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It was finally the day.
An had been so excited for so long, already bouncing off the walls a full two weeks ago, rambling about how cool it would be for them to experience their first Pride, and how she had loved it so much every time she went with all the flags and the signs and the people and the—
Toya shook his head fondly at the memory of An with veritable stars in her eyes as she talked on and on. An always gets so fired up about the things she’s passionate about, doesn’t she? Toya exhaled in the faintest of laughs. But then, that’s what we love about her.
For now, he was leaned against the wall, arms crossed comfortably over his chest, more or less done preparing for himself, and just waiting for An, Kohane, and Akito to finish. He’d elected against anything special, given how well his usual outfit’s color scheme fit him anyway, merely letting An paint his flag onto his cheek (very carefully, given its four colors and sharp black triangle), and sticking two rainbow flags in his pant pockets to flutter as he walked.
As he waited, Toya busied himself with watching Kohane squirming slightly in her chair (her loose braided hairstyle unraveling a little more with each movement) as An held up her face-paint palette and paintbrush, concentrating hard as she painted a green stripe onto Kohane’s left cheek, the fourth out of seven. It was good enough entertainment to distract himself from picking at the grayscale and purple flag occupying the right half of his own face, at least.
“Ah, Toya?” An called out absently, her eyes still fixed on her work.
“Yes?”
“Could you check on Akito in the bathroom? He’s been changing in there for a little while already.”
“Ah. Yes, I can do that, no worries.” Toya pushed off the wall, catching the brief but bright smile An sent his way, and his lips unconsciously curved up in response. With one last affectionate glance backwards at the scene of An painting a rainbow flag onto Kohane—somehow a sight both strange and perfectly familiar at the same time—Toya walked over to the bathroom and twisted the door handle to let himself in.
As Toya stepped inside and looked back up from closing the door behind him, he was greeted with the sight of—
Oh. He hadn’t been done changing.
“…Akito,” Toya acknowledged evenly, only barely letting a hint of his flustered state seep into his voice. He glanced towards the bathroom counter to distract himself, abruptly noticing a familiar brown hairband. Kohane must have forgot it here, then. Toya pocketed it, running his tongue along his teeth, before steeling himself and turning back to face Akito.
At the sound of his name, Akito quickly finished pulling his dark top over his head and turned to Toya in surprise, and he watched his boyfriend study him with a slight tilt to his head.
Akito’s tank-top and pants were a matching dark shade, which made the splatters of blue, violet, and pink across both only more stark in contrast. Toya’s focus, however, was on Akito’s face—on the faint eye makeup and brilliant iridescent glitter smeared across both of his cheekbones, both of which, frankly, suited him better than they had any right to.
Under Toya’s scrutiny, Akito grimaced and turned away from both him and the mirror, running a hand through his hair to distract himself. “I know, it looks pretty weird…” Akito’s mouth twisted, and a faint pink flush settled over his cheeks. “Ah, well… Ena insisted that I take some of her stuff with me and use it, so—”
“No,” Toya interrupted abruptly, hands naturally drifting to Akito’s face, gazing at him with sincerity in his slate blue eyes, wide with open awe. “You.” Toya ran his tongue over his lips, and Akito held his breath, heart drumming a loud beat in his ears. “You look beautiful, don’t say that.”
Akito’s eyebrows furrowed for a moment with surprise and embarrassed chagrin before his brow smoothed out again, and his lips twitched upwards helplessly. “You say the nicest things, y’know,” Akito murmured, cracking a smirk as he turned fully towards Toya to lean into his touch. “Might give a man the wrong idea.”
“Akito…” Toya huffed in amusement, rolling his eyes up in exasperation, but leaned in regardless to meet Akito halfway for a languid kiss, taking his time to relish in the feeling. Before long, though, Akito tilted his head and opened his mouth to deepen the kiss, and Toya happily obeyed as he gently nudged Akito backwards to enclose him against the wall, only letting out a slight moan in surprise as he felt Akito nudge Toya’s legs open with his thigh in the new position.
There was just enough time for Toya to piece together his scrambled thoughts enough to think, alright, we’re doing this, before An unceremoniously threw the door open on the two, and they both froze in place, mortified.
“Oh my god,” An laughed, resting a hand over her eyes in a familiar mix of mirth and exasperation. “I leave you alone for one minute, I swear, you two…” When she glanced up again, one eyebrow raised, they’d already separated sheepishly, though their cheeks and lips were noticeably both newly flushed. Akito shrugged absently, a grin still pulling at his mouth, and An snorted.
“What can I say? Toya’s irresistible,” Akito flirted shamelessly, casting a glance at Toya and delighting in the color that flared again to life in his face.
“Okay, true, but still,” An groused, tugging Toya back by the hand. “If you’d messed up his face-paint, there would’ve been hell to pay. Do you have any idea how long that took me?” After a cursory inspection of his right cheek, she took him by the chin to tilt him a few different angles before deeming it still satisfactory. Finally, she gave him a chaste kiss on the lips (silently reveling in Toya’s still darkening flush) before turning back to face Akito.
Whereupon she promptly fell conspicuously silent.
Akito raised his eyebrows, smug. “Like what you see?” He teased.
An didn’t even hesitate. “Yes,” she replied immediately, confidently. Surprised at the straightforward answer (and slightly disappointed that he wouldn’t have the chance to tease her further), Akito choked on the original reply waiting in his throat and uselessly felt his face heat up slightly. Before he could cough and play it off, though, An had already grabbed him by the arm.
“C’mon!” An expressed cheerfully, tugging him along. “I’m finally done with Kohane’s, time to do you.”
Now it was Akito’s turn to fall silent for a moment as he stewed in embarrassment, and then: “You phrased it like that on purpose,” he accused.
“Yep, totally did.” An flashed him and Toya an easy smile, not even bothering to deny it. Toya stifled a laugh at that and strode out of the bathroom. Still—as he was reminded by the light bump in his pocket—he still had to go find Kohane and give her the hair-tie she’d accidentally left on the counter.
As he watched Akito and An settle, Toya sighed fondly one last time and decided to silently leave them to it, meeting Akito’s gaze to tip his own head silently towards the doorway. Akito smiled, slowing down slightly, and gave a nearly imperceptible nod before An yanked him away again. Toya let out a rather undignified snort in reaction, but left regardless.
As Akito and An came to a stop, she patted the stool in front of them. “Here, sit.”
“…I’m not a dog,” Akito grumbled, sitting down gingerly anyway. He sent her a pre-emptive glare in warning as she opened her mouth to respond from where she was washing her brush. “Oi, shut it. Anyway, do you still have enough purple left after Toya and Kohane to finish mine?”
An sobered as she considered the question, worrying her lip at the trace amounts of purple left in the pan. “A little goes a long way with these, so it should be fine? If nothing else, I can try mixing another color together.” She grinned, working the brush in a criss-cross motion over the pan of bright pink paint, filling the bristles with magenta pigment. “No delaying it, Akito~”
“Hah… well, I wasn’t trying to, anyway.” Akito tilted his head to give her better access to his face as An’s hand came to rest gently on his chin, and he closed his eyes as he stayed still, listening to the sound of her denim jacket crinkling as she leaned forward.
The paint was cold and wet against his skin as An painted in smooth, even strokes. Akito flinched at the sensation though he tamped down on the reaction immediately as An tightened her grip on his chin in warning. As it continued, Akito ran his fingers along the edges of the stool anxiously and he internally apologized to Kohane for teasing her earlier about being unable to stay still; it really was pretty ticklish.
After few more seconds of keeping his eyes squeezed shut, Akito cracked one eye open a sliver, and studied An silently.
Her hair was pulled back into a low ponytail, leaving her face completely exposed. Her features were taut with concentration, eyebrows faintly knitted together while her amber eyes were drooped low, thick eyelashes casting faint shadows over highlight heavy cheekbones. She looked intense, in a more quiet kind of way than when she was singing, almost intimidating—and yet he still couldn’t resist smiling slightly as he watched her work, taking in the vivid pink-yellow-blue gradient in her eyeshadow, the bright blush she’d brushed along her cheeks and temples.
When An leaned backwards to wash her brush, finished with the pink section for Akito’s flag, Akito opened his eyes fully again. “You look good,” he commented absently.
“Yeah?” An peeked up at him, a small grin dancing on her lips. “Like I said earlier, you’re not looking too bad yourself.” She hummed in contemplation. “Where’d you get that outfit, by the way? It fits you.”
“Well, the short answer is Ena. The long answer…” Akito licked his lips nervously and rubbed his thumb over the dark fabric of his pants, feeling the difference in texture between the splatters and fabric. “I, uh. Officially came out to her a few days ago,” he started haltingly, voice soft. “Since, y’know, pride month, right? Not gonna find a better time.”
An couldn’t stop herself from genuinely smiling at the news, though she still had to tactfully hold back the comment waiting on her tongue to tease him for his uncharacteristically shy tone. “Mhm?” She replied instead, encouraging him to go ahead as she dipped the brush into the purple.
“She, uh—” Akito swallowed abruptly, feeling his throat close up as he remembered how his sister had barely let him finish with his awkward but sincere words before pulling him in for a hug.
“If you ever wanna tell Mom, or—god forbid, I guess, but maybe—Dad, well. I’ll be here for you, you know?” Ena had then pulled back for a moment, her brown eyes glimmering with something suspiciously like tears. And, knowingly, she’d smiled at him. “Your bandmates… They’re good for you.”
And maybe it was how she’d been so perfectly accepting, or how she hadn’t asked any unnecessary questions, or how she’d started tearing up too—in any case, Akito had fallen back into her arms and cried into her shoulder, for what felt like the first time in years. Maybe it had been, who knows.
Rather than explain this, Akito just swallowed again, and he continued with a rougher voice. “She was… good about it. Helped me make an outfit for today, just took some old dark outfit I had and threw some of her paint over it with me.” He cleared his throat, as An settled back next to him. “We still got into a paint fight after, but, well. You know how Ena is.”
“How both of you are, you mean,” An snorted, and Akito silently conceded the point, blinking quickly as he exhaled amusedly at her words, and the moisture in his eyes faded. “Alright, stay still.”
“Aye aye,” he drawled, not the least bit surprised at the light pinch he received in response.
After Akito’s final comment, though, they lapsed into a comfortable silence as An quickly painted on a thin purple stripe beneath the pink, washed the brush haphazardly—impatiently—and dipped it into the blue for one last line.
Just as they finished, Kohane popped back into the room from the doorway, fiddling with her hair, stuck in some messy half-braid, half-wavy situation, a multi-color ribbon threaded haphazardly throughout. “An-chan? It came undone again…” She pouted, but brightened nearly immediately. “Oh, but Toya-kun finally found the hair-tie I lost, so it should be easier this time, I think?”
Toya strolled back in alongside Kohane. “I tried to fix it, but I think I made it worse,” he noted sheepishly. “…Sorry?” An laughed, and Akito rolled his eyes.
“Here, An’s done with me, right? I’ll fix it,” Akito decided, standing up with a stretch. An angled a handheld mirror at him, which Akito gave a cursory glance to inspect how well An’s painted flag had turned out on him. “Huh, looks good. Thanks.”
“‘Course it does, I did it,” An replied cheekily, snapping the mirror shut again. Before Akito could bite back with another retort taking back his gratitude, Kohane jumped in.
“Ah, really?” Kohane skipped over to him happily, and any mean words died in his mouth as she gave him a cute smile. Fuck, I’m so whipped, Akito despaired. “Thank you, Akito-kun!” She cheered.
“Nn, yeah. Okay, just sit down over there and I’ll help you.”
Their chatter faded slightly, and An breathed out a sigh of relief as she rose up from her crouched position, stretching out lazily while she watched them go.
Toya raised an eyebrow at her movement. “Tired?” He queried innocently, tilting his head in curiosity.
“Eh… just a little cramped, I guess. Nothing big.” An opened her mirror and set it in front of her as she pulled her hairband out, letting her hair fall free from the messy low ponytail it was in. “Hold this for me, Toya?”
He blinked in surprise at the acknowledgement, but took her hairband without comment. Then, An more carefully combed her fingers through the strands, meticulously gathering it into a higher bundle as she glanced at the handheld in front of her from time to time to check herself. Toya held her hairband back out to An as she reached out for it, and he watched as she locked it into place, then he shook his head in amazement.
“I still don’t know how you do that without a comb,” he noted.
An shrugged. “Just practice, I guess.” She bent down to grab the hair-clip she’d superglued her flag onto earlier, pushing it near the base of her ponytail so that it stuck out nicely.
Toya watched her appreciatively, eyes drifting from the hair to linger on her vibrant outfit of a tie-dyed shirt and white denim jacket and jeans. Struck with a sudden pang in his chest, Toya sighed out slowly, only too aware of his own deficiency.
“Something wrong, Toya?” An asked, finally deeming her hair acceptable as she stepped closer to place a hand on his shoulder and rest her chin on it. Toya glanced over, his gaze soft as he searched her face, and he hummed under his breath as he turned his thoughts over in his head.
“Not wrong, really. Well, rather.” Toya tipped his head back to consider his answer with a thoughtful frown. At last, he spoke. “Is it okay that I’m not wearing anything… special?” He murmured, blue eyes flicking to meet gold, and Toya winced as he saw how wide An’s eyes had gotten. “Ah… never mind, it’s alright—”
“Hey, no, no, that’s not what I meant,” An scrambled to say, stepping back to face Toya directly. Then, her face softened, and she brushed a few blue strands out of his face as she met his gaze steadily. “Listen to me, okay? You don’t have to be wearing anything special—whatever that even means. Everyone expresses themselves differently, and you’re not any less deserving of pride for it.”
He inhaled sharply at her words, looking away and blinking rapidly to avoid any tears from spilling over. “Well, maybe so. But—”
“Nuh-uh, no buts. I’m the Pride expert, remember?” An placed a finger over his mouth to shut him up, and kissed him on the cheek. “If anyone says anything to you, I’ll beat them up. I bet Akito—even Kohane—would be happy to join me, too.”
“Oi, who are we beatin' up?” Akito interrupted, face bored and tone blasé as usual. Toya couldn’t hold back a light chuckle at that, and Akito let go of his blank face to crack a grin at Toya too.
“Mm, no one,” Toya murmured in reply, shaking his head.
Kohane joined in last, dropping her chin onto Akito’s shoulder, where his arm naturally came up to support her. “Well, no one yet,” she corrected.
An let herself bask in the moment a little longer, staring at the soft contentedness on the faces of her partners next to her.
Reality, however, was a cruel mistress.
“Ugh, I forgot I still haven’t done my own face yet,” An complained, stepping back and tilting her head up to clear the mistiness in her eyes. She fanned herself, exhaled sharply, then moved to pick up her palette and brush again. She paused, though, as Kohane’s hand came down to lightly rest on her arm.
“Wait,” Kohane started shyly under her breath, eyes shining with an emotion An couldn’t decipher. She glanced at Akito and Toya for a moment, then focused back on their girlfriend. “Would it be okay, um, if we helped instead?”
“Eh?” An paused, her mouth curved into a half-smile as her eyebrows drew together with mild bemusement. Then she grinned, leaning in towards Kohane. “Well, of course. Anything for my aibou, Kohane~” Behind her, Akito rolled his eyes good-naturedly.
Kohane, meanwhile, beamed at her, fingers briefly intertwining with An’s as she retrieved the paintbrush from An’s hands. An sat down obediently, and blinked up innocently at Kohane, who quickly filled the brush with pink and then leaned down to focus on An.
An watched her unabashedly with fascination as Kohane worked. She was cute, scrunching up her nose in concentration as she focused and steadily painted a single fuchsia stroke of color across her cheek. Nearly as soon as An could take it all in, Kohane was already leaning back, where Akito wordlessly took the brush from her and began to wash it, his movements fluid with his earlier years of artistic experience.
“Oh, is it your turn, now?” An joked, eyes crinkling in the corners (one step away from a wince) as she watched Akito impatiently jam the brush into yellow pigment in reaction to her teasing comment.
Akito didn’t respond verbally, only letting out a quiet “hmph” as he knelt down to face her, his yellow-streaked orange hair falling to cast shadows over his face. His eyes were dark and narrowed with concentration, and An had to hold her breath to keep a laugh from escaping as she watched his eyebrows wrinkled so closely together, his hands shaking slightly as he painted, all while he practically burned a hole into her cheek with his stare.
Then, when Akito finally leaned back, and Toya took the brush and washed it with a light smile, something clicked for An as she watched him dip the brush into her pan of blue. When he turned to her again, An had to breathe out quickly to keep herself from crying, instead lightly tilting her face towards him.
Toya, meanwhile, was gentle and steady in his movements, like a pianist would be, working the brush slowly yet purposefully to finish off the small piece of art. With one last stroke of azure, he let out a breath of relief and met An’s gaze with a fleeting glance before he stood.
“Okay?” Toya asked softly, washing the brush one final time. Akito and Kohane shifted to catch her reaction.
An shakily turned and glanced into her mirror, again, and she tried her best to swallow past the lump in her throat. When she tried to open her mouth to say something, though, she choked on her words: nothing would come out.
“…It’s fitting, right.” Akito’s voice was low, but warm. An gave him a sort of smothered hum under her breath in agreement, unsure how else to display her gratitude when her throat refused to cooperate. He continued. “Our colors, to make up a part of you.”
“Like fate, almost,” Kohane whispered, eyes practically glowing with an aching fondness.
Oh, no.
“Guys…” An whined, her eyes welling up with tears that quickly spilled over when she blinked, though Toya was quick to dab it away with a tissue before it could ruin any of her (their) hard work. “Th-That’s, that’s not f-fair.” Her voice was thick with emotion, and she sniffed uselessly before finally giving up and pulling them all in for a hug—Kohane reacting with a bit of a surprise, Akito with amused inevitability, and Toya with a quiet happiness.
“A-An-chan,” Kohane stuttered out in between a wet laugh.
“Shhhh. You guys almost made me mess up my makeup. That’s r-real inconsiderate of you, you know.” An choked slightly on the ending, pulling back and trying in vain to pull herself together, even as her chest tightened further to see their faces, beautiful and smiling and hers. “I love you, so much.”
Toya reacted first, bending down and pressing a kiss into her hair. “We love you, An.”
“Love you, An-chan,” Kohane continued after, brushing her thumb along An’s face carefully and then pulling back.
“Mm, yeah. Love you too, sweetheart,” Akito teased last, dodging a weak swing from An as she let out a mix between a sob and a laugh in response. Then, he straightened, offering her a hand that she took gratefully to pull herself up. “Alright then, Ms. Pride Veteran. You gonna lead the way or what?” Akito challenged, raising an eyebrow with a soft curve to his mouth to let her know he wasn’t poking fun at her.
An felt her lip tremble a bit, chest still brimming with too much emotion—too much love—for her to ever fully express, but she shook herself off and blinked away the tears, and nodded. “Yeah. Yeah, okay.” She looked around at them, and she let a bubbling joy take hold in her chest, pulling her lips upwards into an exuberant smile. “Everyone ready?”
They exchanged glances, looking at each other as the air of nervousness—but also excitement—rose higher and higher, until they each nodded back at her, and An smiled back at them helplessly and took them all by the hand, glancing outside at the beautiful, vivid colors already dotting the streets from others coming out to join the fray.
“Then, let’s go.”
(And out they went, wearing their hearts on their sleeves with silent, confident pride.)