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It’s over so fast, Goro questions his own perception of the event. If not for the sudden coolness of the winter air on his lips and Akira’s proximity, he might as well have dismissed the notion as an exhaustion-induced hallucination.
But Akira is still standing there, hands shoved in his apron pockets and trying to look casual about it although he’s shaking a little from the cold.
“Mistletoe,” he says, pointing up, and Goro looks up, slowly. Above them, on the door head, it’s a small bouquet of green leaves with white berries. If Akira hadn’t said the word, he wouldn’t be able to recognize it for what it is.
Akira sighs, his breath white in the cold. "Sorry, was that not okay? I figured since we're dating-"
“Of course. It’s not a bother at all,” Goro hurries to say, trying not to show how affected he feels. He adjusts his gloves unnecessarily. “Well, good night then.”
Akira waves and Goro tries to keep a steady pace towards the station, watching his feet place themselves one in front of the other automatically. He keeps his composure all the way to the corner as he feels Akira’s eyes heavy on his back.
His first kiss, just like that, placed on his lips like a bolt of lightning. In an instant, Akira had accomplished what Goro had been too chicken shit to do for weeks. Akira’s lips had been a bit chapped but nice, soft, determined, although it was hard to tell his feelings since Akita wore his best poker face afterward.
Calm down, it’s just a kiss, Goro orders himself inside the train, feeling his face warm up at the memory.
People kiss every day – literally, billions of people, throughout the ages. It’s no big deal. Perhaps this is even a wake-up call for Goro to grow a pair and just start kissing Akira like he’s been wanting to do for some time now.
Just a press of lips on lips. Everybody does it.
And Akira was acting casual about it. It’s not like it had been planned or anything.
*****
It had all been planned – from the mistletoe placement, to Akira’s position by the counter when he friendly said ‘I’ll walk you out’, to his carefully neutral face after the fact.
It was genius. All Morgana’s idea.
“I just don’t know what to do, Mona,” Akira had complained the night before, pacing in circles in his room as the not-cat watched TV. “We always have a great time, everything’s cool, but then it’s this dance of ‘will he kiss me, should I kiss him’, and no one actually does it.”
“Hmmm,” Morgana hummed, not listening at all, too enraptured by a documentary on the origins of mistletoe traditions.
“Maybe since I never dated, and he never dated-”
“Isn’t that’s odd, though?” Morgana wondered out loud as people in the doc placed mistletoes above their doorsteps.
“I know,” Akira agreed. “It’s so unlike us to hesitate like that. If only there was a way to create a situation where we could kiss casually…”
“Uh! People kiss under them,” Morgana exclaimed, finally getting it.
Akira stopped, noticing a couple kissing under a mistletoe on the TV screen.
“Mona, you’re a genius.”
“Yes…”
*****
Frequency illusion attacks Goro with a passion the next week. Or, to better put it, mistletoes and Kurusu Akira attack Goro.
If never before Goro had seen a mistletoe outside foreign movies, now they seem to be everywhere – and by everywhere, he means he’s being stalked all over town by seemingly innocent mistletoes hanging over every doorstep he crosses.
“Let’s just ignore it.”
“We shouldn’t,” Akira is quick to protest. “It’s bad luck for two people to pass under a mistletoe and not kiss. There are laws.”
“What laws?”
“Of Christmas.”
“… You’re insufferable, Kurusu.”
Akira’s pout is unfair to the extreme. Goro is only a man.
“Fine. Just do it then.” Akira’s lips are already on his before Goro has even finished the sentence. For a moment – a moment that grows longer and longer each time it happens – Goro blocks all the noise and movement around him as his senses focus on Akira kissing him.
All too soon it’s over and Goro has to deal with cold lips tingling and Akira smiling like a cat who got the cream.
Goro is annoyed to no end. “How can you be so superstitious?”
Akira shrugs with a mischievous smile. “Makes life more interesting.”
But these single incidents Goro can still handle. Multiple occurrences in one night are the real problem here.
“Goro, look!” Akira points to the – Goro guesses it before looking – mistletoe on the entrance of their favorite little izakaya.
“What are the chances…” Goro deadpans.
“I know, right! And we passed by it like three or four times tonight…”
“Kurusu, no-”
“I don’t make the rules,” the rule-maker complains, steering Goro to a corner. “I guess four kisses in a row it is.”
By that logic, it should actually be three since they only passed by it three times, but Goro always thinks it’s better to round it up instead of down, so he doesn’t correct him.
Goro lets himself be kissed, counting the kisses and already feeling wistful at the end of the first one. The third one is restless, like a Saturday night gone to waste; the fourth, melancholic, a Sunday over too soon.
These times are intolerable. They make Goro itch, make him want to burn every Christmas decoration he comes across. These times show Goro how much of a coward he really is, that Akira has no hesitation to kiss him but Goro still can’t bring himself to kiss him first.
Or perhaps not. Perhaps the truly unbearable kiss is in an unlit hallway of their new jazz club, where Goro barely makes out the shape of a mistletoe before a hand is pushing him back against a wall and it’s.
It’s overwhelming.
No one was around to see them, the darkness covering them with a spell. Akira presses him against the wall with his body, his tongue unrelenting in his exploration of Akechi Goro’s mouth, and Goro encircles his arms around Akira’s shoulders for the first time, bringing him even closer.
Is it technically more than one kiss if their lips don’t separate from each other? Akira doesn’t seem to think so, making the kiss go on and on and on-
*****
It’s truly tragic that, even with the level of… passion Akira has been exhibiting in the past few weeks, Goro is somehow naive enough to believe Sumire’s presence would end up being a buffer. He learns his lesson as soon as he opens the dressing room’s door and comes face to face with a familiar branch of green hanging on the doorway.
Akira eagerly gravitates to him, faltering briefly as he lays eyes on the tightly fit sweater Goro is trying on (he’s so buying this sweater now). Sumire opens the door of her booth as well to take a peek at Goro as she ties her shoelaces. “Akechi-kun, it looks wonderful on you.”
“Thank you, Yoshizawa-san,” Goro politely replies, doing a little spin to show Akira Sumire how the back looks.
Akira clears his throat, coming closer and nodding towards the mistletoe, even though Sumire is right there. They’ve never kissed in front of someone they know. It feels different somehow.
“How strange,” Goro begins, stalling. “that in all my life I've never seen a mistletoe, and now they seem to be everywhere.”
Akira adjusts the glasses on his face. “I bet it's the influence of those pesky Americans and their Christmas movies.”
“Oh, naturally. But what do you suppose would happen if we ignored our little friend for once?”
Akira fake gasps for dramatic effect. “Akechi-kun, such a thought should not be entertained. For the most terrible of curses befalls those who walk by a mistletoe and do not kiss.”
Inside the changing booth, Sumire freezes.
Goro tries to contain his amusement. “Really? Such as?”
“Dying unmarried. Never getting the last slice of pizza. Infertility.” Goro snorts as Sumire gasps. “Shame and disgrace, all around.”
“Oh my, such fate.” Goro steps back towards his booth just as Akira leans forward for the kiss. “Do you think the curse can wait a minute while I change out of this sweater?”
“You tempt fate, Akechi Goro,” Akira warns him with a glint in his eyes.
Just as he closes the door, he hears Sumire moving out of her booth.
“Senpai, is that true?” She asks with a shaky voice. “What you said just now, about the curse.”
“Hm? Oh, uh… It is…?”
“Then we can’t waste time!”
Goro’s stomach drops.
“W-what?”
“We’re standing right next to it! We must hurry and kiss!”
“Sumire!”
The door doesn’t slowly open – it almost explodes from its hinges as Goro slams it open and pulls Akira inside by his shirt, smashing their lips together. Akira stumbles over his own feet, having to grab on to Goro as he’s kissed with brute passion.
“There – curse lifted,” Goro says, grabbing his coat as he makes his way out of the dressing room without looking anyone in the eyes.
It’s hard to say whose face is the reddest out of the three of them.
*****
There comes a moment when enough is enough and a man must take action. Meeting Akira outside on the street, seeing his expectant face as he lingers by the entrance of the building in the hopes Goro will kiss him hello… Something must be done.
… He just can’t bring himself to do it. To kiss him.
Inside, the Christmas party is loud and uncomfortable. When Akira steps away to fetch drinks, Goro types ‘how long does a good boyfriend need to stay at a party?’ but can’t find a consensus. Thanks a lot, Reddit.
Akira returns with a large box. “Goro, look! I got matching Christmas sweaters from my Secret Santa!”
Goro takes a look inside and immediately wishes he hadn’t. “How fun,” he says, making a mental note to bring pain to whoever made the ugliest piece of clothing he’s ever had the displeasure of seeing.
“I can’t believe Santa got us matching sweaters.”
“… I’m starting to think you’re the one who bought the sweaters.”
“Didn’t you say you believed in Santa?”
Akira looks up at him, all round eyes and boyish charm.
“No, Akira-”
“But- but-”
“There’s nowhere to change.”
“You’re welcome to use the bedroom down the hallway,” the hostess of the party, Akira’s friend from work, offers kindly, and Goro wishes the mistletoe curse upon her family.
Akira all but drags Goro away and they each take a room at the end of the hallway. Goro wonders if they shouldn’t have entered the same room seeing as they’ve been dating for weeks now, but it feels too intimate, even if it’s just to change a sweater.
When he opens the door again, it’s hard to say who is more surprised, Goro or Akira on his toes trying to glue a mistletoe above the door.
“Spreading the Christmas joy, are we?” Goro asks with a wicked smile he can’t suppress, arms crossing.
Akira looks properly embarrassed, holding the mistletoe to his chest. “That sweater looks good on you.”
“No it doesn’t!” He grabs the mistletoe from him. “Don’t change the subject, Kurusu. I knew it was you hanging these stupid things everywhere.”
“It was all Mona’s idea!”
“Are you seriously trying to blame the cat?”
“Look,” Akira sighs, brushing away the hair from his eyes. “Was it so bad? We finally got to kiss because of it…”
And just like that, Goro loses all higher ground. Embarrassment hits him in the heart and he has to look away.
“I just- I’ve been-” He starts but can’t finish the sentence over his discomfort.
“You don’t have to explain it to me.” Akira puts a hand on Goro’s arm, his thumb rubbing the sweater in soothing motions. “I was just trying to make it easier, it’s all.”
Right, Akira is trying for them. Goro needs to try. He looks up at silver eyes, almost black in the dark hallway.
What is wrong with you? Just do it, he commands his body, which remains stubbornly frozen in place.
Akira smiles kindly. “Let’s talk about it later-”
“Close your eyes,” Goro orders, and feels immediate excitement when Akira just does it, no questions asked, standing straight in front of him.
He carefully pushes Akira against the doorframe, taking a moment to appreciate his scent and remember the many times they have done this now. He puts the mistletoe on top of Akira’s head, who snorts.
“Don’t open them.”
“I w-”
It feels so satisfying to kiss the words from his lips. He starts slowly at first, savoring the delicate contact of their lips, but soon Akira has an arm around his waist to pull him close. Goro dictates the pace of their kiss and Akira lets him, moaning softly as they mold against each other.
At some point, the mistletoe falls from Akira’s head. It could have combusted right there next to him and Goro wouldn’t have noticed.
They finally part after a few more kisses – Goro has quickly found that after an intense kiss, it’s good to plant a few calming ones to slow things down – and Akira looks properly smooched.
They smile at each other, like total losers.
“Back to the party?” Akira asks, adjusting his ugly sweater (which looks good on him, goddamn it).
“I can chastise you more later,” Goro concedes.
Akira seems very excited by the prospect, which shouldn’t be so annoyingly endearing but is. They walk hand in hand towards the living room when Akira stops in the middle of the hallway.
“Look, Goro,” he says cheerfully, pointing up. “What’s that over there?”
Goro doesn’t have to look. “Don’t think I won’t kill you just because I like you.”
“Wouldn’t dream of it,” Akira promises, and closes his eyes with a happy smile on his stupid face, waiting for Goro to make the first move.
Well, Goro could use the practice...
*****
“Here,” Morgana places on the counter a small box he carried by the bow with his mouth. “Merry Christmas and all that.”
Akira opens the box, only to start laughing like a lunatic. Goro approaches carefully.
“Do you like it, then?” Morgana perks up. “I thought you might since you bought so many of them.”
Akira places a cheesy mistletoe keychain above Goro’s head.
“Look, Goro! I get to kiss you everywhere now,” Akira says with glee, already leaning in for a kiss.
Goro wonders how fast that keychain can be ‘misplaced’.
*****
