Chapter Text
Valentine's Day was a popular holiday among the kids of Kamiyama High. After all, whether you're giving or receiving, gifting a loved one chocolate is much too heartwarming to hate.
Similarly, White Day was also a smash hit with the kids, seeing as it allowed those who were given Valentine's Day gifts to return the favor. In particular, Toya had been looking forward to this holiday, as its predecessor allowed him to experience something he was never able to until that point.
He had received Valentine's chocolates from a certain someone that year; the very first time anyone had ever given him anything for the occasion. He almost cried on the spot, feeling truly grateful for the gift and extremely determined to pay it back.
"Toya? Toya, you listening?" Akito's voice dragged Toya from his musings, the sound of his best friend calling him making his heart flutter.
Toya liked it when Akito talked. He was always so artificially polite to new people he met, but around his closest friends Akito was so honest and expressive. Toya would often catch himself staring at Akito's face as he spoke, as if what he was saying and the way he said it would reshape the world as he knew it.
"Ah, sorry." Toya apologized, voice somewhat flat. Akito just chuckled, long since learning how to see past what a lot of people probably would've seen as blatant sarcasm.
"What am I gonna do with you, dude?" Akito said fondly, slinging an arm around the taller boy. "Anyway, I was just saying I'm not gonna be able to make it to practice for the next few days."
"Shiraishi told me the same thing a few periods ago." Toya remarked, cocking a brow as he made the connection. "What are you two doing?"
"We heard about this thing called, uh... White Day Workshop, I think it was called... from Akiyama. They said the Home Ec room's giving us space and supplies for White Day chocolate-making." Akito explained, though he seemed embarrassed to admit he would be blowing off his best friend to go baking.
"Oh. I see." Toya said with a subtly fascinated tone before turning to face Akito with a smile of encouragement. "You have fun, then. I'm sure whoever receives your gift will love it."
Toya sadly hadn't thought to give Akito any chocolate on Valentine's Day, so he knew he wouldn't be the object of his friend's affection this time around. He wasn't sure why that made his heart pang uncomfortably, but he chose not to dwell on it.
"You could go too, y'know. It'd be fun to make stuff together." Akito sheepishly proposed, though it made Toya's eyes light up nonetheless.
"Can I really? I've never done anything like chocolate-making or baking before, so I might be a bother..." Toya seemed just as sheepish as Akito at this point, and so the ginger playfully slapped his friend's back with a chuckle.
"Don't worry about any of that, man. I'll coach you so good you'll make An's chocolates wet themselves."
"I don't think chocolates can do that, Akito." Toya grimaced as they began to walk once more, making Akito laugh even harder at his friend's unparalleled seriousness.
In all honesty, though, Toya was grateful to both learn from and spend time with Akito. The boy already took up every spare minute of Toya's free time, and yet he couldn't help but feel like he'd just been offered the world itself whenever Akito made time for him.
At the same time, Akito cherished every second of time Toya spent with him. He felt like the world suddenly became gray and boring if he wasn't plastered to his best friend's hip, and he acted like it a lot of the time too.
Which is why, when they finally signed up for the White Day Workshop, they were immensely disappointed to find that they had been placed in different groups. Half the reason either of them joined was to spend time with each other after all.
And yet the wall clearly read that Group 1 consisted of Toya Aoyagi, Rui Kamishiro, Ena Shinonome and Mizuki Akiyama... While Group 2 had An Shiraishi, Akito Shinonome, Tsukasa Tenma and Nene Kusanagi.
"Ah... It looks like I got placed in the same group as your sister." Toya said with a slight pout, glancing over at Akito to see his currently-bordering-on-enraged expression.
"There's no damn way they put me in the same group as An *and* Tsukasa but not you..." Akito growled, his voice breathless. He was in complete disbelief, almost ready to claim the Home Ec teacher was out to get him from how awful this luck was.
"Heya, Li'l Bro~ Did you come to make me some chocolate?" A third, yet painfully familiar to Akito, voice suddenly interrupted them, the source of course being Mizuki, the person who hadn't attended school two days in a row since the year began, yet started conveniently becoming a diligent student when chocolate season rolled around.
"Mizuki, you didn't even give anyone Valentine's gifts! You're not eating anything this time!" Ena, who was walking beside Mizuki, loudly complained.
Akito instantly recognized the origin of her saltiness. She had bought Valentine's chocolates for her music group friends and didn't receive anything back from only Mizuki. Of course, they ate everything Ena gave them in one go before deciding to confess they were empty-handed.
"Oi, Ena, switch groups with me." Akito demanded without bothering to greet his older sister, prying some awkward noises from their friends as they immediately sensed they were going to be in for another episode of Keeping Up with the Shinonomes.
"No way! The teacher said we weren't allowed." Ena huffed, though everybody in that hall knew the real reason was she just didn't want to be bossed around by her brother.
"He's not gonna care that much, dammit!" Akito snapped back, not wanting to be bossed around by his sister in turn.
"Well, if I change groups, it means I came to school hours early for no reason!" Ena argued as though she thought Akito would sympathize with her shut-in lifestyle.
Akito knew he wasn't winning that argument, though, so he just acknowledged the comment with a snarky groan before tossing it away. "I'll give you money to get cheesecake if you do it."
"Joke's on you! Mizuki already bought me cheesecake on the way here!" That was a total lie. Mizuki never willingly paid for anything, especially around Ena.
"Then you can have the last slice of the one I bought for breakfast!" Akito continued to bargain, trying to find some kind of compromise that would prevent Akito's hair from turning white by the end of the week.
"Even I'm not that trashy!" That was also a total lie. She ate cheesecake for breakfast all the time. In fact, Akito was usually subjected to buying it for her.
"Bullshit!" Akito yelled, and from there it was an unintelligible string of curses and insults that their audience had no idea how to break.
"Akito sure doesn't back down when he gets fired up." Toya said in an awfully fond tone, his eyes glued to Akito's pouty, scowling expression despite having semi-addressed the comment to Mizuki.
"Mhm! Ena's the same way. You should see how she acts in our Nightcord server." Mizuki agreed without missing a beat, glancing over to the wall where their groups' members and schedules had been written.
"Enaaaa! It's almost time to start!" They called to Ena, instantly making her drop the argument like it had never started.
Her eyes fell to the time listed on the workshop schedule, completely ignoring Akito's continued angry shouts toward her. "Oh, you're right. We should probably go in and wait for Kamishiro."
"I'll see you later, Akito." from Toya was all Akito heard as he watched both Mizuki and his best friend slip into the door of the workshop.
He couldn't leave things like this. Before Ena could join the group, he silently placed a hand on his sister's shoulder to make her stop. Ena initially pouted as she felt her brother touch her, but her attitude dropped as soon as she saw Akito's face.
"Be nice to Toya and look out for him when he needs it, got it? He's never done this before." Akito said without a hint of the usual snark the siblings' interactions usually held.
Ena sighed, not entirely sure why Akito thought something as simple as that was worth getting so scary over. "It's not like I'd be mean to Toya, but why are you so worked up over this? You were even about to throw your favorite cheesecake at me just to be in his group."
Ena's question seemed to catch Akito off guard, perhaps not expecting her to take his concern seriously. He darted away from his sister in a poor attempt to hide his flustered face, voice small as he spoke again. "Just do what I say..."
Ena chuckled. Akito didn't answer the question, but she knew the gist of things even without words. It didn't take a rocket scientist to figure it out, let alone his sister who could read him like an open book even without all the dramaticism. "Okay. I'll watch after him for you."
"...Thanks." Akito mumbled as he turned around, promptly walking away. Normally, Ena would tease Akito until he was shouting his gratitude loud enough for the whole school to hear, but she decided to play the role of a responsible big sister for once and let him off the hook.
After all, she'd just been tasked with ensuring the safety of her little brother's crush.