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Shuichi’s hands are currently very shaky. As one might have guessed, this was solely because the detective is extremely nervous. However, what he is nervous about is another topic of discussion. Normally, he’d be nervous for a test in class or an upcoming case. This time, neither were the case.
All of Shuichi’s classes had just finished and it was time for him to go meet up at the Ultimate Pianist’s research lab. Ever since the first month of school, Kaede had promised the detective that she would teach him how to play the piano. At first, Shuichi resisted, claiming the toll would be too great on Kaede, but after Kaede immediately deflected that point, Shuichi was on board. Eventually, the detective stood right in front of her lab. He decided to calm himself down and check if everything he needed for today was in his backpack. Sure enough, he had everything he required. He sighed before knocking on the door. In an instant, Kaede already opened the door, smiling brightly at the detective.
“Hey Shuichi!”
All it took was Kaede’s greeting along with her genuine smile for Shuichi to begin blushing like crazy.
“H-Hey Kaede!”
“Are you ready for your daily piano lesson?” She stated, clearly excited for what was to come.
“Y-Yea!”
“Alright, let’s go!”
At this, Kaede grabbed onto Shuichi’s hand and pulled him into the lab and towards the piano. Shuichi sat down while Kaede went to pull out the specific sheet music from her collection. All of a sudden, Shuichi got a ping notification from his phone. He fished it from his pocket and read the message to his absolute horror.
Kaito: You are gonna do it today, right?
Shuichi, now sweating more than ever, quickly responded.
Shuichi: YES!
After that, he muted his phone and put it inside of his pocket. Unfortunately for the detective, an Ultimate Pianist with phenomenal hearing was standing around 15 feet away. A normal person would not have heard the pinging since it was barely audible to the detective, but Kaede did. As she walked back, holding some sheet music, she asked what the noise was about.
“O-Oh, it was just a notification from G-Google.”
Thankfully, Kaede didn’t seem to pry into it and just put the sheet music on the piano. However, Shuichi couldn’t help but notice that Kaede was now sweating too. It made him a little concerned.
“Um… Kaede? Are you okay?”
“Huh?” Kaede said, starting to blush a little. “Yea, why do you ask?”
“You started sweating. You seem nervous about something.”
“Oh! That’s because I got a piano concert in a couple of days I'm worried about.” Kaede stated, looking away from the detective. At this point, Shuichi got genuinely concerned.
“Oh, then should I leave? It will g-give you more time to practice? I w-want you to do well…”
Even though Shuichi really wanted this piano lesson, he wanted Kaede to be successful even more. He would also be glad to wait a little bit with his plan if Kaede became more at ease for her concert. However, once again, Kaede objected.
“NO! It’s okay… I got all the practice I need. It’s just a little stage fright, you know?”
“Yea, I understand…”
Even though Shuichi definitely understood how scary stage fright was, he thought that Kaede got over that by this point. She has played in numerous concerts without any concern for stage fright, so this just seemed odd for the detective. Either way, after this, their piano lesson started up. Initially, everything was going smoothly for the duo, but as time went on, they both got more and more nervous. Shuichi made some silly mistakes playing the keys while Kaede had trouble fixing his mistakes. They both became more sweaty, but they chalked it up to the room being hot, even though the air conditioner was on. By the end, they made no real progress. However, Shuichi was still sweating, knowing he had to put his plan into action. Before that, Kaede said something.
“So, I guess that is it for today, right Shuichi?”
“Yea…”
They both stood there awkwardly. Shuichi wanted to desperately say something but he couldn’t get the words out of his throat. He was trying so hard but it just felt like the whole world didn’t want him to do it. It almost started to physically hurt as his face started to become red from embarrassment. Unbeknownst to Shuichi, Kaede was in the same position. Neither of them could speak up. After 5 minutes of just staring at each other, Shuichi just decided to close the conversation.
“O-Okay, bye K-Kaede.”
“Oh, u-um bye S-Shuichi.”
Slowly, Shuichi left the lab, hoping that the words would come to him. Alas, as he walked out of the lab and closed down behind him, he couldn’t manage to get the words out of his mouth. He felt especially upset since Shuichi had been practicing those specific lines to himself over and over again, and as soon as he thought he had enough courage, he just couldn’t do it. Suddenly, as Shuichi was walking away, he had a thought.
Oh man… Kaito is gonna kill me.
Quickly, Shuichi unmuted his phone to see there was another message from Kaito just waiting there.
Kaito: Did you do it?
First of all, Shuichi wondered how Kaito knew that his session was over. He thought it was because he was watching them, but the timestamp, which shows that he typed that 30 minutes ago, just meant that he got impatient. For Kaito’s question, Shuichi could only answer honestly.
Shuichi: No… I tried so hard… but I couldn’t find the words.
Shuichi never received a reply from the astronaut, even though Kaito read Shuichi’s reply. It made him worry that he was such a baby to him that Kaito just left him. Shuichi felt that Kaito was disappointed in him and it hurt. Slowly, he walked to his own lab and sat down on his desk. Shuichi looked down and saw all of the uncompleted case papers laying randomly on the table. Shuichi just sighed, put his backpack down, and began to complete his assignments. Shuichi didn’t know how long it was, but when it was dark outside, Shuichi was surprised to hear a knock at his door. Slowly, he rose up, still feeling upset at what happened, to open the door. To his complete shock, the person standing in front of the door was Kaito.
“Heya sidekick!”
“Oh… hi Kaito.”
“Hey, don’t be so gloomy! There will always be another chance to try! Let’s just go on a walk to clear your head!”
Even though Kaito’s intentions seemed genuine, Shuichi was very confused. In the past Kaito was the one telling him to get Kaede “before another dude takes her”. Seeing how he quickly turned around made Shuichi skeptical. Before he could even ask questions, Kaito took Shuichi's bag and threw it at him. Then, Kaito pulled the detective and took him outside.
Honestly, the walk was exactly what Shuichi needed. It helped him relax after that stressful experience while also hanging out with his best male friend. They were walking, talking about this and that for a while. Eventually, Kaito started to talk about space and all of the stars, which is what he would typically do.
“Hey Shuichi, there is this amazing place to see the stars out right now. Come on, let’s go!”
“Okay, I’m following you!”
Kaito smiled, already knowing what would happen next.
…
…
…
“Maki, why are we here?” Kaede exclaimed. Right now, they were both on top of a random hill in the Hope’s Peak Academy garden. Maki said she wanted to show Kaede something, but Maki never showed the pianist anything.
“Holdon, let me find it.”
“Find what? You're looking at the sky?”
“Do you want to die? Just wait a minute!”
Kaede sighed and just decided to trust her. After all, Maki was Kaede’s best friend after Shuichi, so it was natural that she would trust her. However, after waiting for around 5 minutes, Kaede got tired of it. Before opening her mouth to speak, she heard some people talking in the background, getting closer and closer. Eventually, they got close enough and Kaede could instantly make out the noises. She stared in their direction, which allowed her to see Shuichi and Kaito’s heads become visible from the far side of the hill.
Shuichi immediately looked up to make eye contact with Kaede. They both slightly blushed, not saying anything. Kaito quickly pulled Shuichi up with him towards the top of the hill. Before they reached the top, Shuichi turned to Kaito wide-eyed. However, Kaito only had one thing to whisper to the detective.
“Do it now.”
It was so low that Shuichi knew not even Kaede could have heard it. However, Kaito still kept pushing Shuichi towards Kaede until the best friends were around 1 foot away from each other. At this point, Maki just turned towards Kaito and Kaito responded with a nod. Quickly, Kaito grabbed Maki’s arm and sped off, not before making Maki blush in the process.
Before either of them knew what was going on, they were both there, on top of the hill at night, alone. Again, both of them started to sweat and slightly blush. At this point, both of them knew why they were brought there and what they had to do. That made Shuichi blush furiously.
Can I even do this? How am I supposed to do this now? Like this?
Shuichi thought about just turning around and leaving before thinking about all the things that happened for him to be here. Kaito kept pushing him to pursue a relationship with Kaede and the pianist herself was always open to spending time with him. The two were practically inseparable and the two were publicly best friends. Shuichi sighed, knowing there was no running away from this one. Honestly, Shuichi thought that was for the best. He desperately wanted this, but was always too shy to do so. Even so, right now, he had to act quickly, but before he did, he automatically thought of the possibilities that came from confessing.
Worst case scenario, Kaede will just say no. She will never leave me over this! I know her!
He once again sighed before starting the conversation.
“H-Hi.”
“H-Hey.”
Even though it wasn’t a great start, it was something. Shuichi took a quick breath to hopefully stop his blush before continuing.
“I t-think we both k-know why we are h-here, right?”
“Y-Yea…”
That confirmed it for the detective. With the small amount of courage Kaito gave him, Shuichi decided to go for it. He reached his shaky hand in his backpack in order to pull out a bouquet of flowers. Specifcally, Shuichi chose yellow daisies and lavenders, since they perfectly fit her aesthetic. At this, Shuichi noticed that Kaede started to blush even more.
“U-Um… K-Kaede… I-I… r-really… like y-you… more t-than… f-friends…”
Shuichi was stuttering so hard that he didn’t even know if Kaede heard it. His hands were visibly shaking as he held the flowers in front of him. Shuichi knew he was already too deep so he decided to just finish it.
“Y-you are v-very… p-pretty… and perfect at e-everything. T-that, and your heart is p-pure gold… made m-me gain f-feeling for y-you. So… I was… w-wondering if… you w-would… be my g-girlfriend…”
Shuichi felt the nervousness leave him until he forgot to say one thing. He instantly became worried and started to ramble.
“Oh, but don’t worry about it. If you say no then I totally understand! It’s your choice and I respect it. I probably won’t-”
“Shuichi.”
That one word from her made his nervous one-sided conversation halt. Slowly, he looked up at Kaede to see she was still blushing, but this time, she had a smile on her face. She began to slowly move towards Shuichi before moving one of her hands around the flowers he bought her. She smiled before reaching into her own backpack in order to pull out a box of chocolates.
“I was gonna ask you the same thing.”
Kaede gave the chocolates to the detective, which he instantly accepted. Now, with their goods traded, they both stood there blushing at each other. However, Shuichi just wanted confirmation from the pianist.
“So... is t-that a yes?”
Kaede laughed before setting the flowers on the hilltop. She came closer until she wrapped her extremely soft and gentle hands around his neck. She leaned into his ear and whispered:
“Yes… I’d love to be your girlfriend.”
Kaede pulled away a little bit to see the damage it caused. Her words flowed throughout his entire body like water, even though it felt like he was struck by electricity. Shuichi always thought her voice was beautiful, so getting to hear her so close up made Shuichi’s brain stop working. Kaede saw all of this in his blush and decided to lean forward. Eventually, Shuichi saw what she was doing and leaned forward to reciprocate it. Slowly, their lips came together as they commenced in their first kiss. Immediately, all the nervousness from the duo's bodies left them. They felt like this was supposed to happen and there was nothing to worry about. They gave each other courage and bravery, which reared its head in the kiss. They both got ecstatic as they both got what they wanted. Shuichi, with his hands now around Kaede’s hips, eventually had to break the kiss for air. He looked at Kaede’s eyes to see the reflection of the stars in them. Kaede also saw the same thing and, internally, they both admitted that their partner’s eyes were the most beautiful things in the world. As the new couple stood there, they both knew this would lead to a life with a lot more obstacles and many more paths. But together, they knew they could overcome anything. Their love will conquer all.