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Akira was certain he was losing his mind.
If there was one thing Akira prided himself in, it was his ability to keep a level head and a composed face even under the toughest and most stressful situations. Students spreading nasty rumors about him at school? Never fazed him. Gulping down the gigantic burger the size of Mona in Metaverse form? Piece of cake. Fighting a horde of high-leveled Shadows? Wouldn’t even break a sweat.
His fellow Thieves complimented him on his steadiness, saying he was destined to be their leader. Akira believed so too. Well, except for moments when he found his composure wavering because of a certain faux blonde got a little touchy-feely around him, which seemed to be happening more and more often lately.
It started with some casual touching – a pat on the shoulder, a nudge at the rib, a fist bump here and there – which were fine. That much Akira could handle and maintain his poise with no big issue. Then around summertime the physical contact got worse (or better, depending on how you saw it), the concept of personal space completely vanished from the book of Ryuji Sakamoto all at once. Akira had to keep reminding himself that it meant nothing more than platonic friendship when Ryuji locked his arm around his shoulders whenever he had the chance, or when the blonde pressed his side against Akira’s so their hips and thighs were touching as they shared the couch or booth seat in LeBlanc. Yeah, totally normal run-of-the-mill gestures between good friends. Probably a bro thing guys did in the big city, nothing more. Just get used to it already!
The fact was Akira wouldn’t make a big deal out of it if the person initiating the act was anyone else. Say, Mishima liked to invade his personal space just as much when he was whispering new Mementos targets he discovered from the Phansite, to which Akira had no problem keeping his cool at all. And then there was Yusuke who had a habit of blurting out gay things without himself knowing. He’d even invited Akira to go on a boat ride and he was totally fine with it because he knew Yusuke was just being Yusuke. So, it should totally be okay for his best friend Ryuji to do more or less the same thing.
Except that whenever it happened his gay heart would outright refuse to beat at a normal pace and instead went on a string of stirring flip-flops, sending blood and heat straight to his face, all because of this giant crush he had for the blonde.
The worst thing of all was that Akira was 99% sure Ryuji wasn’t being effusive on purpose--or he was but unaware of the effect they had on Akira. Fair enough; the blonde was straight, after all. For as long as Akira had known him, he had only shown interest in girls and girls only. So why would he understand how flustered Akira got whenever the embodiment of megawatt sunshine came too close to contact?
So yeah, Akira was steadily going crazy alright.
“Why? Why is he doing this to me…?” Lying face down on the crate bed, Akira moaned into his pillow miserably. Sleep wouldn’t come to him easily tonight, he was certain, not with what happened at gym with Ryuji earlier today.
“What did that idiot do this time?” Unsurprisingly, Morgana didn’t need to ask to know he was referring to Ryuji, who was all Akira talked about of late.
“…He held my hands to guide me to through barbell lifting.”
“…That’s it?”
“We held hands, Morgana!” Akira whipped his head sideways to goggle at his feline friend. “He even grabbed my waist at one point! I can’t do this anymore.”
The cat groaned, big blue eyes rolling up. “Urgh, I can’t stand the two of you. Why’re you so infatuated with that airhead anyway? You can do so much better, Akira!”
“You don’t understand. Ryuji is…” his sunshine, Akira wanted to say, but he didn’t want Morgana vomiting all over his bed. “…nice. Really nice.” That didn’t stop the cat from fake gagging.
“You bet I don’t, and I never will nor want to. My heart belongs solely to Lady Ann! She’s the most beautiful--”
Muting the cat’s rambling speech about how wonderful Ann was, Akira dreamily replayed the scenario happened at the gym in his head. The way Ryuji’s strong arms supported the barbell so it wouldn’t accidentally smash onto Akira’s face when he was doing the bench press. The sound of his carefree laugh when Akira finished a set of lifts without his assistance by the end of the day.
Akira let out a moony sigh.
How pathetic he and Morgana were; two love-struck idiots fallen in love with someone they would never stand a chance of being with.
(Sorry Morgana, but that was the truth.)