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It’s been three years since they started living together. At first Akito didn’t think about it much, but now, after all this time, he’s noticed some things.
The first thing he noticed was how Rui takes his coffee. It’s a lot darker than Akito’s and a bit more specific, which is why Akito had trouble doing it right at first. Three spoons of sugar, each spoon followed by a tiny bit of milk. Apparently, Rui notices when it’s done differently, like all of the sugar getting mixed in without the milk in between. And indeed, the first time Akito had made the coffee for Rui, he’d noticed, though he still drank it without any real complaint.
The next thing he noticed was Rui’s abysmal sleep schedule. Sometimes Rui would be awake for hours before Akito woke up and other times he just went to bed when Akito got up. Though it had gotten tons better. When they first started living together, Rui would still pull all-nighters quite frequently. At first Akito had tried to stay awake with him but he had always fallen asleep, forcing Rui to carry him to bed. It didn’t seem like his husband minded it then or now but Akito still felt a bit guilty about it and had since stopped trying to stay awake with Rui, most of the time.
Thirdly, Rui loved flowers. Akito had known that Rui had been part of the greening committee, but he hadn’t realized how deeply Rui had cared for the flowers at school. Honestly, after living together for just a year, Rui had infected Akito a bit with his love for flowers. Akito doesn’t remember when it started, but he now loved decorating rooms with flowers, especially Sunflowers. Rui had grinned the day he’d brought some home and remarked that they should get moon flowers too. “They’re like us!” He had said and Akito couldn’t help but agree. Where he loved going out doing sports or singing to the crowds on Main Street, like he did when he had been in highschool, Rui tended to stay in with his Robots, tinkering with different things, staying awake for way too long. Of course Rui also went outside, but in comparison to Akito it was definitely less often.
The last thing and the most important one for Akito was how Rui did little things to show his affection, rather than grand gestures all the time. Considering his stage presentation and how attention drawing he had acted in school, Akito had worried a little that Rui expected them to be the kind of couple that you couldn’t help but look at, with huge events planned for every anniversary. Luckily that wasn’t the case, for during their first anniversary, when Akito had asked what his, at the time, boyfriend would like from him, Rui had thought about it for a little bit before replying that he just wanted Akito to sing something for him. They didn’t end up leaving it at that, but the fact that Rui valued his singing highly enough to ask for it above all else had made him really happy.
Rui also tended to leave small messages on post-it notes when he had to leave the house early, to go to practices at Phoenix Wonderland. Akito thinks it’s amazing that Wonderlands x Showtime is still going strong. It makes him miss Vivid BAD a bit, but it wasn't like he didn't talk to the others anymore. They just couldn't really perform together anymore. From what he had heard, WxS was now in permanent employment at Phoenix Wonderland and he was glad for it. Rui and his friends seemed to have a lot of fun.
Rui had also noticed some things in their time living together.
Like the fact that Akito sometimes just randomly dances to songs, singing along with them, when he is happy. Or the fact that he gets scared from movies easily, but always insists on watching them anyway. Not that Rui minds. His husband was ridiculously cute, curled up into Rui’s side, like an oversized cat and the comfortable warmth is a definite plus.
But he also noticed some bigger things. Like his hoodies going missing, only for him to find them on Akito later. When he had asked about it, Akito had just shrugged and said that they were comfortable, but one late night, almost delusional on lack of sleep, Akito had confessed that he just liked them because they smelled like Rui and it helped him sleep. Since then Rui would put some of his hoodies to the left side of their closet, instead of just putting them somewhere with the rest of his jackets, so Akito didn’t have to search for them.
He also finds little doodles on notebooks all the time. Usually they're just dumb little animals or weird chibis, but once in a while he'd find more fleshed out drawings, usually of him. It makes him smile and the notebooks, while already important to him, gain an even more personal feeling. At first he hadn't been sure what to think about it, he didn't really like people messing with his notes, but he practically can't imagine them without at least one squishy, dumb cat next to them anymore.
Another thing he noticed was that Akito really values every second they have together. It, of course, wasn’t at a concerning level, where Akito couldn’t function without him. No, it’s more like Akito being happy, just spending time with Rui, even if that time was spent doing nothing. It has the advantage that being appreciated, just for existing, makes Rui feel wanted. And Akito always makes him feel wanted. Even when they fought, Akito didn’t make it about Rui as a person, just about the actual thing they were arguing about. Maybe it was because of how he grew up.
One night, when neither of them could sleep, Akito had told him about how growing up had been for him. The thing Rui remembered most of all, was that Akito made it very clear that even though they may have argued a lot, both Akito and his sister had lines which the other wouldn’t cross. For Ena that was art and for Akito that was music. Sure they gave some snide remarks about it, but they never said anything that would genuinely hurt. “We had enough of that from our father dearest.” Akito had huffed in explanation.
The final thing he noticed was how genuine Akito was. He doesn’t fake any emotions, at least not in front of Rui and often times he just says his opinion on things, even if Rui might not agree with everything. It makes it very easy for Rui to be able to tell what makes his husband happy or what’s bothering him and he’ll eternally be grateful for it. Being able to tell what Akito thinks of certain things let’s him, either adjust accordingly or find a compromise. At this point Rui is pretty sure neither of them goes out of their way to lie just to make the other happy. In his opinion, it makes living together very easy and mostly unproblematic.
Neither of them know where they’re going with this, but these little things are what make them happy. They don’t need grand gestures or faked emotions. All they need is these little facts and the knowledge that they are there for each other. Other people don’t need to understand it but what they have is more valuable than anything else in the world, to them.