his interest, you couldn’t help but smile. He liked poetry and painting and old video games and puppetry and antique shops and tea and creeping roses. He wore these little silver drop earrings with a red bead at the end because they looked like cherries, and he loved cherry-themed retro things. His favorite color was emerald green.
He was so beautiful. His laugh was so vibrant. Falling in love with him was like falling in love with life. Breaking down his quiet, withdrawn exterior was a new adventure everyday. You didn’t really care if you never got to date him. Getting to be around him and trust him and really know him was enough.
---
It was a Friday in May. The beauty of the square quad was at its peak in the afternoon sun, and the foliage of the trees above you created patterns of golden light on the grass where you were sprawled out, watching the slow movement of the fluffy white clouds across the ocean of robin’s egg blue above. You took in the sun on your face and sighed.
“Ah, isn’t this absolutely splendid?” you said, half to yourself and half to Kakyoin, who was chilling a few feet away, back against the trunk of one of the trees.
Turning your head, you saw Kakyoin look up from his sketchpad. “Mmm... like something out of a book.” His violet eyes caught the sunlight through the tree branches.
“Whatcha drawing, Kak?” you inquired curiously.
“Ironically, the stars.” He chuckled. “I’m realizing it’s kinda hard to do that at noon with light paper and a dark pencil. I’ll probably grid a canvas and paint it later.”
“Lemme see.” He scooched over and put the sketchbook practically in your face. You chuckled a bit at how close your nose was to the paper.
“Is it bad?” Kakyoin was doing puppy dog eyes. You smiled at how much confidence he was clearly hinging on your opinion of his work.
“No, it’s good!” For having no reference, the constellations were spaced quite well. Though it did kinda just look like a bunch of dots. Kakyoin was a perfectionist, so it made sense why he’d go through the trouble of gridding a canvas just to add perfectly spaced white dots. “The spacing’s really good, dude. It looks like you had a reference, which you clearly do not.”
“Really?” His face brightened up.
“Yeah, dude, it’s gonna look awesome.”
“Thank you!” He grinned and reclined against the tree trunk again, flipping to a new page of his sketchbook. He tapped his pencil against his chin, pensive. There he was, the sun dappling the soft knit of his cream colored sweater vest with the navy trim, the first two buttons of his shirt undone in the heat, exposing his pale collarbone. The golden rays on his rosy hair made it almost look strawberry blonde. Despite not even getting full sun, he was gaining a bit of color already on his nose and under his almost amethyst eyes. The Romantics would have loved him, boyish, youthful, and beautiful as he was. Ironic how he was the artist when he ought to be the muse.
He lifted his chin, making eye contact with you. “May I draw you?”
Your eyes widened, half with embarrassment that he’d caught you staring at him (though he seemed oblivious) and half in surprise.
“I mean, yeah, I guess… should I, like, pose, or anything? Do you need a reference for that?”
Kakyoin’s brow furrowed and he shook his head. “No, no, don’t mind me. You’re much prettier just doing what you’re doing.”
His words registered a few seconds late, and you felt your face get hot despite yourself. Kakyoin was suddenly absorbed in his sketchbook, and you thought you saw the sunburn on his face look a bit redder.
Pretty wasn’t a compliment you got a lot, but from him… Well, he’s an artist. He was probably just trying to get your vibe right and he let that slip accidentally. He found the beauty in everything, after all. As you turned your head away, pretending to look at the school library on the opposite side of you from Kakyoin, you thought about how stupidly good it felt to think that he included you in the beauty he saw in the world. You didn’t want him to see the evidence of those feelings on your face, though. You kinda wanted to maintain some level of a cool, collected image of yourself.
“I was actually drawing the stars just now because I had an idea.”
You turned back to meet Kak’s wide-eyed gaze. “Ooo, really?” you replied, more calm but unsure that the blush had left your cheek. Didn’t matter. He seemed a bit on edge, like he’d been meaning to mention this for a little while.
“Yeah, there’s like… well, I was trying to find places to go stargazing where lights from, like, buildings and stuff don’t interfere, you know, that whole thing?”
“Light pollution?” You chuckled lightly.
“Yes! That!” he said excitedly. “Well, there’s some fields a short drive from my house that used to be farmland, but nobody uses them anymore, so I’ve been meaning to get out there.”
“Oh, cool!” you said, waiting for him to get to the inevitable point.
“I don’t wanna go by myself though, so… what I’m saying is, do you wanna join me? Like, it might be fun, you know?”
Knew it. “Yeah, dude, totally!” you said eagerly. You were really excited. He was like one of your best friends at this point, but you hadn’t hung out outside of school really.
“Oh, okay, awesome! I don’t know why I thought you might say no. I mean, you like that kind of thing, right? Constellations and black holes and such?”
“Yeah, definitely, yeah…” The idea of being alone with Kak under the stars hadn’t really occurred to you until now, and you could feel your heart beating a touch faster. Holy crap. You were gonna be alone with Kakyoin. Like, alone alone. Legitimate alone time. One on one. Out in the middle of nowhere under the stars. Under the stars?!! This was some fanfic shit. This wasn’t supposed to just happen in real life with your school friend. That you were lowkey in love with.
---
That Saturday, you pulled your car into his driveway. He was gonna take you to the field from here, but he wanted you to stop here beforehand so you guys could monitor the weather and wait until it got dark enough to get in his car and drive out. You locked your car and checked your watch. It was maybe 7 now, but it wasn’t dark enough yet. You walked up to his door and hesitated a second before ringing the doorbell. Your nervousness was starting to kick in. Your hand was shaking a little.
You heard him twist the doorknob on the other side. Your heart skipped a beat. Kakyoin opened the door, sunny-faced as ever. You smiled instinctively, captivated by his bright amethyst eyes once again.
“Hey!” he said brightly. That’s when you began to take in the rest of him. His white, cherry-print dress shirt was a bit thinner and fit him a lot better… and tighter… than his uniform shirt, especially around his small waist. And, you noticed as your face grew hot, it was unbuttoned a bit farther down, exposing not just his collarbone, but a bit of his delicate yet defined chest. In addition, he was wearing dark green corduroy pants and gold earrings shaped like a bunch of two cherries.
Kakyoin looked down at his exposed chest and his face went a bit red. Oh my God, you’d just checked him out. Well, no, not like that, but that was how he interpreted it.
He covered the skin he was showing with his hand and looked back up at you. His eyes were wide and they kept flitting back and forth from your gaze to the ground. His mouth was slightly open, like he wanted to say something, but he wasn’t sure what.
“I wasn’t…” This was embarrassing as hell and you knew that you had to be blushing like crazy right now, which wasn’t going to help your case. “I didn’t mean to look at… it wasn’t like that. I like your fit though! It’s really nice! You look… really good… in it! Dammit.” You had to laugh a little. This was kinda funny.
Thank God, he was smiling and chuckling a little too. “It’s okay, I get it. I mean…” He pursed his lips as he looked at the ground and chuckled lightly. “You know what I mean. You’re good.” He removed his hand from his chest and opened the door wider for you. “Come on in,” he said, gesturing to the kitchen. “Tea’s on the stove.”
“Aw, sweet! Thank you!” you said.
You walked into the kitchen and pulled out a chair at the kitchen table just as the dark green tea kettle on the stove began to whistle. Kakyoin ran in after you to silence it. He reached up to a cabinet to the side of the stove and opened it to reveal a huge selection of loose leaf teas and tea bags. He turned back to you. “Alright, what do you feel like? Whatever it is,” he laughed, glancing back at the stash, “I probably have it. Actually, what I probably have is a problem.”
You laughed lightly. “Do you have earl grey?”
Kakyoin grinned. “Indeed I do! My favorite’s the Taylor’s kind, I feel like the bergamot pops most in that one.”
“What are you having?” you asked as he dropped a tea bag into your designated cup and poured the hot water.
“I’ve been on a matcha kick lately. It’s supposed to be good for your skin.”
“Well, I don’t think you need that benefit. You have the clearest skin I’ve ever seen in my life.” Damn! You are smooth.
“Aw, thanks.” Kak smiled as he added cream, sugar, and a spoonful of honey to yours. How did he remember how you liked your tea? You guys talked about that, like, a month ago maybe.
“You gotta do yours too, dude. I can stir mine if you want,” you said. You kinda felt bad. He was doing all the work over there.
“Don’t worry about me. I’m just waiting for the water to cool a little. Did you know green tea should be brewed at a lower temperature? I just learned this. I’ve been brewing green tea wrong my entire life, apparently. It almost feels like a betrayal.” He was so knowledgeable about this stuff. This whole scenario, seeing him so willing to take care of you and be a good host, as well as the depth of his knowledge and expertise on a somewhat traditionally feminine subject, was lowkey kinda hot. You thought it, but you didn’t say it. You just watched him carefully spoon out his matcha powder and thought about how you could get used to this. Not the ‘doing none of the work’ part, of course. The ‘letting someone take care of you for once’ part.
You smiled a silent thank you as he set a steaming teacup and saucer in front of you and then sat down, stirring his. Of course, the matching set was cherry themed. It was strange to you how much he loved cherries, the fruit with the most artificial, sickly sweet flavor in the world. And yet, he reminded you that the real thing wasn't sickly sweet at all. It tasted like early summer and dappled sunshine and two voices in spirited conversation beneath rows of cherry trees and bright smiles and that feeling when two pairs of eyes meet for the billionth time and it still feels just as right as the first time. It wasn't just sweet, it was light and it was brilliant and it was real. Like him.
You shook your head slightly to clear your thoughts and watched Kakyoin stir his vibrant green cup of matcha.
“So, why does everybody call you Kakyoin?” you asked. You’d been thinking about this for a while. You called him Kakyoin or Kak, but only because that’s what everybody called him.
“I don’t really know, honestly. It’s less syllables, I suppose, than Noriaki. Then again, I’m not really on a first-name basis with most people, so maybe it makes some sense. Using my last name’s impersonal.” He paused. “I like Kak though. That’s nice.” He smiled a little, and so did you.
He sipped his matcha before speaking again. “You know, you can call me Noriaki if you want.”
You were flattered and at least one butterfly spawned in your stomach, but Noriaki felt weird to say after you’d stuck with Kak for so long. You then had a thought.
“Sounds good, Nori.” You smirked a little.
Kakyoin put down his teacup and started laughing. “You know that’s a kind of seaweed, right? I mean, I like it, it’s honestly kinda cute, but- pft-” He burst into laughter again.
You snickered. “Alright, great! I’ll call you Nori, “weed” for short-”
Kakyoin lost it at about the same time you did.
Before you knew it, the sky was dark, and Kakyoin grabbed the keys while you called shotgun.
---
You got out of the car while Kak was still pulling the keys from the ignition. It was dark, so you couldn’t really see much, but the field was just as he’d described. No buildings or sources of light were even visible, besides the car. You ran to the middle of the field and plopped down on the ground.
Sitting on the damp grass, legs sprawled out in front of you, sitting up with your hands to prop yourself up, you tilted your head up to see the vast abyss above filled with thousands of stars. You gasped. Out here, there was no light pollution at all. The sky was clearer and the stars more vivid than you'd ever known was possible. Staring into the mysterious void, you felt so small. The light above was cold and icy, but it was beautiful.
You felt a sudden weight in your lap, pulling you back to the real world. Startled, you looked down, directly into Kak's face. Your heart quickened and you felt your face get hot as you registered his head resting gently in your lap. He smiled wider than you'd ever seen him smile before, like he was looking up at the stars even though you were in the way, and the starlight glistened in his soft violet eyes. Caught in his gaze, you realized you didn't want to look back up. The stars above were cold and stark. Below you shined two iris galaxies, more warm and kind and gentle and beautiful than anything up there.
You realized how long you'd been staring and shook your head, embarrassed. "Uh, sorry, my head's in the way," you apologized nervously. "I'll move."
His smile faded. "No, don't," he said. Concerned by the sudden change in his deposition, you didn't notice him lift his hand up to softly hold the back of your head.
You barely even had time to register it before he pulled you down and he kissed you gently. His lips touching yours were delicate and careful for the second you could register them before he released his grip and broke the kiss.
"I'm sorry... I... I should've asked first... Was that okay?" he stuttered quietly, embarrassed, as he quickly began to lift his head off your lap.
"Don't apologize," you said quickly.
"Oh-" His fair face blushed red and he paused as he sat up.
"May... May I kiss you again?" He glanced to the side, flustered.
Your heart going a mile a minute, you could only nod.
He scooched over and gently raised his hand to cradle your face. You looked up slightly at him, your face on fire, and he smiled softly. Then he leaned in and you felt his lips embrace yours. He kissed you softly and slowly and carefully. His lips on yours were so remarkably gentle, his rhythm so easy to follow as you kissed him back, his hold on your cheek so tender it was like he was holding fine china. Like you were something he was trying very hard not to break.
He pulled back softly to whisper, "Is that good?"
"Yeah," you whispered back, breathless.
He went back in, deepening the kiss, wrapping his arm around you, pulling you closer, needing you like water, losing a grip on his restraint. He kissed you over and over and over, his pace quickening but his lead still easy for you to follow. Despite how deeply he was kissing you, he was never rough or aggressive. There was still that carefulness, that gentleness in it. He was still conscious of making sure he wasn’t overwhelming you or moving too fast. You kissed him back passionately, gladly following his rhythm. You'd been kissed before, but it had always been forceful and fast and rough and ravenous and quick to get to tongue. But this... this was different. Until now you'd been kissed like an object of desire, an instrument. Kakyoin kissed you like a person.
He gently broke the kiss, his forehead resting against yours. You could feel him breathing harder, catching his breath, and you could smell the night air contrast with the light floral scent that wreathed around his neck. He was just as beautiful up close.
You and him sat there, foreheads touching, catching your breath in sync for a while. Neither of you said anything. It didn't feel like you had to. You had been waiting for this for so long, this comfortable silence that filled itself up and was complete on its own. It was... peaceful. It was ridiculous. You were happy.
You breathed him in again, catching that floral aroma again, this time detecting fruity notes and light musk underneath.
"Do you wear perfume?" you said, breaking the silence.
He laughed gently. "Yeah. Yeah, I do." Silence again.
"Do... Do you like it?"
"Yeah." You chuckle softly.
---
You stayed there for a little while longer, just chilling beneath the stars, identifying constellations and, strangely enough, discussing astrology. Apparently Kak was a Leo. But before long, Kak got really tired. You weren’t going to let him drive home half asleep, so you offered to drive instead, to which he, without hesitation, sleepily and gratefully handed over the keys. You plugged Kak’s address into the GPS and got going, while Kak slouched, eyes closed, half asleep in shotgun next to you.
As you soaked in the quiet of the long country roads, the yellow line of the road glowing in your headlights against the black of the night, you took a second to process what had just happened and you felt your heart start in your chest again. This was real. This was actually happening. It still hadn’t quite sunk in, so you glanced over at the seat next to you subconsciously to check that this was real.
There he was, long legs curled up under the dash, half his face pressed against the seat, arms crossed against his chest in an attempt to get comfortable. His dusty pink hair was curlier and messier than before. You smiled softly at him. He was so pretty. And he was yours. Your heart swelled in your chest, and you smiled wider.
You directed your eyes back to the road again, and you realized there was something you wanted to do. You hesitated a second before placing your right hand gently on his lower thigh, just below his knee. You felt him shift in his seat slightly, which scared you a bit. You hoped what you were doing was okay with him.
Then you felt his hand rest on top of yours, intertwining his long fingers with yours gently in a sleepy, instinctual embrace. Mouth slightly open in surprise, you turned your head quickly to look at him.
His eyes were closed, but you could still see him smiling.