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It was a simple rule of research that raw data can only tell you so much. Rather, it is by building onto that data by rigorously testing hypothesis after hypothesis that a conclusion can be drawn—and even then, such things are only theories, and can be disproven if new evidence should contradict them. Sou had performed quite a bit of research on Tsukimi Shin at this point—a natural consequence of having spent so much time with him—and being honest, he was starting to strain against the limits placed on him by Asunaro in regards to how he researched him: no intentional damage allowed.
The memorization of the data already assembled before they met only provided Sou an edge on understanding what went on in that pretty little head of his; the knowledge that Shin was almost stubbornly middle-of-the-road in everything he did had left him completely unprepared for what Shin actually was: the only person in the entire world who could smile at Hiyori Sou so sincerely. That smile had captivated his researcher’s mind from the moment he first saw it, and even having done all he had to understand how and why, he’d gotten no closer to understanding either.
But hitting Asunaro’s limits didn’t mean he was out of options. There were still so many sides of Shin that he hadn’t seen, that he wanted to see, that he needed to see to satisfy his curiosity. And so, that was what led to Hiyori Sou’s highly anticipated next experiment: confessing his love to Tsukimi Shin.
…Well, that had been two weeks ago. Right now, they were walking together to the convenience store at the corner of the block Sou’s apartment was on for a summer night snack run, Shin’s hand tucked tightly in Sou’s.
To say Shin had been receptive to Sou catching his shoulder before he left one evening and telling him a few words as if they were a huge secret—they weren’t, all the researchers at Asunaro knew Sou loved all his research subjects—would’ve been an understatement. His eyes had widened, he’d tried and failed to say something, and then he’d pulled Sou into a tight, tight hug, and the two of them stood there, together, until Shin had murmured into his scarf that he was changing his mind and wanted to stay the night again.
It both was and wasn’t surprising—the closest Shin had ever gotten to someone confessing to him before was when he’d been playing an otome game on Sou’s couch and getting teary-eyed when the harsh, teasing love interest told his character he thought they’d already been dating—and yet, it had still been so fascinating to see how Shin would actually respond in that situation. He hadn’t rejected Sou, or been disgusted by the idea, or tried to run away.
What Sou had forgotten to factor in was his own response. Romance—something like this—wasn’t something Sou had ever really cared about; it had only ever existed on TV screens and book pages for him as something he observed from the outside, and so it was with uncharacteristically uncertain arms that he’d hugged Shin back. Shin had fit comfortably in them. His hair smelled nice. He was pleasantly warm, even in the summer heat and humidity. Sou had no intention of recording these details in his reports.
Their day-to-day life hadn’t changed very much. They’d already spent most of their time together as it was. But now Shin objected less when Sou took pictures of him without asking, instead just blushing brightly and trying to hide behind his beanie, and sometimes Shin would reach over to Sou’s side of their computer setup and they’d interlace their fingers, accepting that this would make their coding a bit more difficult. They hadn’t kissed, they still slept separately, and they hadn’t done anything that could be formally called a date, unless one counted their usual Saturday trip to the same diner they’d been going to for the last few years, which neither of them did. It was an interesting experience, reflecting on how things hadn’t changed at all, and also on how clearly, poignantly they had.
And more than anything? It was exhilarating. This was information no one had ever gotten before. Sides of Shin no one would get to see but him. It was significantly easier to ignore the urge to examine his organs up close like this—things only Sou knew were still things only Sou knew.
“So,” Shin squeezed his hand a little tighter, the way he did whenever he was a little more nervous than usual. Sou had memorized most of these little quirks of his, but Shin still had a way of surprising him. “I heard the summer festival’s on at the shrine a few streets over.”
Sou knew about it. Asunaro was in part behind its organization. “Is it?”
“Yeah.” Shin was swinging their hands back and forth a little bit and staring directly at the ground in front of them. “I was…wondering if you wanted to go with me sometime.”
One of the things Sou had always found most interesting about Shin was how he could be so shy and so bold in the exact same gesture. On one hand, a timid creature who hadn’t been able to meet Sou’s eyes for a long time and even now still seemed to have some difficulty with it; on the other, well, Shin was asking that same exact person on a date now. One of the things Sou wanted to know most was who the person “Hiyori Sou” was in Shin’s mind and why he’d stayed so close to that person for so long. No matter how long he thought about it, it still didn’t make any sense to him. Not that he would’ve let him go. “Why don’t we go right now?”
“Huh?” That brought Shin’s eyes back onto Sou, which was where he preferred them. “I–I mean, I guess we could, but I was figuring we’d wanna dress up for it, or something like that…”
“Oh, sounds like you’ve been thinking hard about what our first date would be like!” Sou smiled wide, and instead of being intimidated, Shin just looked embarrassed. He was flustered either way, so this was still satisfying. It was just…different. Intriguing. Charming. Cute. “We can always go twice, you know. Besides, I’ve never been to one! It’ll be fun.”
“...You’ve never been to one?”
“Nope.”
Sou didn’t elaborate, and Shin wasn’t quite bold enough this evening to inquire about his lack of a family situation again. “...Well, in that case, sure, let’s go twice. Why not?”
“I knew you’d see things my way, Shin!” Sou squeezed Shin’s hand in return—not too tight, not with Shin’s delicate structure—and started running, dragging his boyfriend (what a concept!) along with him. “Let’s go!”
“Wa–wait! Hiyori, I can’t—” Contrary to his objections, Shin clung tight and tried to match Sou’s pace, which he admired the commitment of so much he toned it down a little to match Shin’s pace instead. “I can’t run that far!”
Sou just laughed it off, but let them slow to a half once they reached the corner of the block. Shin was doubled over, wheezing, but still clinging tightly to Sou’s hand—and something about that little gesture, or maybe the lack of a gesture, made Sou’s chest feel a bit tight. “Hiyori…you’re so…mean…”
“And yet, you’re still clinging to me!” He didn’t understand it. And he didn’t understand why he didn’t want to let go of Shin, either. It was such an easy thing to say that he loved Shin, because he did, but this tightness in his chest, this racing of his heart, the way Shin seemed to shine even more brightly now… This was something Sou wasn’t familiar with. It was a bit more difficult to sort out. “...Not that I’d let you go, of course.”
“...It’s…not…”
“Hmm?”
“...’s not fair…to say…something like that…right now…”
“Ahaha! It’s only true, you know!” Judging from the defeated sound Shin just made, that didn’t help the matter at all. Shin’s hand was small, delicate, soft, and neither of them were making any move to pull away from one another. “Want me to carry you the rest of the way? If you’re so tired.”
“Absolutely not!” That startled Shin back up, which had been the intended result—Shin had an absolutely adorable sense of pride that meant taking too much help was out of the question if he didn’t ask for it first. Although, of course, if he’d accepted the offer, Sou would’ve followed through. “But you can go get me something to drink, since that was why we came out here in the first place.”
“Alright!” Sou found himself hesitating to pull his hand away from Shin’s, and Shin had clearly noticed that. It was somewhat difficult to be an active variable in the experiment himself—would doing things that he knew made Shin happy count as rigging the results? What about things that made himself happy? If he thought about this too long he was going to get a headache again.
Shin was smiling a little at him, at the fact that he was taking so long, and if it weren’t so dark out and if Shin wouldn’t duck away as soon as he tried, Sou would’ve taken a picture of it. Another thing he didn’t understand about Shin was how he could possibly see his own smile and think it wasn’t the most radiant thing he’d ever seen. “Want me to go in with you?”
“I couldn’t possibly ask you to overexert yourself like that!” Sou pulled his hand away from Shin’s, and it felt clumsy even to him. “Do your best to not pass out while I’m gone, okay?”
“Hey, come on! I’m not that weak!” But they both laughed it off, and Sou ducked into the corner store that they’d been aiming for in the first place all alone.
His hand felt awfully empty without Shin’s to fill it, and even after picking up some bottled tea in the same hand, it still felt empty. Holding hands, or prolonged physical contact of any kind, released several hormones, such as oxytocin, dopamine, and serotonin—the ones that brought happiness and relaxation. Sou fully understood the process behind what he was experiencing right now, and yet it seemed like it had never really clicked until this moment.
He picked up a bottle of water for himself, dropped a few coins on the checkout counter, and left. Shin was waiting exactly where Sou had left him, and he tossed the bottle over to him. Shin had to stretch to catch it, but he nabbed it with both hands when Sou had honestly been expecting him to drop it. “Thanks.”
The two of them got back to walking, side by side, no longer connected by their hands. They talked about nothing much in particular, with Shin talking about stories at festivals from when he was younger that Sou had already read about in Asunaro’s archives, Sou teasing him whenever he got the chance, but mostly simply listening to him and filing the details away in the back of his mind. Which parts Shin’s face lit up at, which parts he laughed about, embarrassed, which parts he pulled a face about, which parts seemed to have slipped his mind entirely. It was much more engaging than just reading the report pages.
And even more interesting than that was how Shin kept glancing over at Sou and reaching out with his free hand towards Sou’s and then backing out before he actually took it. Once again, he didn’t understand why, but if Shin couldn’t make a decision, then Sou was going to make it for him.
The next time Shin made the attempt, Sou met him in the middle. The emptiness had been filled. “If you’re so opposed to us being apart, we could always get sewn together…”
“Wha– Where’d that come from?!” Not that Shin tried to pull his hand away, of course.
“This horror manga oneshot I read a few months ago!” Now it was Sou’s turn to happily swing their hands back and forth. “It’s all about love! I can always pull out the collection it’s in if you’re interested!”
“Um…maybe not…” Shin shuddered, an impressive display in the summer heat. “You know I can’t stomach the sorts of things you like…”
“One day I’ll find the perfect work to be your gateway into horror,” Sou said, “and then it’ll all be over for you.”
“Why does that sound like a threat…?”
They both laughed, and their conversation continued. They didn’t let their hands separate a second time, all the way to the festival grounds.
The sun was setting low in the sky, and the festival grounds were loud and alive with the sounds of people both in yukata and streetclothes laughing and talking, the calls of the people managing stalls, the sound of taiko drums from further in. Honestly, Sou was not a fan of being in crowds like this, but Shin darted in first and Sou naturally had to follow him in. “Hey, what should we check out first? Any preferences?”
“You’d know better than me!” The crowd moved around them like water, and even with the noise around them it was like they were in their own, undisturbed island.
Shin shoved his half-empty tea bottle into his pocket and glanced around. Sou noted the booths that his eyes lingered on a little longer—a few games with cute prizes, like that adorable cat plushie he pulled down onto his desk whenever he was struggling with his code, but mostly, he was focused on the food. They hadn’t eaten since lunch. “Um, how about we get something to eat first? I always feel like everything tastes better when you get it fresh at a festival, ahaha…”
“Sounds good!”
Their first stop was, almost stereotypically, at a takoyaki stall. They didn’t have to wait in line for long, but even if they’d had to, Sou was watching the even, methodical, practiced movements of the person preparing them. He did find it remarkable how humans could make even the simplest things into something…more than that. Batter, cleanly-cut octopus, aonori, mayo, sauce, and katsuobushi flaked on top; ostensibly a simple dish, but it was obvious just from observing that it would’ve taken him a long time to reproduce it even half as well. Talent manifested in humans in so many surprising areas.
Shin took their cup, and they stepped back into the crowd and kept walking. Sou’s eyes were still trying to go over everything in front of him bit by bit, but there were so many people and so many bright lights and so many fascinating things he’d never seen before outside of photographs that he kept getting…caught. He could feel Shin grinning at him as he finally properly took the time to look around, and had their positions been reversed, Sou would’ve been wanting to take a picture. He wondered if Shin still wanted to take a picture together, the way they’d talked about only once a few years ago.
“It’s a lot, huh? Ahaha, when I was younger, I was scared of the crowds and my mom had to carry me the whole time so I didn’t freak out.” Shin popped a piece of takoyaki into his mouth and kept talking around it—it would’ve been completely unintelligible if he didn’t do this all the time. “I mean, obviously I got used to it, but I guess if it’s your first time it’s still pretty overwhelming…”
“...I think,” Sou said, his attention still not quite perfectly on Shin for some reason, “I’m more worried about you getting lost…”
“Hey, I know my way around this kind of thing! You’re the one who’d be getting lost.” Shin poked the pick into another piece of takoyaki and offered it up. “Here, have some.”
Sou steadied Shin’s hand with his own and ate the offering right off the pick. Shin’s cheeks instantly turned bright red for some reason, but he was definitely right about it seeming to taste better. Sou licked his lips. “You were right, that is good!”
“Ah, uh, yeah, ahaha…” What had gotten him so worked up all of a sudden? Shin could be so strange sometimes, but that was exactly what Sou found so fascinating about him. “Um, do you see anything else you want? Let me treat you this time!”
Everything was relatively inexpensive, but given Shin was still between jobs at the moment, Sou did appreciate the spirit of the offer, at least. He’d always found it charming that Shin had stubbornly insisted on trying to pay him back for things, even things that really weren’t realistic in the slightest, like the parts for his current desktop computer rig. It had never amounted to anything, but something about Shin’s insistence that one day he’d be able to do the same for Sou in return was… Well, it was something no one else had ever insisted on, that was for sure. Might as well indulge him a little. “Let’s see, then I want…cotton candy, shaved ice, taiyaki, mitarashi dango, one of those candy apples from that stall plus one of the chocolate bananas, and I’m pretty sure I saw an amezaiku stand over there so we should get some… Oh, and—”
“H-hold on!” Shin’s brow had knitted itself into a delightfully worried expression. “First of all, can you even eat all that? Second of all, that’s all sugar, and you’re the one that’s always griping about how I need to eat better.”
Sou grinned. “Oh, so you want us to do nothing but eat healthy at a festival? I didn’t realize you were so mindful of your health, considering what my kitchen looks like lately…”
“You are so selfish,” Shin said, laughing brightly. “Fine, fine. You got it. Let’s go get your treats.”
They linked their hands again. It was still unpleasantly hot and muggy out, even this late in the evening, but Sou still found himself wanting to keep Shin close. That wasn’t a new emotion, and yet… “...You know, Shin, you’re awfully sweet yourself.”
Shin went pink all the way to the tips of his ears. “I really never know what to do when you say things like that,” he mumbled, and Sou pretended he hadn’t heard it, since he didn’t know what he was supposed to say in response to that, either.
The two of them continued their walk through the stalls, picking up snacks between Shin pointing out everything interesting and Sou getting distracted watching the people they passed by. Women with their hair carefully styled in elaborate arrangements, walking escorted by men who hadn’t dressed up nearly as much. Children running and laughing, and other children walking carefully with their heads held high in their elegantly patterned yukata. A ways behind them, he heard the sound of someone’s sandal strap breaking and them tripping over it, and their company offering them to carry them somewhere while they tried to find something to replace it. And so on and so forth.
Hiyori Sou loved humans. He loved their lips, he loved their hair, he loved their skin. He loved their nails. Their eyeballs. Their organs. Their bones. Their brains, advanced in a way no other animal was, and their memories and what resided in them. He loved their emotions, the way it colored their perception of the world around them, their memories, what they remembered, what they forgot. He found it fascinating that positive emotions could bring about memories as vivid as ones born from pain and suffering, and he found it fascinating that some vivid memories were valued more highly than others. He didn’t particularly like it when any of his memories faded, good or bad.
“...Hey, Shin.” He interrupted Shin in the middle of a long tangent about the way specific TV shows got masks more commonly than others. “Can I take a picture of you?”
“Huh? Um, sure!” They stepped off to one side a bit, trying to stay out of the crowd. Sou pulled out his phone, and Shin smiled at him through the viewfinder.
Hiyori Sou loved Tsukimi Shin. He loved his lips, the radiantly bright smiles they so often held, he loved his hair, sea green and softer than expected, he loved his skin, blemished as it was. He loved his nails, which he kept short because he hated it when things got caught under them. His eyeballs, and Sou's own reflection in them. His organs, the blood vessels and membranes and tissues that connected him and made him his own person. His bones, which given how infrequently he remembered to eat without Sou’s assistance, were probably a bit delicate. And most of all, his brain, which was now full of memories of Hiyori Sou and still…
Hiyori Sou loved humans. He loved his test subjects. Asunaro hadn’t minded this, perhaps because at the end of the day there was no lingering attachment. But how striking the difference between a human and a person was.
The camera shutter clicked.
Now, the memory of this moment would never be lost. Shin laughed a little as he watched Sou smile at his phone. “What’s up with you and always taking pictures of me? There have to be better models out there.”
“I already told you ages ago! If you can’t remember, that’s not my fault!” Sou took a few moments to change out the background of his phone from an old picture of Shin smiling to this new picture of Shin smiling. “Well then, shall we keep moving?”
They got back to wandering, and Sou was honestly getting a little annoyed at how distracted he was getting from Shin. He was supposed to be observing Shin, not the festival around them. He wanted to be observing Shin. But his attention kept getting caught by everything around them, the lights, the sounds, the smells…
Shin bumped against his side, their fingers brushing against each other’s. “I’m glad you’re having fun, Hiyori. I was kind of worried this wasn’t going to be a good idea, so…”
Sou blinked. Was that what this was? “Of course I am! You picked this out for us, after all!”
“You sure? It’s not…boring or anything, is it?” Shin was smiling, but it wasn’t the radiant one Sou liked to document. “I-I mean, I know you’d just tell me if it was, but… Since you know a lot more about everything than I do, I just…”
“Ahaha. You think awfully highly of yourself, do you?” Sou caught Shin’s hand in his again, interlacing their fingers so Shin couldn’t get away. “You really think you’re so amazingly awful that even your choices in date spots can’t be good enough?”
“N-no, I just…” Shin didn’t try to get away. He clung to Sou’s hand as tightly as he could.
“In scientific fields, there’s a principle that basically says that the simpler explanation for something is usually the right one. So, Shin, which one’s simpler? The idea that I’m faking being in love with you for some sort of mysterious, villainous goal you haven’t figured out yet, or–” Sou pulled Shin towards him so they were facing each other, staring each other in the eye. The strings of lights that connected the stalls reflected prettily in Shin’s eyes, like stars shining out from inside him. “–that the person who confessed to you genuinely wants to spend time with you, and enjoys being with you?”
Shin seemed caught in Sou’s eyes for a moment, and then he sighed and leaned his head against Sou’s shoulder. “...You’re right. Sorry. I guess it’s still settling in that this is all real.”
“What, and the years we’ve already spent together weren’t?” Sou laughed and patted Shin’s head with his free hand. His hair was deceptively soft, as usual. “You’re going to hurt my feelings!”
“Tha–” Shin startled up, looking worried. He always took Sou so seriously. “That’s not what I mean! I mean, spending time together as friends is one thing, but now we’re–”
“Now we’re dating,” Sou said, dragging out the word, and the tips of Shin’s ears went pink again. Normally Sou got bored when it was this easy to get reactions he’d seen a hundred times already, but he never got bored with Shin. “I’m your boyfriend, and you’re mine! That means we both like each other and want to be together! So don’t overthink it too much, okay?”
“Urgh…” Shin dropped his bright red face onto Sou’s shoulder again, and Sou obligingly stroked his hair. He could feel Shin relaxing against him, his posture no longer so tight. “I’ll…try not to. Thanks, Hiyori.”
“That’s what I like to hear!”
Shin seemed a bit brighter as they returned to their walk, now going back towards a cluster of game stalls they’d passed earlier, and having mulled it over, Sou decided he was having fun. It felt uncharacteristic of him to be neglecting the subject of his observation just because of some shiny lights and loud noises, but here he was, having exactly that happen anyways. He wasn’t sure if he was frustrated or grateful, but either way, this was all thanks to Shin being…Shin.
According to the contract they’d signed, Shin had wished to become someone who he could be proud of. Sou wondered if Shin would ever see himself the way Sou saw him.
Both of them threw themselves into their tour of the festival after that, and while he’d never tell this to anyone, it really was refreshing to spend some time not worrying about his research or Asunaro’s rules. Shin bragged about how he’d been pretty good at yo-yo fishing when he was in middle school, and so they hunted down a stall for him to show off. Exactly as promised, he managed to snag one on his very first try, and when he turned to Sou to show him with an excited smile on his face, Sou snapped a picture of that exact expression, having been standing with his phone ready for this precise moment. And then several more when Shin got startled and tried to cover up the camera with his hand, Sou laughing at him the whole time. They picked up some cheap plastic masks from a few stalls over, a cute cartoon mascot for Shin, and for Sou, the mask of the main hero from the currently running tokusatsu series Shin was making him watch with him every week. He struck the pose and said the line, and Shin ended up doubled over laughing at his flawless performance.
Next was an amezaiku booth, where Sou watched enraptured as the artisan formed little candy sculptures right in front of their eyes. One of Sou’s head for Shin, and one of Shin’s head for Sou, and then Shin had to drag him away from the very enthusiastic conversation he’d started with the artisan about how skilled her work was because a line was starting to form behind them. Shin did seem a little put off by Sou biting through a little candy version of his head, but he still ate his own candy perfectly happily. The next thing that caught Sou’s eye was a popgun shooting gallery, 500 yen for eight tries, and after a misfire due to the cork gun not being a weight he was used to handling, he successfully nailed seven little boxes of snacks for Shin to munch through next time he was focused on a project, or…whenever he wanted to, really. He’d aimed exclusively for things he knew Shin liked.
“That was amazing!” Shin was currently struggling with trying to find space in his pockets for all his snacks, and Sou was standing there, watching, not offering to help. “Didn’t you say you’d never been to one of these before?”
“I never have! But I’ve done things like that before.”
In the past, Shin had been suspicious of the fact that Sou very rarely gave him the full story, but now, after several years, he was used to it. He didn’t even bother questioning what the things like that could be. “Ehehe… That makes you even more amazing, if you ask me.”
In the end, Shin ended up giving a couple packages and the water yo-yo he won earlier to a few kids who’d been equally amazed by Sou’s display of marksmanship, and then Sou dragged him to the next booth he’d been interested in: a ring-toss game that had plushies for prizes, including a few that Shin had looked at longingly before passing it by for the next on Sou’s list of sweets demands.
He goaded Shin into competing with him and that distracted him enough that he didn’t realize Sou’s true aim: landing all of his rings on the highest-point target, all so he could win the prize that the person running the stand clearly hadn’t been expecting anyone to be able to win, a three foot tall plush rabbit with pastel-blue fur and big floppy ears. It was huge. It was a nuisance. It was staying in Shin’s arms for the rest of their date.
“You know,” Shin said, barely able to peek out behind its head, “you’re kind of a jerk.”
“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” Sou said with a huge grin, snapping pictures of Shin with his adorable new friend. “Isn’t this exactly the kind of thing you love?”
“I mean–!” He squeezed it in his arms, looking grumpy. “...I’m going to have to carry it all the way back to your place. That’s just embarrassing.”
“Aww, turning down my hard-won gift that I won just for you? I’m positively heartbroken.” Sou laughed and Shin rolled his eyes, but he was smiling again. “Let’s see…there’s one last place for us to go now.”
“...Is there? And, hey! I can hardly see while I’m holding this thing, so–”
“I guess,” Sou said, finally slipping his phone back into his pocket, “you’ll just have to let me lead you around.”
He held one hand out to Shin, who glowered at him for a few moments before sheepishly reaching out and taking it. “...You don’t need to make a whole entire supervillain plan if you just wanted to hold my hand, you know.”
“Once again,” Sou said, the emptiness against his palm comfortably filled by Shin, “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
It was a few minutes before 9:30, finally cool enough that holding Shin’s hand didn’t feel like some sort of trial, and Sou led him off the path and out of the crowd. “Um… Where are we going?”
“You’ll see,” Sou promised, and started leading him up a hill behind the shrine. Eventually the path opened up to a clearing at the top, overlooking the crowded riverbank below as other festival-goers tried to find good vantage points. Up here, they were all alone, just them, the night air, and the faint sounds of people talking and laughing. Well, except for the couple of benches that overlooked the edge, too.
“I picked this spot out especially for this! It should be the best place to watch the fireworks from!” Sou gestured grandly at the view. Shin couldn’t have chosen a more perfect night—the sky was clear and the moon was bright and no one else had the same idea as him.
Shin gazed out at it, his profile almost elegant in the moonlight, and then he turned to Sou with a defeated look on his face. “So you were planning the exact same date as me, huh?”
“Yep! But you asked me first! I didn’t want all of my planning to go to waste, though.” They sat down together on one of the benches, and Shin set his new friend on the other. “I have to say, being the one who gets asked out was…nicer than I expected. I didn’t expect you to be so proactive, but I’m glad you were, Shin.”
“O-oh.” Something about what he’d just said had flustered Shin into near-silence. “...I’m happy, too. That you were wanting to do the same thing, I mean. You’re…a really kind person, Hiyori.”
“You shouldn’t say that just because your boyfriend wanted to go on a date with you too,” Sou chided, and Shin just leaned his head against his shoulder in response. “...But you know, you’re really the only person who ever gets to see this side of me.”
“Hmm?”
“Well, I’ve just been thinking about some things! You don’t need to worry about it. Just be happy you get me all to yourself!”
Shin squeezed his hand tightly, so tightly that it actually hurt a little bit. “...If you ever leave, I’ll never forgive you for it.”
“Ahaha! I feel like that kind of line is better suited coming from someone like me… But don’t you worry! I have no intention of going anywhere.”
As if on cue, the fireworks began—huge blossoms of light unfurling their petals in the sky in all the colors of the rainbow. Shin was watching them, their colors reflected in his eyes, and Sou was watching Shin. He could watch a recording of the display later if he really wanted to, but Shin’s expression right now was one he’d never be able to see again.
Of course, Shin noticed, and grinned at him. Long gone were the days when Shin hated Sou watching him. “You know, if you keep staring at me like that, you’re going to miss the whole show.”
“Oh, but you’re so much more exciting to look at, Shin!”
Shin rolled his eyes, clearly not believing him, but didn’t complain anymore about Sou watching him. Sou wanted a picture of this expression on him, or of Shin’s smile backed by fireworks, but there was another part of him, some aspect of himself that felt distant and familiar all at the same time, that told him that trying to preserve this moment wouldn’t preserve it the way he was hoping for. So he did nothing.
The bangs of explosives and the smell of gunpowder drifted over to them on the night breeze, and Sou breathed them in deep. How familiar they were. “Mm… This would be an excellent time to kill someone, don’t you think?”
“Wha–” That startled Shin out, and now he was looking at Sou again. He really did prefer this to Shin gawking at anything else. “Where’d that come from?”
“Everyone’s looking up, and the loud noises would cover up any sounds of a struggle. The perfect time for a murder.”
Shin just laughed. “And we’re all alone up here. What, did you only bring me up here so you could kill me?”
Sou didn’t respond, instead smiling as he inched ever closer to Shin. Tsukimi Shin, both shy and bold, timid and brave, fragile and strong, delicate and resilient. A captivating combination of contradictions, all wrapped up in one painfully average package with such awful posture it was affecting the way he stood. Compared to everyone else in the world, Tsukimi Shin could never be boring. These were all details that had gone into Sou’s reports about him, but certain details had certainly been left out.
It didn’t matter if Asunaro never knew about this night. Hiyori Sou was a believer in fate, after all. Even if the memories of this night weren’t preserved inside of the Tsukimi Shin AI currently in development, even if his own memories of this night were lost in the event of a system reboot or a reinitialization, there wasn’t a doubt in Sou’s mind that he would always, always fall in love with Tsukimi Shin all over again.
He brushed Shin’s hair out of the way with one hand and pressed a kiss to his forehead. “Not this time.”
Shin made a startled little noise, and again, he seemed to be trying and failing to say something before once again burying his face into Sou’s scarf. “...You always spring these things when I don’t expect it.”
“I would’ve been expecting it. Didn’t this exact setup happen in that one shoujo manga you’ve been trying to force me to read?” He’d read it, of course. Just not using Shin’s volumes, just to be mean. “I think I deserve extra points for it, personally.”
“You’re the worst. You’re awful. You’re a horrible bully and no one likes you.”
“Except for you!”
Shin sighed, defeated, and leaned against Sou again. “...Yeah. Except for me. I’ll just have to like you enough to make up for everyone else.”
“Oh, you don’t need to do that.” Sou leaned his head against Shin’s. “I’m happiest with you being yourself, you know.”