Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

An had been calling Akito's eye colour, “garbage green” all day. Akito, even though he didn't particularly love his eye colour, was still offended of course. When the bell signifying lunch break rang, Akito ran to meet Toya and gain some of the happiness that An had stolen viciously from him back. When he spotted Toya, reading and waiting for him on a bench he immediately relaxed a little. Though, there was the nagging irritation that An was very likely to join them if she didn't have broadcasting duties today. He sat down next to Toya and cut straight to the point. 

“Partner, what's my eye colour called? An’s being a bitch. ”

“You say that as if you hate her for it.” Toya said, smiling at him. Akito was having trouble telling whether he was teasing or just stating a fact. He rolled his eyes. 

“Don't you have work today?” Toya reminded him, slipping a pink bookmark with a bow that could only be a gift from Akiyama between the pages. The cover read, Sense And Sensibility in a flowery font. He guessed it was classical literature based on the fact that Toya only ever read classical and explicitly horrifying gore.

“Fuck. You're right.” Akito sighed, making no attempt to move. Toya laughed quietly, making Akito smile like an idiot. 

“I still want an answer though, does my mental health mean that little to you?”

“An is actually bullying me this time.” Akito grinned, leaning his head on his hand. 

(Toya suppressed the urge to kiss him because that would be terribly awkward and he'd probably drown himself in a grand piano filled with water. Sort of specific, yes, but he had it all planned out. Plus, it’d be one last, “Fuck you” to his dad.)

“That's what you said last time when she stole a singular Pringle from you.” Toya retorted, unable to mask his amusement.

“Toya, please. For the sake of our flourishing bromance. Answer me.” Akito pleaded sarcastically. 

“Wenn man es relativiert, lässt die Tatsache, dass deine Augenfarbe Aoyagi heißt, den Eindruck entstehen, dass du wirklich unbedingt meinen Nachnamen haben möchtest.  Oder vielleicht suche ich nur nach Ausreden, um dir in die Augen zu starren.” Toya smirked.

It looked more like a painfully forced smile, but at least he tried. Akito gave him an A for effort. 

The ginger stared at him, raising an eyebrow. 

“Wanna tell me what that means, partner?” 

“No.” Said Toya, offering a half-smile. He then picked up his book, stuffing it into his shoulder bag and left. Leaving Akito in a haze of confusion. He failed to notice the table of foreigners next to him giggling and blushing. 

Akito groaned. That’s gonna keep him up at night. 

The ginger tripped up the stairs, which he took as a good omen because usually he trips down them on the way to his surprisingly aesthetically pleasing room. He closed the door softly, slumping down onto the low brown chair in the middle of the room. There was very little light seeping in from the window as school had just ended, he opened his phone and scoffed at the amount of missed calls and texts. He decided to actually read them out of boredom. 

Self-Proclaimed Baddie: Dudw eu swuked @ pratdcvtice 2day hehehejaj

You: Shut the fuck up.

—

Grape Toothpaste: Hello, Shinonome. Would you be interested in conducting a completely painless experiment with me? 

You: Delete my contact. 

—

Mizuk ak: Unshe/theys my sword and cuts u down*

You: Akiyama, I’ve literally seen that meme. Stop being a basic bitch, you’re better than this.

—

Tsucock zeroma: HELP RUI’S TRYING TO HIT ME WITH A FLAMING HONDA CIVIC

You: Good for you. 

—

Hampter: Hello Shinonome-kun! How are you today? [:

You: You’re the only normal person I know. 

Hampter: Yay! :D

—

Toya <3: Do you own a shovel or any matches?

You: what in the living fuck

Toya <3: Nevermind, he’s still alive. I admire his persistence and beautiful display of determination, but he should consider this doesn’t make my job any easier. He should learn to have some empathy. 

You: wtf r u yapping about

He closed his phone with a groan. Letting his mind wander, he remembered what had happened earlier. He closed his eyes in frustration, Toya was a good person, that much he knew. He wouldn’t have said anything bad, that’s for sure, so then what else would he not want to say in a language Akito understood? Akito and Toya told each other basically everything, and even though Akito couldn’t understand, Toya still said it directly to him. The especially weird part was that Toya didn’t explain to him what it meant after. 

He was completely drawing a blank, all he could think about was the look on Toya’s face when he said it, and how smooth and slim his hands were closing his book. And how milky and pale his skin was. And how light of a grey Toya’s eyes were, how silky his hair was. The way that he always smelled like lavender and roses.

And how it always did weird things to him when Toya’s perfect eyes were on him and when Toya’s perfect body touched him and when Toya’s perfect voice said his name. 

At this point, Akito was perfectly aware that he was getting distracted but all he could think about was Toya’s face and hands and eyes and hair and lips and body and smell and voice. 

All he could think about was Toya.

“I love you.” Nobody seemed to hear him, but he said it. 

His phone rang, letting him know someone was calling him. He picked up his phone, and checked the time, it read 7:46. Almost eight.

He had been thinking about Toya for an hour and forty minutes. He stared at the screen in disbelief while his phone rang, Toya’s contact picture burning into his eyes. It was an honestly terrible picture. A simple selfie, except it looked like his phone slipped from his hands at the last second so it was blurry and captured in motion. He believed the flowers he was surrounded by were ghost flowers, but it was hard to tell because it was night in the photo. He was going off the vague shape and slight glow they gave off. 

Akito brought the phone to his ear.

“Hey. I’m sorry I called you so late.” Toya said.

I don’t care, I’d kill a man to hear you say my name. (gayass) 

“ Are you alright?” He asked, the concern evident in his voice. 

“Akito? Please answer me.”

“Huh? Oh-yeah, Hey man.” Akito snapped himself out of whatever that  was.

“If you’re occupied it’s okay, we’ll talk tomorrow anyways.” Toya assured.

“No. I’m not busy, it’s cool.” He collapsed on his bed on his side, looking out the window into the night.

 He heard Ena’s door opening and closing with a quiet click, she was most likely getting something to eat. It relieved him, she hadn’t eaten much lately because of how busy school was, plus she had to finish three full drawings for her music group. 

(He had covered her dinner with foil so it would stay warm and left her some bottled tea.) 

“So is An spamming you too?” Akito asked.

“No, surprisingly. It’s Azusawa this time, except it’s endearing when she does it. She sends a ton of cute emojis and hamster images.” He could practically see Toya’s smile while he spoke. 

“She wants me to go to a fashion and makeup store with her and Kiritani-san, sort of like when we did that photoshoot but this time just for fun.” The taller boy explained, Akito smiled fondly.

“Are you gonna do it?” The ginger asked.

“Yeah.”

“An only sends me scam links that download a million viruses and then tells me I sucked shit at practice. It Sort of feels like our friendship is one or one hundred.” Akito muttered, Toya laughed.

“I like your voice.” Toya said out of nowhere. Akito almost choked. 

“What? Why, dude?”

“Because I find it nice? I’m not sure, what the fuck would you like me to say?” Toya deadpanned.

“You can’t talk like a Victorian man in the 1980s and then randomly throw in a curse.”  Akito shrugged, grinning. 

“Aren’t you the man who got shoved into a locker in middle school? Just take the compliment.” Toya replied in his usual monotone voice.

It was hard to tell whether he was actually teasing or not but Akito somehow knew after being near him for so long. 

“Fine you win, twink.” Akito admit, he could sense Toya’s eyes rolling through the phone.

Chapter Text

Currently, it was sixth period and Akito was fully done with the day. They had a fan-meet later that night with a couple of other bands at a variety music convention. The details in the letter said that it started at ten in the night and he had a solid plan to stay awake. Now, Akito was a genius, so his incredibly well thought out plan involved him finishing school, going to practice which was shortened for today to just an hour and thirty, and then going home and passing out until he had to go. With the help of some Monster, he expertly deduced that he should be able to live. So once the annoyingly-Tono sounding bell rang, Akito was out of there like he was running from that domineering, pompous, vain, contemptuous and stinky loser himself. He saw An trying to catch up to him, but he was, as Odetari’s hit song KEEP UP preached, too fast. 

“Akito! You toxic masculine bitch wait-” An yelled, gasping for air.

Akito did not wait, instead, he sped up, not wanting to be associated with her by other students. 

An was sort of popular, yes. But he was also pretty popular so he preferred to not look at her because he knew she’d ruin his status with, like, literally one sentence. And it didn’t even have to be a long one. Here’s some examples of various things she could say that’d ruin him,

“Akito’s incredibly, insanely down bad for Aoyagi Toya.”

“Akito kissed me in middle school and turned me lesbian.”

“Akito’s actually a really caring and supportive person who thinks of himself as the scum of humanity and acts like an amazing brother to his sister and my girlfriend. He has trouble expressing himself in fear of being labeled weak by society, so he constantly acts annoyed and angry to avoid that. He’s constantly overworking himself and is super passionate but gets carried away easily by other people's opinions. He works as hard as he possibly can to help his friends but then disguises it all as an act of hate. He’s also convinced himself that we would be a better unit without him.” 

“Akito’s jays are fake.” 

See? It would be disastrous to his reputation. 

The fact that he and An were in the same class this year didn’t help at all. Plus, he constantly had Kusanagi boring holes into the back of his head with hatred, all because they liked the same boy. She should know that she already has a better chance with him. 

After all, Toya’s not gay.  Akito’s just stupid and holding on to a one-sided attraction to his best friend of two years. 

Akito loves him. Even if Toya carves black beneath his eyes. Akito only loves him. There’s nothing else to it. He just loves him, like a stupid teenage movie where everythings perfect and no one knows what one-sided means because everyone is loved by someone in the end. He felt like a dumb teenage girl, he hated the feeling. He read online once that if you have a crush on someone that you can’t have, no matter what, you should just confess to get rejected so that you can move on. Akito thought that was a terrible idea. Toya deals with enough already, Akito’s stupid feelings shouldn’t be one of those things, and yet, he can’t stop himself. He couldn’t when it was just a thought, he couldn’t when it was just a crush and he can’t now that he’s in love.

When Akito finally snapped out of it, his eyes felt hot and he was standing in his house, leaning on the wall in the dark hallway upstairs. 

“Fuck my shitty fucking emotions and shitty fucking love and life.” He mumbled, wiping furiously at his eyes. He failed to notice Ena watching him, expression unreadable. 

“Akito?” Ena said, she looked at him sadly, but not pitifully for once.

Akito jumped and shot around.

“Were you crying?” She asked, motioning at his eyes, he could only guess that they were red.

“Dumbass, you scratched your eyelid. Come here.” She demanded. 

Akito stared at her for a second somewhat gratefully before following her into her room.

“Sit.” She ordered. He sat down on her bed, lacking the energy to tease her about the Mizuki merch tucked away in the corner. It still was very funny though, no matter how terrible of a mood he was in. He heard some rustling from another room, and then Ena came back holding alcohol wipes and small bandaids. She grabbed her spinning desk chair and faced across from him, motioning him to close his eyes so she could disinfect the scratches.

“How did you even manage this?” She wondered out loud, sighing. The sound of Ena opening the wipes was the only thing to fill the silence for a minute before she spoke again.

“Akito. You know I am still your big sister, right? You can tell me shit, loser.” She said, uncharacteristically softly. 

“Yeah, whatever. Thanks I guess.” Akito responded, wincing slightly. His skin stung a bit now that she was disinfecting it.  

They fell back into a comfortable silence, Ena muttering profanities and things about her day every now and then. When she finished, she placed two bandaids on a particularly scratched part.

“Are you gonna talk now? Or are we just gonna chill?” She asked, her gentle tone betraying her words.

“I’ll talk.” He said. He figured that she deserved an explanation.

Ena nodded, sitting down next to him, unfamiliarly attentively. He took a deep breath in and exhaled it slowly, leaning back on the wall and effectively avoiding eye-contact with his sister. 

“I love Toya.” Akito whispered, though no one else was in the house currently.

“.....Oh.” Ena said, her head turning to look at him.

“He’s not gay.” Akito added, staring at the ceiling. 

Ena stayed silent.

“How do you know?” She asked, tilting her head.

“What?” Akito turned towards her slightly.

“Did he ever explicitly mention his love life?” She elaborated.

“No…I guess not.”

“But ther-” Akito started, but was cut off by Ena pressing a finger to his lips to shut him up. 

“Literally every time you bring him over he looks at you like you’re actually way more than decently attractive, which is actually crazy you goofy ginger.” Ena explained. 

“Yeah, but-” Akito started, only to be shushed again. 

“What do you guys do together that you think is normal?” Ena questioned him.

“Uh…we hold hands sometimes?” “Oh yeah, and we mutually agreed that we’d like to die by each other's side. But I’m pretty sure that one’s normal for friends isn’t it?” 

Ena facepalmed. 

“Get out of my room and go kiss your man, fucking homiesexual.”

Chapter Text

Toya banged his head into the keyboard, causing a dissonant static noise on the track he was working on.

I’m supposed to be making good use of my time. Aren’t I? 

He spun his chair around once, getting slightly dizzy and then glared harshly at the monitor screen. In all truth, he felt like throwing the monitor screen out the window but his dad would kill him. Toya was supposed to be asleep right now so that he’d have enough energy for the fansign, but per usual he couldn’t. So here he was, working on another song. It was sort of weird, he had just written Ultra C and Fuel but here he was a week later writing something melancholic and somewhat depressing. He most likely wouldn’t release this one- never mind, there was no way he was releasing this one. It turned out way too sad and suggestively romantic. In simpler terms, it was too emo and horny. 

Toya wasn’t the biggest fan of his place of residence. He’d much rather the home of the Tenma’s, Shiraishi’s or the Azusawa’s. Even the Shinonome’s, who argued with each other every chance they got had a much lovelier and free atmosphere. 

(He had the brief thought of how awesome it would be to live with Akito but quickly dismissed the thought for how unusual it made him feel.)

Either way, the place that he was to call home wasn’t how his friend’s homes were. He didn’t even know that you were supposed to see your mother on a daily basis until he finally gained the courage to disobey his father. At first, he wasn’t used to not knowing a lot though, like how father’s throw their children in the air only to catch them and make them laugh (He felt like his father might have done that when he was younger except he probably intentionally didn’t catch him.) or that mother’s were supposed to do your hair and clean your bruises. Actually, he didn’t know that children weren’t supposed to have as many bruises as he did on his hands until he got to middle school and suddenly nobody else was as injured in general as he was. He doesn’t remember anyone ever saying anything though. 

Now, Toya was used to not knowing much, so none of it surprised him as much as it did initially. He remembered that he told Akito once that he wasn’t allowed to wear anything his father didn’t think was fit. Akito, who dresses as he does now when they first met, was enraged, like the fashion enthusiast he was, and bought Toya a pair of clip-on earrings since he didn’t have his ears pierced yet. They were simple black studs with chains attached that went from his earlobe up to his helix. It was easily hidden by his hair, which was slightly longer than it is now and is still considered a precious gift. He almost choked when Akito showed them to him and said that they were for him to wear. Toya was dense, but he did know that people wore earrings like that. (Akito was his best friend after all.) But the idea of wearing them himself was so foreign it felt like a fever dream. Back then, he felt like a rapper or something wearing them, now, he is a rapper.

Wow. I’m cool now. Huzzah. He thought, expression unchanging. 

He heard a knock on his door, presumably one of his brothers since they were actually home for once. Toya barely ever saw them anymore, though it’s not like he had much of a connection with them. They always seemed to resent him for his natural talent in classical music, the frustrating thing about the whole situation was that they weren’t ever as mistreated as he was though. 

“Toya! It’s time for dinner!” His brother called, he didn't wait for Toya’s response before leaving for the dining room. Toya thought both his brother’s sounded exceptionally tired, which made sense, thinking of how much they’ve been traveling lately. He walked as quietly as possible down the stairs, trying to avoid getting any more attention than he needed to while they were dining. The Aoyagi family hardly ever actually ate together so his father refused to listen to him when he told him that he had an event later and couldn’t attend because he needed to rest. He stepped into the white and cold room, and his mother greeted him calmly while he took a seat next to her to avoid sitting near his father. Petty, yes. But Toya’s entire personality was already based off spite, so pettiness wasn’t exactly unwelcome. 

“Hello Toya.” His eldest brother greeted somewhat kindly. 

“Good evening.” He responded, looking him straight in the eyes. His brother physically shuddered at the glare and averted his attention elsewhere. 

After a minute or so, they were all seated, his mother was desperately trying to hold a proper conversation so that his father and brothers didn’t decide that dissing Toya was the perfect pass time. Toya was quite sure that it was doomed to fail but kept his mouth shut politely in honour of her efforts. Toya still hadn’t taken a bite of his food, and wasn’t exactly planning to. 

“Oh, Toya. That reminds me, how did your… thing go?” His second oldest brother asked innocently. 

“Event. It’s called an event. And it went very well, thank you. We finally achieved our dream.” Toya supplied. He did have more to say about RAD BLAST but he didn’t figure his brother would understand either way. He was only asking because their father asked him how his recital went in Germany. 

“How many people actually go to those?” His other brother asked condescendingly. 

Toya felt anger rising immediately but pushed it back down.  His brother was obviously trying to provoke him but he wasn’t going to let it work.

“Quite a lot. At our most popular event there were at least eleven thousand tickets sold.” 

Toya replied, surprising himself at how civil and well-mannered he sounded. His brother took on a look of failure for an incredibly brief moment and Toya knew he had thought correctly. The man was most definitely trying to make him create a fool of himself. His mother on the other hand, looked very subtly proud of him for once. 

“So, who’s the boy?” His brother asked. desperately trying to step on a nerve. Toya’s breath hitched very slightly.

“Which boy?” he asked, somewhat densely. 

“The one that I see you walking with sometimes. You guys seem pretty close, huh?”

“Almost like you’re…” He smirked nastilly. 

Oh, Fuck. He means Akito. 

“Toya. Answer when you’re spoken to.” His father scolded. 

“We’re partners on the same team. Nothing more.” The blue haired boy deadpanned. 

“Cold. This is precisely why you had no friends in middle school, you know? You’ve got to fix that attitude soon.” His brother smiled fakely at him. 

Toya stayed silent, appearing unamused.

“I saw some of your performances.” The older boy added.

“You’re not bad at all, I’ll give you that. But that ginger boy has zero talent. The only thing he taught me was second hand embarrassment.” His brother audibly laughed at the ginger boy.

At Akito. 

His best friend. 

His partner. 

Toya felt something snap in him and the emotions that he was sure he had completely under control came gushing out. He stood up, knocking his chair back a bit.

“You don’t know anything about him.” He started.

“Toya Aoyagi, That’s enough!” His father yelled angrily. 

He saw his mother slip out of the room, as always. His other, nicer brother went after her. 

“I despise being a slave to your ideals, stay out of my life.” Toya stormed out of the house, only grabbing his jacket, shoes and phone before slamming the door in his father’s face. 

He felt oddly satisfied as he felt terrible.

Chapter Text

Akito let his feet guide him to the white tiles of the kitchen without turning on a light. The artificial light of the fridge stared back at him and he yawned, picking up a plate of cheesecake and sitting tiredly on the table, ignoring the obvious chairs. The cheesecake was good, and Akito was tired and hungry, could you blame him? Ena was talking on Nightcord with her friends again. Except it was weird this time because it was way earlier than usual. He recognized her familiar laughter mixed with that of Akiyama, Asahina and the sort of scary, short pale one. He didn’t really care much about what she was doing most of the time as long as no one was being mean to her and she was having fun. He was relieved to hear Mizuki’s voice again as he hadn’t seen or heard from them in a couple of days. He had practice earlier today, and shot Toya a text that he was missing out on An and Kohane’s lesbian banter–Toya still hadn’t responded. Maybe Akito was being superstitious, but Toya typed super quickly and always attended practice so he was, maybe, a little worried. To say the least. But who knows, maybe he just forgot. The ginger wouldn't blame him either, he's been so incredibly busy lately that he wasn't even pauign attention in class. (Akito never payed attention but Toya was a model student.) Akito got off the table and paced the hall a couple of times, before deciding to hopefully bore himself to sleep by washing the dishes. The water was warm, and felt nice on his rough skin. Akito didn’t take much care of himself, it wasn’t a surprise. He basically devoted himself to practicing and when he wasn’t doing that he was talking with friends or cleaning, or playing soccer or doing homework or studying or- He didn’t really have time in his schedule to really take care of himself and his appearance. He liked to believe he looked average, which was good enough for him. He only really cared about his clothes, his face wasn’t something he really changed much. He’s seen Ena, An, Kohane and Mizuki do their makeup before, he’s even seen Rui wearing his minimal red eyeliner, but something about makeup never really interested him. It sort of annoyed him actually, he thought his friends were good-looking enough already. (Especially Toya.)

It only really looked appealing to Akito when it was Toya. 

"And here I go on another gay soliloquy." He muttered.

It wasn’t how Toya looked when wearing it, sure, he looked good (practically radiant). But it was more how he did it. There was this one day that he came over to Toya's house when his parents were on a day trip that they fooled around with makeup for a little. The part that made the whole experience memorable was how Toya would concentrate in the mirror when he was doing eyeliner. Akito knew it was a little-really weird to like how his best friend looked concentrating (and it was even weirder to take a picture) but damn. Ena opened her door and it creaked annoyingly, she stifled a yawn and then froze when she saw him. 

“Nice pyjamas.” He teased. She crossed her arms defensively over her fluffy pink tank top and completely unmatching blue sweats. 

“Shut up.” She murmured. 

“Did you eat my fucking cheesecake you son of a bitch!” She sort of whisper-screamed. 

Akito shrugged nonchalantly. She walked over to him and leaned on the wet counter. 

“Dude, you can’t even wash dishes right.” Ena snorted, grabbing some paper towels and soaking up the mess. Akito splashed her with the water like she was a cat, and strangely enough. It worked.

“Damn it Akito!” She growled. 

He finished scrubbing a plate and then began putting all the dishes away, he’d say he did a pretty good job for a masculine non-malewife. Of course Ena disagreed, but whatever. 

The short-haired girl sat down, her brown eyes only half opened and grabbed a slice of cheesecake that she was too sleepy and delirious to realize Akito set out for her. 

“Shit’s pretty good.” She muttered absentmindedly. 

“From Ken-san’s place. An made it.” He responded, finally finishing with everything dishes related. She made a sound of recognition before looking at him again and pointing at him while smirking smugly.

“That’s Toya-kun’s sweater, isn’t it?” 

Akito glared at her and took the small spray bottle of water for the plants and sprayed her with it.

“Damnit, stop doing that!” She yelped, rubbing herself dry. 

Just when Akito was about to open his mouth again, and likely start a fight, their doorbell rang. Ena turned her head quickly in confusion, raising her eyebrows and Akito shrugged. He got up suspiciously and opened the door a crack before opening it completely. 

“Uhm. Hi.” said his partner, with extreme but also endearing levels of awkwardness.

“Hey…..You can come in, you know.” 

“Uh. Thank you.” 

Toya walked in hesitantly and Akito led him to their table. 

“Hi, Toya-kun.” Ena greeted kindly. 

“Sorry to intrude Ena-san.” He apologized. Akito mentally facepalmed.

“Nah, I don’t mind. I actually like having you over. And don’t worry about our parents, they're on a business trip.” She added. Ena was probably nicer to Toya than she’d ever be with Akito. 

It sorta pissed him off. 

“Uhm, Akito. Is that my sweater?” Toya sighed. Ena burst into laughter while Akito grew increasingly red.

“Bro, dude, bromie, buddy, man. I swear it’s not- Okay. Well, yeah it’s your sweater. But like, you’re wearing my earrings and shirt.” 

And then they just stood there like it was a rodeo shootoff except they were staring at each other from across the table and Ena was laughing hysterically in the background. Also there were no tumbleweeds, which was very sad. 

“You look good in my clothes.” Toya remarked. (Which didn’t help Akito regain his composure.)

“Alright, I’m going to get back on call with the losers. See you guys.” Ena waved, before closing her goofy, squeaky ass door. 

“So why’re you here, soldier.” Akito asked, sort of seriously but also not really.

Toya groaned painfully. “My brothers came home today. And we had to eat all together, everything was going okay besides the usual ‘Toya Aoyagi is a disgrace to our family line’, but then they said something about you and I swore and we fought again and I got strangely mad so I left.” 

Damn, that’s a mouthful. 

“You okay, though?” the ginger asked. 

“Yeah, I suppose so.” He answered, sounding the opposite of okay.

Akito got up suddenly and walked into the hallway. Toya let his eyes follow him before resting his head on the table, trusting in his partner. When the olive-eyed boy came back, he was holding a blank paper with an orange pen and a blue pen. He then handed the blue one to Toya and started drawing. Toya watched him draw a stack of pancakes and smiled warmly.

“You can draw too, you know, you don’t have to be good.” Akito said softly. Toya looked down at the perfectly white paper and then at Akito’s mess of soft orange hair. He started by drawing a circle and then two dots, then adding ears and a mouth and another line under it all. 

Akito chuckled, “is that a hamster?” Toya nodded, before drawing an arrow and writing Azusawa in his barely legible handwriting.

Akito watched him write something in German and then tap the paper. 

“That’s what you said the other day, right?” Akito hummed.

“You’re still not gonna tell me what it means, are you?” He laughed.

Toya shook his head, smiling slightly. 

Akito absentmindedly drew a star that was winking next to the hamster and labeled it An. 

He ended up doodling a small heart, only to watch Toya put one in blue next to his orange one. 

He was, slightly, just a bit flustered and very slightly just a bit happy about it. (He'd probably be kicking his feet if he was alone.) He turned his head a bit to see Toya writing something with his cursive on steroids.

月と太陽は愛し合っています。

“The moon and the sun are in love.” Akito read. He tilted his head at Toya.

 “Didn't know you were a poet, dude. I have no idea what that means, so that's how you know it's good. “ The ginger laughed. Toya just looked at him blankly and nodded quickly. 

(Akito was absolutely going to hang the page on his wall)

Chapter Text

Akito Shinonome got about thirty minutes of sleep in the end. He completely forgot about the fansign and now had only a few minutes to get ready and arrive at the venue. Looking back, it now made sense why Toya left thirty minutes ago and it was because he went home to get ready. The ginger threw his head into his hands and hit it a couple times before 

getting up and then sitting back down again because he had no idea what to do to get ready in the first place. 

“I am such a dumbass, I am such a dumbass, I am such a dumbass, I am such a dumbass, I am such a dumbass, I am such a dumbass, I am such a dumbass, I am such a dumbass, I am such a dumbass-” 

“AKITO SHUT THE FUCK UP!” Ena screeched. 

And then it hit him. 

Ena is an artist. She’s an influencer. She takes pictures of herself to boost her incredibly low self esteem and make herself feel like something other than an ugly bitch with clinical daddy issues. She does her makeup. And clothes. 

Ena is the oracle.

“ENA! HELP! NOW! MOTHERFUCKER!”

“SHUT UP YOU GODDAMN COCKSUCKER! WHAT DO YOU WANT!?” He heard Ena groan impossibly loud and then a door slam. He guessed she was stomping down the hall because he doubted she gained at least one hundred and eighty three pounds in one night. She opened his door with the force of nine John Cenas and then closed it with the force of ten before locking eyes with him. 

“What. Do. You. Want?” 

Akito looked up at her from where he was seated on the floor like a small lost child. 

“Uh. I have a fan meet in like, ten minutes.” He explained. Ena facepalmed and walked to his closet throwing it open while he watched. She mumbled small comments while sorting through his vibrantly coloured wardrobe. 

“Why do all your clothes look like a first grader’s backpack?” She muttered, scoffing. 

Akito’s eye twitched but he decided to let her do her thing. for the sake of his fans.  

She ended up throwing some green camo cargo pants with metallic chains attached, a sleeveless black muscle tank (that he genuinely couldn’t remember buying) and blue Jordans (from the shoe shrine) at him. She tossed her messy chocolate brown hair behind her and picked out a necklace that Toya had forgotten last time he came over, several rings and arm sleeves to go with the outfit. 

“The earrings you have already are fine. Plus, they’re kinda iconic now.” Ena stated before promptly strutting away and slamming the door again.

For some strange reason, the old lady who owned the venue that they chose told them that they had to bring their own small materials, like water bottles, paper, mics, and other stuff that she was supposed to supply them with. In fact, the lady was such an absolute pain that they had been considering just picking another venue entirely but Kohane made a point that the one they already had was so gorgeous it wouldn’t be worth picking another venue just for one spiteful old lady. 

He quickly grabbed his backpack and put everything he thought he might need in it except for paper, because for some reason he had none in any of his drawers and he didn’t want to rip pages out of his notebook or sketchbook. He spun around, spotting a (seemingly) blank paper laying on the ground. He decided that he’d just grab some more from the cafe when he got there and stuffed the one sheet in his bag mindlessly. 

(He didn’t actually need to bring that one paper since he planned to get some from An at the cafe, but his delirious, sleepy brain didn’t register that fact so he brought it anyway.) 

Akito practically The Sims changing animation’ed into the outfit, giving himself a once-over in the mirror before sprinting to WEEKEND GARAGE where Ken-san was supposed to drive them over. He wasn’t too late. Just late enough to dread the inevitable earful from An. He burst through the door panting and his teammates (save Kohane) turned to him with varying degrees of irritability. An looked like he stepped on her land-walking goldfish and Toya looked like he was about to rip off Akito’s limbs and beat him with them before choking him on them. 

“Oh, uh. Hey, guys.” He forced a smile awkwardly. 

“Hello, Shinonome-kun!” Kohane smiled warmly at him. 

When the four of them finally arrived at the venue they had about three minutes until it started. 

An was glaring daggers into the back of his head for the entire car ride. 

“Alrighty, team. We need a gameplan to impress our baddies with our charming personalities and beautiful smiles.” An declared, pulling them all together into a huddle for no reason. 

“Wait, since when did we decide our fans were the baddies ?” Akito sputtered. 

“Quiet, Akito.” Toya nudged him. 

“Uhm. Sorry, An-chan. But I’m a petite coquette girl, Shinonome-kun’s an angry gay, you’re a happy lesbian and Aoyagi-kun–no offense–has the personality of a brick with strangers.” Kohane replied with an expression of absolute thoughtfulness on her face. 

“Ugh. C’mon guys, none of that matters! Just be yourselves, okay? Except for you Akito. Definitely don’t be yourself.” An said determinedly. 

Akito gave her a look that physically injured her. 

“Everyone, hands in the middle.” Kohane giggled. 

They all followed her directions with a sort of fondness that only applied to Kohane before throwing their hands up in unison. 

“We’ve got this!” An shouted excitedly. Toya gave Akito a look that made the ginger’s heart stutter eighteen billion times in a row, and with that, the event began. 

So far, the event was looking really good. Like, way better than Akito could have ever expected. They had sung a couple of songs and the fans seemed really satisfied with the mix of activities, turns out, leaving this part to Kohane instead of An had paid off a lot. He grimaced imagining what An would have done. Akito was sitting on a plastic chair behind his table while he waited for one of the girls who had been loitering around his area for far too long to be Kohane fans to step up. 

Finally, one of them gained the courage and walked over timidly. She was quite pretty, was the first thing he noticed, with long blond hair in waves and clear, pale skin completed with blue eyes. An would definitely be into her. 

“Hey. What’s up?” Akito gave her a practiced grin with just the right amount of confidence and flirtiness. Even timid little Kohane said that it was a really nice expression. 

The girl stuttered and blushed a little.

“Uhm, i-it’s a pleasure to meet you, Shinonome-san.” She bowed her head formally. 

“No need to be so formal, y’know.” He smiled more gently at her this time. 

Her accent’s pretty cute. Sorta familiar too. 

“I-I really loved your second single CD! It was really amazing!” She declared, opening up a little more. It made Akito really genuinely happy whenever people complimented that album because it was the one with Cinema and RAD DOGS on it. Both were songs that meant a lot to him. 

“Thanks, those songs mean a lot to me and Toya so it makes me happy to hear you liked it.” 

He replied loosely. They all had practiced a lot when it came to responding in a way that couldn’t offend anyone or close a conversation and Akito was now extremely grateful they decided to do that. 

“Actually, a lot of my friends are obsessed with Aoyagi-san. He’s very mysterious and inspiring.” The girl laughed shyly, pointing over to her friends. Akito looked over to where she was motioning to see Toya conversing kindly with a few girls. 

He looks like he’s having fun. Akito registered. But there was a part of him that was hit with a familiar pang of jealousy. 

I wish I was the one he was looking at right now. 

“Yeah, Toya’s really something huh?” Akito chuckled. 

“Oh! Can I have an autograph?” She asked hurriedly like she almost forgot. 

“Sure, just let me get some paper.” He explained, grabbing his backpack. 

He rummaged through its contents, trying to keep up his calm personality. It was hard though, because he was slowly realizing he forgot the paper. 

Fuck. shit. Urgh. 

Just as he was about to resign himself to his fate, his hand grazed a paper and he remembered that random one he picked up off his bedroom floor. When he looked back, that was weird. Like, who just has a random paper on the floor? And a blank one too? Was he seriously so out of it he didn’t even question it. In the end though, a paper was a paper. He was already embarrassing himself enough by taking so long to find one and he could only guess that the girl was questioning why they weren’t supplied with paper. (Fuck you, old hag.) He picked it up and turned to face her, but his eyes caught some colour and he raised an eyebrow. 

What? I thought it was blank, Urghhhhh. 

“I’m so sorry. I’ve been having a really weird day and I guess I thought this paper was blank because I only saw one side. This is also the uh, only one I have because it was the only one in my house and I forgot to get more. Uhm. Yeah.” Akito let the words come flowing out of his mouth with shame. I mean, Akito usually hated himself a lot with the inferiority complex and all that jazz, but now his self-hate had increased by a tenfold. 

He looked up, expecting the girl to be disappointed or embarrassed by him but was met with the exact opposite. 

The young lady was smiling brightly and actually laughing. She looked the most comfortable he had seen her the entire time. (Even though they had only known each other for about four minutes.) 

“Don’t worry about it! You can just sign on an app on my phone or something. I guess it’s just nice to know that you guys are just like us in a way.” She responded cheerily. Akito tilted his head a little. 

“You’re so popular, yet you really are just human like us. It's inspiring.” She smiled once more. 

He nodded in understanding, letting out a laugh himself. 

“Oh! By the way, Shinonome-san. The writing on that paper is German, is it not?” She asked suddenly. 

“Yeah, it is. Toya wrote it to me. He won’t tell me what it means though.” Akito sighed. 

“Well, I happen to be German as well. And, uh. I could translate it, if you want?” She offered. 

His eyes widened.

“Seriously?! Yes, thank you so much. You can do it directly on the paper if it’s not too much trouble."

“It’s no trouble at all.” She replied easily, taking the pen Akito offered her. 

“I’m always up to play wingman.” She muttered under her breath.

(The girl made sure Akito didn’t catch that last part.) 

Once she was done translating, which impressively only took about thirty seconds, she immediately stood up like her life’s purpose had been fulfilled. 

“Take care, Shinonome-san.” She waved at him politely and gracefully walked away. 

Akito had been meaning to say something back to her but she was gone so quickly he wasn’t quite sure what he could’ve said in the first place. He ran a hand through his hair and his eyes drifted down to the paper. 

Holy fuck.

Chapter Text

The halls of Kamiyama high were busy as usual. It being one of the only gender-neutral schools in the area it was always loud. Whether Tsukasa and Rui were practically sprinting through the halls or Nene was hiding in a broom closet like the Princess in Black and training her Puyo Puyo skills for her next face off against Toya. You could find An either causing a ruckus on the basketball field or flaunting her Kohane knowledge that nobody cared about. Mizuki hardly ever showed up but when she did Akito would often find himself wishing he was the one that went to night school instead of Ena. Either way, no matter how many annoyances and ugly gays got in his way every single day, he still showed up to school. All to see his best homie who also happened to be his singing partner who was the best and prettiest and densest guy he had ever met. In other words, Akito hated school and only found the motivation in himself to actually go to school so he can see Toya.
Today, Akito didn’t want to see Toya.
He woke up with the same startling realization that the readers of this fanfic probably felt when acknowledging that this may not go as smoothly as it goes in all the shojo manga you nerds probably read. It would be awkward. Like, really awkward if Akito misunderstood. Toya had been trying to get into humour, so what if he was just joking? Plus, it’s not like Toya even anticipated that Akito knew what he wrote on that paper. In the beginning, Akito couldn’t see a single person in the world wanting to hang out with such a radioactively ginger douchebag, but then there was Toya. Akito wasn’t the type of person to fall in love with the first guy who showed him the tiniest bit of kindness, (maybe he was, because all Michael from second grade did was lend him a pencil) but Toya was everything Akito needed. And even now, his enamorement with Toya only seemed to grow stronger every time he saw the boy. Imagine that you could ruin years of friendship with the person you trusted more than Kohane.
Kohane was really trustworthy.
If Toya were to tell Akito he was going to fire a bullet at him from five meters away and then catch it before it grazed his skin, Akito would trust him. But this was different.

He bumped into someone turning the corner but before he could say anything or look up, the guy spoke and Akito knew exactly who it was.

“Akito? I thought you were absent today.” Said Toya innocently.
Akito just stared at him, feeling his face get hot. He grabbed Toya’s wrist and dragged him to a quiet spot outside the school. Toya let himself be dragged and hardly even questioned it–which Akito was grateful for.
The ginger stopped suddenly and turned around to face his partner, not letting go of his wrist.
He stared at the ground, refusing to look Toya in the eyes because he knew if he did he wouldn't be able to stop himself from immediately telling him everything he was feeling.
Toya moved even closer to him with a look of concern.
“Are you alright?” He asked softly.
Akito didn’t know how to answer that. He definitely wasn’t alright though.

“I was avoiding you.” He mumbled absentmindedly.
He felt Toya take a step back and his heart threatened to choke him to death.

“Oh.” Toya’s voice was reduced to a whisper, like he didn’t mean to make any noise at all. The blue-haired boy cleared his throat discreetly.
“Sorry.” He added.

“Don’t be. My bad.” Akito explained, sighing at the distance that remained between them.

“No. You’re wrong, this-” Toya started, lowering his head. Akito watched as silver eyes flickered to him and then the floor.

“Stop it, Toya. You’re okay, man.” Akito cut him off. He definitely wasn’t going to let his partner beat himself up over this.
Toya spoke so quietly with so much resentment Akito hardly caught it.

“You’re not telling me something, aren’t you? Akito, please let me in.” He talked so earnestly with so much genuine worry that Akito's head started spinning.

There was a time that Akito recalled where Toya told him he could hardly stand looking in the mirror because his eyes were a carbon copy of his father. He used to be told he had his mother’s shade in them though, which didn’t make it any better because he wasn’t sure if they were talking about the woman who was his mother or his mom. Akito never saw it that way. The eyes of the boy in front of him were Toya’s eyes.
Akito stayed quiet, wringing his hands in his pockets.
He couldn’t lose Toya, not again. Toya was a character in every chapter of his life, he was always there. Akito doesn’t think his memories from before he met Toya were even important sometimes. If Toya was gone…he wasn’t sure what he’d do next. And the possibility that he was going to have to figure out what he’d do next was overwhelmingly real. So real that Akito would rather just not face the situation at all.
He remembered a time when he had nothing to himself after he had just quit soccer, it was just Akito. Three syllables, one word, five letters. But then he had his sister, and his sister gave him music. Music gave him motivation and motivation gave him Toya. Toya gave him love.
But not as in, Toya showed him love. As in, Toya gave Akito the state of feeling love.

“Fuck, Toya. I don’t think we should be friends anymore. I don’t- I feel like it’s different now.”
He didn’t mean to say it like that. He didn’t even mean to say anything but now that it was out of his mouth Toya had heard and so had Akito. The taller boy just stared at him, arms hanging limply at his sides as he took another step away. The distance was what scared Akito first, then the look on his partner’s face. It was familiar, but not in a way that he saw all the time. He wasn’t sure why it was so familiar before he realized it was exactly how Toya used to look.

“Oh. Okay. That’s…fine.” Toya choked out. He sounded somewhat indifferent but Akito knew better. He was pretty sure someone was crying, or maybe it was just the clouds.

“No, no- Toya no, stop please, wait-I didn’t mean-” He felt his mouth freeze as his heart ran out of words. His breath came out unevenly and his thoughts were flowing through his mind in a slowed way that made him unable to tell which were actually his. Toya was looking at him in the way that you’d look at a child who fell at the park. The kind of look that said, I want to help you but also said, I don’t know if I should help you. Akito couldn’t answer him, his throat was closing in on itself, and even if he was completely unaffected how do you reply to something like that?

He listened as the last of Toya’s footsteps vanished into the sound of rain and people.
People that weren’t Toya.
Akito watched himself as he made the trudge over to his classroom and exchanged his shoes, unfolded his umbrella, packed his bag, left, passed that building with the graffiti that was never quite finished, opened his door, fell up the stairs and finally lay on his bed. It didn’t feel like he was the one doing everything anymore, his mind felt hazy and exhausted.

When he was awake again, Ena had just given up on banging at his door and it was probably too late to get up for the day but also too early to go back to sleep. His neck was cramped pretty badly because of his poor attention to posture while he was quite literally passing out and his phone was going off with an irritating chime. When he gathered the willpower to check it after five minutes of contemplating existence nothing was of importance.
An was spamming him, so was Mizuki and Ena. He sort of hated women. They were always setting his phone on fire with links to Andrew Tate’s official TikTok and petty viruses that are supposed to make you drop your phone in fear before throwing it into a lake.
He did love Kohane and his mom though, so maybe it was just about how all the other women he knew were fucking bitchasses.
And then it hit him. He had probably, most likely, surely lost his partner because he’s bad at making complete sentences that make sense and get the point he wanted to convey across correctly.
So yeah, he’s a total failure now that will never amount to anything.
He also, sort of, just a bit wants to be dead right now.

HIs eyes landed on Mizuki’s profile with the number twenty seven next to it and he groaned internally, debating whether or not he should even respond. He could probably wait it out at least four days. He imagined himself on the fourth day, opening his phone and reluctantly reading twenty seven messages in a row that were all probably just gifs of sad frogs. Nope. Better get it done now.
First thing he noticed was that she was acting surprisingly tame? They were all just about how she didn’t see him at school yesterday and wanted to know what was up and one about how Toya seemed pretty unresponsive in class and she was worried. The rest were basically just sad frogs, which he could’ve guessed, and then an invitation.

‘Oh btw lil bro im gonna throw a party saturday @feedback nightime (the karaoke bar place) to celebrate enanans b day u better show up hehehe’
He was a little disturbed by how he read it in Mizuki’s voice but quickly set it aside to focus on if he wanted to go or not. (Also ignoring the fact that it literally wasn’t Ena’s birthday anytime soon.)
Usually, he’d jump on any chance he had to go to Feedback Nigh-t-ime because he certainly didn’t want to miss out on the high-resonance sound quality they always had there. But he also knew that Mizuki being the social creature she is, definitely invited Toya too. There wasn’t any way Toya had told anybody about what happened either, as he tended to keep his problems to himself until they were too much for him to handle and he broke down.
He ended up just liking Mizuki’s message and hoping she got the memo.
As he was about to close his contacts all together, Toya’s icon caught his eye.
No new messages, as expected.
There was absolutely no way he was going to make Toya an apology and a confession over text. Nuh uh. He totally didn’t even think about it. Not even once.
Deleting the beginning of an apology and confession from his phone’s screen, Akito closed his phone entirely and dropped it on the sheets next to him.
This is so lame. I should just go see him and explain myself. He thought while covering his eyes with his forearm and drifting back into sleep.

The next few days were a blur of conversation and movement. People talked to him but he wasn’t listening, he skipped school a few times. Luckily for him, the weather was terrible and they canceled group practice for the week. Overall Akito just wanted Toya.
When he woke up and it was finally Saturday, the relief couldn’t have been any better than it was in the morning because as the day went on and stretched into night, he realized that he had not a clue what he could possibly say to clear everything up. Coutless doubts were eating away at his head every time he wasn’t doing something.

…What if Toya didn’t even want to talk to him?
It was likely that Toya didn’t even want to speak with him at all anymore, and no matter how utterly horrible and unreal the idea felt there was no amount of words he could comfort himself with.
Feedback Nigh-t-ime was about forty minutes away and they had planned to meet up formally around nine-thirty. He wasn’t exactly sure how many people Mizuki had invited, but apparently some of them had to arrive early if they were to go so, she had paid for the room in advance. When he was just about to step outside, he felt a tug on his sleeve. Turning around with a groan, he faced Ena head-on. She looked at him with an unspoken question that he literally couldn’t say no to. She said this so many times he could hear her in his head.
‘Akito, let me tag along with you so I don’t get kidnapped by some forty-year-old freak with really good taste in girls. Your ugly face will act perfectly as a creep deterrent for me.’

“Fine.” He gave in. (Like he always did.)
Ena looked undeniably good, as much as he hated looking at her.
There was no way she wasn’t dressing this nicely to not impress Mizuki.
Lesbians.

“You dressing that nice for Toya or something?” Ena declared smugly.
Akito visibly winced at Toya’s mention.
“Damn. Touchy subject?”

“Urgh. Kind of? I fucked up.” He replied.

“Again?” She raised an eyebrow before almost tripping over her heels. Akito caught her arm before he could stop himself and just watch her fall.
Damn my amazing reflexes.

“You look tired, you know?” She stated.
He couldn’t tell if she was merely insulting him or actually worried about him. He suspected it was a mix of both. Ena had been doing an uncharacteristically big amount of worrying lately.

They got to the karaoke place at nine, and while Ena and Mizuki obsessed over each other’s makeup he scouted the room. Tenma, Kusanagi, Kamishiro and their pink haired friend from the gaming competition whose name he couldn’t remember were getting drinks in the corner. There was the little Tenma and part of her friend group who he didn’t know talking to a girl with incredibly long and silky white hair. Airi was talking to her model friend with an average looking brown haired girl who was vaguely familiar to him, and Kohane seemed to be with them as well. Kiritani-san and An were…dancing? He wasn’t gonna question it.
His eyes landed on Toya, who was just idly leaning against a wall next to the girl with purple hair from Ena’s group and Mochizuki-san. They didn’t seem to be talking though and Akito wondered how awkward that must be. Actually nevermind, he forgot how introverted they all were for a second.
(He failed to realize that somehow he and Ena were the last to show up despite it still being earlier than everybody was supposed to arrive.)
Soon enough there was music blasting through the speakers and two voices were ringing through the sound, though he didn’t care whose they were.
Somebody came up from behind him and tackled him hard enough to make him stumble pathetically.
“Guess who, Akito?” Said An playfully.

“Wow. I totally have no idea who would have the fucking audacity to touch me.” He droned sarcastically.

“You’re no fun.” An pouted.
He rolled his eyes.

“Hold on, why aren’t you with Toya?!” She practically screeched. He didn’t think it was that crazy that they weren’t together.

“We spend time apart, you know?”

“No you don't, you liar bitch boy. “
“You think I haven’t realized you were gone this week?” She jabbed him with her finger right between the ribs. Ow.

“We got into a fight.”
An stared at him speechlessly, jaw hung open. She looked really stupid but sadly Akito didn’t have the energy to laugh at her.

“What. The world is doomed.” She exclaimed somewhat seriously.

“You’re such a huge help, An.”
“Where’s Kohane? Maybe she'll actually give me some advice.”

“Right here!” Kohane smiled.
Where the fuck did she come from? He wondered.

“What did you guys fight about?”

Originally Akito was going to keep that part to himself but he had already been reduced to a pitiful, fumbling mess so there wasn't really a point anymore.

“Uh. Well, I’m kinda in love with him and I tried to tell him and I screwed up, like really badly, and now he probably hates me and wants to go back to classical music. Also I think I broke his heart into eight-million tiny murderous Toyas and I kinda wanna kill myself.” He explained, staring at the wall. It was a really nice wall.

Kohane stood next to An and now that they were both silent, which made it even more awkward because there were two of them. So let’s say the awkward silence is x (which is a variable, meaning that it could be any number on the face of this earth and you have to figure it out with minimal information), now it’s 2x which can be shortened to 2 times x to those of you little shits that don’t even understand the basics of algebra yet.

“Uhm, okay. Sorry Shinonome-kun, I can't help you there.” Kohane managed to get out.
He expected as much.

The lights and people moving around made the room a bit too hot for Akito’s liking and at some point he decided to step out for a bit.
It was cold outside and dark, exactly the type of weather that Toya loved. He was holding a small paper cup of carbonated fruit punch that came off slightly more bitter than he expected. He was still drinking it for some reason though, maybe because the ice cubes were still cold and crunchy. It probably wasn’t the safest idea to be walking around at night alone but he highly doubted anybody would try anything on him.
He turned the corner and stepped into a neon, dimly lit alley with a vending machine and a trash can to throw out the cup. It seemed like a nice place to cool off for a while too, but the shaded figure leaning against the wall meant that someone had beat him to it. He originally intended to pay the stranger no mind and just toss his cup and leave, but the eyes he felt boring holes into his scalp made him reconsider.
When he caught the boy’s face in the blue of the vending machine the recognition registered on his face immediately and all hints of annoyance vanished within seconds.

“Toya?” Akito called out questioningly.
“Don’t act like you’re a stranger.” The ginger added, muttering sadly.

“Might as well be.” Toya scoffed.
Akito felt his eyes widen as he went through all the stages of grief at once.
Damn, okay. Didn’t know he was capable of that.

“We need to talk.” He said, suddenly serious.

Toya slightly raised an eyebrow at him.
“What could there possibly be to talk about?”

“Toya, please. Let me explain.” Akito pleaded, staring right at the boy in front of him. Despite the dark circles, Toya still looked pretty as ever. With clear, pale skin and messily parted hair spilling down and partly obstructing his eyes.
He saw Toya’s eyes visibly soften for a second before stiffening up again.

“Walk with me?” The olive-eyed boy asked.
Toya nodded hesitantly and they fell in step next to each other with as much normality as they could muster.

They spent the first few minutes in a familiar silence while Akito tried to gather all his thoughts into a few sentences. Was it working? No.
But he was trying and Toya knew he was, so that’s all that mattered.

“You know what? Fuck it. I’m just gonna say whatever comes to mind.” Akito groaned.
Toya suppressed a smile.

“I think I’m in love with you.” He stopped walking.
Toya glanced at him questioningly before it dawned on him what had just been said and he stopped walking too–turning to face Akito instead.
he watched as a million questions flickered across Toya’s face and answered themselves.
And then Toya’s familiar frame was against him with his slim arms wrapped around Akito’s shoulders and Akito’s arms were around Toya’s waist in mere milliseconds.

“I believe I might be in love with you too, Akito.” Toya said mockingly. Or maybe he was being entirely serious, Akito couldn’t tell.
Normally, he wasn’t the type of person to like being too close to others but something about Toya seemed to completely abolish that rule everytime he was within five meters of the boy.

“Sorry, I’m such a dumbass.” He chuckled.

“You are not forgiven.” Toya muttered into his collar bone.