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Yukichi sighed, glaring lightly in Mori's direction, though they were separated by a wall and some shelving. There was no way around it. No other explanation.
He wanted the crazy doctor around for the rest of his life. He could no longer exist without thoughts of the loose-moraled, unapologetically manipulative bastard filling his head. What was more, he found himself looking for Mori's opinions more often than not on the most trivial of subjects. Based on his recollections of his mother's description of the feeling and the solidity of her relationship with his father, he was almost certain it was love.
Now, to tell him or not. He was decidedly leaning towards not, but he knew he wasn't particularly subtle socially. So, to tell it was. Therefore, how to tell became his primary concern.
"Fukuzawa? You've been glaring off into space for a while. I'm hungry, and it's about the time most respectable folks eat dinner, so I was thinking we both ought to find some food."
"My turn to pay, hmm?" he sniped almost half-heartedly.
Mori grinned. "It absolutely is. Sushi? There's a terrific place just down the road. I've had it before, and it's good stuff."
Yukichi made a noncommittal noise. He didn't feel like fish, and veggie rolls were boring. He liked to have terrestrial meat in his dinners. "How about the place a few streets over, with the terrific hot pot?" he bargained.
"Fine, fine. Since you're paying," Mori acquiesced.
Yukichi took a mental step back. God, they sounded like an old married couple, arguing about dinner. "Mori," he said, almost before realizing it was out of his mouth.
"What is it?"
Yukichi paused. Whatever he tried to say would never properly express what he meant. He tried anyway. "I want you to be in my life forever. You're important and special to me." No, no, damn, that sounded sappy and terrible and embarrassing. But it was out of his mouth, and Mori was smiling indulgently.
"Is that your roundabout way of confessing your feelings to me?"
He nodded once. Let Mori fill the silences so Yukichi couldn't embarrass himself any further. He couldn't even look at Mori. Please don't laugh, please don't laugh…
Mori snickered. "You know, most people just say something like, I like you. Or, please go out with me. I understand, though. You always say exactly what you mean, no sugarcoating, no dancing around the topic. Naturally, therefore, you tried to say exactly what you meant in words that told the whole story. Right?"
Yukichi nodded again. He thought maybe he could look at Mori now. Why did he look so uncertain?
"Do you really want me around forever? You know me, Fukuzawa. You don't even like me very much. I'm not a likable man, I'm horribly manipulative, and… and you've seen the worst of me, but you want me anyway." Yukichi heard only wondering acceptance in the last part of Mori's little speech.
Yukichi nodded once more. "I didn't know how to take my own feelings. I thought it would be better if I didn't have to, for whatever reason. So I made some distance."
"What a perfectly you thing to do. Shall we make tonight's dinner a date?" Mori was smiling. Smiling? Date? Yukichi hadn't expected that. Really, he hadn't thought far enough ahead of that disastrous attempt to… confess… to have any expectations. God, he sounded like a middle schooler, or at best a high schooler. He was thirty-two, for crying out loud. No, thirty-three now. Damn it all, that was worse.
Mori hesitated, and said, "Yukichi?" then seemed to realize exactly what he'd said. "May I call you that?"
Yukichi assumed his tongue had gotten ahead of his brain, but let it slide. He rather liked the sound of his given name out of Mori's mouth. "Yes, please do. If we are to…" He delicately let the sentence hang. Mori could make of it what he would.
"Date?" An element of impish mirth lurked in his crooked grin. "At least, that's what I want. Since clearly, you're the best I can get—oh, don't look like that, I was only joking. You are so easy to tease. It's part of what makes you so cute."
Cute?! He was absolutely not cute! Mori whisked out the door, laughing, and Yukichi followed, half formed protests dissolving entirely.
Okay, fine, he could admit to himself he was in pretty deep. Could anyone blame him? Mori seemed pretty giddy about the prospect of dating him, at least. Dating. Specifically, him dating someone. Who'd have thought it? He felt Mori's hand tuck itself under his elbow, and glanced over. He should be using Mori's given name though, shouldn't he? Hmm. Better ask.
"If you're calling me Yukichi, what should I call you? Elise uses Rintarou, but you introduce yourself as Ougai."
Mori laughed. "I see the confusion. Ougai, please. Cute little Elise-chan is a bit stuck in her ways, since I changed my name after the war. Harder to be found that way." He sighed, glancing off to the side. "People can hold rather intense grudges. I don't blame them, of course, since I was… rather unhinged at that time." Yukichi thought his laugh sounded hollow.
"Let's just have dinner," he said. "We can talk about what we expect from each other and set any rules that need to exist."
"Oh, that's a good idea. Oh, I'd also like to share what we like, since I do have a lot of things I don't and I want to balance it out."
The restaurant was warm and had a rather homey atmosphere, somehow, which made it one of Yukichi's favorites. Ougai wanted to tell him everything he liked and didn't, up front and without having to search and pry personal information out of him. Perhaps his disaster could be salvaged after all.
For once, the evening went to plan, mostly, Yukichi reflected. They had shared hot pot, talked, and even made plans for a second true date, since he couldn't say their regular shared meals counted. He'd walked Ougai back to his apartment, afterward, and come home feeling quite happy and full of several other emotions he couldn't name. It had been more awkward than he'd like to admit, but in an almost tolerable way. They were both new to this, and fumbling around in the dark to find a path. He was just glad his terrible excuse for a clumsy confession had borne fruit. He couldn't bear to imagine the other options from the sheer embarrassment.