Work Text:
Aqua waits in the dark. He’s been waiting in the dark for hours, and before that he had been waiting in the daylight. Maybe the interpersonal audition has turned into a feat of endurance, to see who can go the longest before tagging out. Aqua certainly feels like tagging out, and the only thing he’s been doing is sitting on a park bench.
He doesn’t need to be here. He should leave. Akane is inside, and he doesn’t know if that’s why he should leave or if that’s the reason he’s staying. He doesn’t want to see her, but avoiding her is the same as admitting that he still cares.
If Akane cares at all, then she has surely been analyzing his absence just as closely as he is now.
The sound of footsteps approaches from behind, slow and distracted. If Aqua were still her boyfriend, he would chide her for not paying attention at night. As it is, he’s exactly the type of person she should be crossing the street to get away from.
Akane stops abruptly a few feet behind him. She’s seen him, then.
“Is it done?” Aqua asks her, without turning around.
“Long time no see,” Akane says, instead of answering his question. That’s fine by him. It had been both rhetorical and irrelevant. “I thought you didn’t want to have anything to do with me anymore?”
“That was the plan,” he agrees. “But I can’t just say that every time.” It’s a good response, he thinks. He had decided on it while he was waiting for her to arrive.
“Yeah.” Akane steps around the bench to face him, and Aqua notices that her hair must be several centimeters longer than when he last saw her. Her face is pale under the street lamps as she declares, “I’ve made my decision, too. I’ll stop your plan, Aqua-kun.”
“I see.” Aqua feels his lips twist into a smile. It’s demented, he knows, he shouldn’t be happy about this. Akane is the one who found Kamiki Hikaru for him. She is the one who found Amamiya Goro’s corpse. Akane has always been able to accomplish what he could not. Now that she’s working against him instead of with him…his smile grows wider. “If you think you can do it, go ahead and try, Kurokawa Akane.”
Akane nods, challenge accepted, and stalks off towards the train station without another word. There isn’t anything else that needs to be said. Once she’s gone, Aqua relaxes, and tilts his head up to the sky, letting the cold air rush across his face. He’s still smiling. The moon glows faintly above him, washing his face in its light. Aqua isn’t the poetic sort, but tonight, he thinks it might just be the most beautiful thing he’s ever seen.