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The day Akito and Toya got together, there was a celebration spanning the hallways of both Kamiyama and Miyamasuzaka High School. Absolutely everyone was sick of watching the pining idiots dancing around each other endlessly.
An had finally lost patience and decided to make a bet with Akito that forced him to confess to Toya, lest he be made to wear a frilly pink tutu to school. That would have ruined his chances with the guy completely for sure.
Anyway, Toya had obviously reciprocated, and they had gotten together. They almost immediately disgusted the entirety of Kamiyama High School with their extremely prominent public displays of affection. Even before the confession, they were joined at the hip on a good day, but after it, they were absolutely inseparable . If one of them was somewhere, the other was too. That’s just how it was.
‘The ‘honeymoon phase,’ or so it’s called,’ Toya muses.
After all, all good things fade. Toya knows this firsthand. When he first learned to play piano, there was at least a little enthusiasm, excitement . If anything, he was glad that his actions were finally making his father happy. All of that disappeared quickly, though, leaving behind only contempt for the discipline.
Something like piano, which had so much potential, left a bitter taste in his mouth so soon. Who’s to say the same wouldn’t be true for Akito? Who’s to say he wouldn’t start viewing Toya, who he held in such high regard, as unfavorable?
Thus, the question. Rui, one of the partners of his beloved mentor Tsukasa, had told him about a popular ‘relationship test,’ so to speak, that many confused paramours have used to gauge the loyalty and feelings of their significant other successfully.
This challenge entails asking a simple question to your partner, their answer to which will be incredibly telling. The fundamental idea behind it all is that, if your partner is willing to stick with you through bodily and mental changes, they’ll stand by you through life.
Or at least, that’s what Rui told Toya. But Rui is close to Tsukasa. He must be trustworthy, right?
Right?
Well, Toya has nothing to lose at this point. He makes the decision to bite the bullet, trying to get the words out as quickly as possible so he doesn’t lose his nerve.
He takes a deep breath.
“Would you still love me if I was a worm?”
“DIE, MOTHERFUCKERS!” Akito yells.
He clutches the video game controller in his hand harder, almost breaking the thing as he attempts to spam the ‘A’ key.
“Oh,” Toya says.
He had not prepared for this eventuality. He fully expected Akito to either admit that he would love Toya even in the form of a worm, in which case Toya would have initiated marriage proceedings, or say that he could never hold feelings for Toya in that form, in which case Toya would have initiated divorce proceedings.
A simple binary, but where does ‘die, motherfuckers’ fit into that?
“Did you say something, Toya?” Akito asks, thoroughly distracted by the banana peel Princess Nectarine just threw at him.
Toya does not think he has the courage to ask the question again. He stands there, rooted to the spot. Unsure of what to do with his hands, he flails around a little, desperate for a distraction.
He finds it in the form of a blessed controller abandoned on the floor, which he grabs, promptly joining the game in the middle of a high-speed race of Luigi Kart.
Strangely, the game allows him to focus and collect his thoughts enough that he can get to a point where he feels as if he can ask the crucial question again.
“Akito..,” he implores, throwing an anthropomorphic bomb at Akito’s cart and slipping ahead of him. “Would you still love me if I was a worm?”
“Why the fuck would you be a worm?” Akito mutters. “That’s impossible. You’re a human. Aren’t you supposed to be smarter than me? Why are you asking me these things?”
“Yes, but…” Toya starts.
“Are you feeling well, Toya? Should I check if you’re running a fever?” Akito drops his controller, letting Frog and Konkey Dong get in front of him, to reach over and press his hand onto Toya’s forehead. Toya, flustered by the contact, drops his controller as well.
Akito takes his hand off of Toya’s forehead and sighs. “No, your forehead is perfectly normal. So there’s something else going on here? What’s got you thinking people can be worms?”
“Akito… it is a hypothetical. We learned about these in school, I am sure. It is a fantasy situation that is unlikely, if not impossible, to happen in our real lives. I simply want your hypothetical answer to this hypothetical situation.”
“Yeah, I know what hypotheticals are. Your tutoring isn’t completely useless.” Akito grins. “Are you proud of me?”
“I am always proud of the progress you make,” Toya murmurs, the lines around his eyes crinkling in fondness. “However, you still have not answered my question.”
“You asked a question?”
Toya sighs.
“Akito, please listen carefully this time, since I don’t believe I have the mental fortitude necessary to ask as personal and difficult a question as this one yet another time. I wish to know… would you still love me if I was a worm?”
“Uh… yeah, probably,” Akito says, scratching his head.
Toya breathes a sigh of relief he didn’t know he was holding.
“I mean, why wouldn’t I still love you if you were a worm?” Akito questions. “It’s not like anything would be different about you. I mean, you wouldn’t look the same, or be able to talk, or… well, I guess some things would be different.”
“Perhaps, in this hypothetical situation, we are both worms. In that case, things would not be so bad.”
“Yeah, if I was a worm I’d probably find your worm self attractive or something, just like how human me-” Akito stops short after realizing what he’s saying.
A scarlet red blush spreads across Toya’s face. “Human me- you find human me… attractive?”
“I mean, yeah. That’s kinda why I asked you out in the first place,” Akito grumbles, face rapidly turning into a tomato. Strangely enough, it harmonizes with his ginger hair.
“ANYWAY!” he says loudly, attempting to assuage the embarrassment. “Worms. Uh- wait, why’d you ask me that anyway?”
Now it’s Toya’s turn (again) to fight back his bashfulness. “Well… I simply wanted to ensure that you still retain feelings for me. After all, familiarity breeds contempt.”
“I don’t know what that last thing you just said means, but why would I ever not have feelings for you? I mean, come on, Toya. You know I’ve been into you for years- ” Akito stops short once again, covering his face with his hands.
Toya sees hints of red poking out from where Akito’s palm is clamped over his face and thinks to himself that they really need to stop embarrassing each other.
“I- of course, Akito, I never meant to doubt your… attraction.” Toya blushes. “I simply wanted to assuage my own misplaced fears and concerns- and Rui suggested-”
Akito growls unexpectedly. “Of course fucking Rui was involved. He just can’t stop causing trouble, can he?”
“He’s Tsukasa’s friend, so I thought he was trustworthy-”
“Oh god, that makes it even worse.”
Toya’s face drops a little bit. “I’m very sorry, Akito. I did not intend for this to become as deep or worrisome of an issue as it has.”
Akito can’t stand seeing that crestfallen face on his boyfriend, immediately stepping up to encase him in a hug.
“You’re so silly, baby. It’s no issue at all. Toya, I’ll love you always, no matter where we are, what time it is, or what form you come in. …Yes, even if you were to be a worm. I’d love you all the same.”
The words ring fundamentally true to Toya in a way that surprises him, although perhaps it shouldn’t have. He finds himself confident and certain that he and Akito will spend many more days together, fighting through the highs and the lows.
After all, Akito even quit his Luigi Kart game for him.