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It was pretty outside today. It was closer to the end of the school year so it got warmer around this time and usually Taki wouldn’t be so stressed, especially not on a day as beautiful as this. Though, chaos always happened to follow him no matter the day.
Apparently he forgot to set his alarm to get up at 5:00 am the night before, had stayed up too late playing video games, and passed out in his chair unexpectedly. It wasn’t until he heard a knock and a “Taki? Are you up?” from the other side of his bedroom door that he realized he fell asleep. Checking his phone quickly, he realized that he only had around 15 minutes until school started.
In other words, he didn’t have time to panic nor eat breakfast, and threw his uniform on, slinging his bag over his shoulder and running out the door with a “goodbye, I love you!”
Which is how Taki now found himself in this situation. Bright, beautiful sunny day basically ruined by the consequences he himself made from his own actions. To be fair, he didn’t mean to fall asleep. He originally planned to stay up all night, coming up with the excuse that if he went to sleep then he’ll be even more tired than not having slept that night at all. Unfortunately, we can never get what we want.
Heart thumping in his ears and lungs working overtime to supply himself with enough oxygen, lest he passes out and doesn’t get to school at all, he finally has the front doors within view, and quickly throws the door open. Since Taki’s luck is terrible today, the second he gets into the building, the bell goes off, signaling that he’s late.
He groans. When was he ever lucky?
Sighing, he stops in his tracks, hands on his legs as he rests for a second, catching his breath. While he stands there, sweat beading on his forehead, behind him the doors swing open, and Taki finds himself in the presence of someone else. Not caring to check, he still stands there, at least until the person speaks up.
“I knew I’d see you here this late,” says a way too familiar voice, and Taki finally looks back at the person, who he found was none other than Yuma.
Yuma hunched over in the same position as Taki to catch his breath as well. Yuma who happened to be one of Takis best friends. Yuma who laughs so wonderfully at Taki’s jokes. Yuma who Taki (Read: attempted) to stay up all night with, hence why they’re late today.
They were a disaster waiting to happen, and this was an astounding example.
Oh, did I mention that Taki has the fattest crush on him?
“Pretty sure I’ve never ran faster in my life,” Taki responds, still struggling to catch his breath. Yuma huffs out a weak laugh, catching his breath a bit before Taki does, and grabbing Taki’s bag that he didn’t even know he dropped and throwing it over his other shoulder. Walking in front of him, he waits for Taki to be ready with being on the move again.
“Well breathe steadier, we got places to be,” Yuma hurried him. Taki looks up, noticing the teasing glint in his eye, and smiles before he looks back down.
“Easy for you to say, you dance as a hobby ,” Taki retorts. “I barely jog sometimes.”
“You’re just as healthy as the next,” Yuma responds, rolling his eyes. “Also, I realized you probably wouldn’t have eaten anything yet so I snuck this out of the cupboard before I ran out the door.”
Taki looks up at the snack bar the blonde held out for him, gasping and snatching it like he hadn’t eaten in days, tearing the snack open with no remorse.
Thank the lord. The lord being Yuma.
“I suppose I was right to assume so,” Yuma says after a chuckle, taking his own out and opening it. “We should probably hurry.”
Taki’s eyes got wide, completely forgetting why he was even standing there. He guesses that's normal for anyone who’s in the same presence as Yuma. As he continues to scarf down the rest of his snack, he rubs the crumbs from his hands onto his pants. Still chewing, he silently gestures for yuma to hand him his bag. Yuma obliges, wordlessly handing it back.
They both already knew half of each other's schedules, so they immediately started on their way. They had a quick conversation about what they played last night until they had to separate to finally walk into their classes. Before hauling ass into the class he was late to, Taki took a second to mentally prepare for the embarrassment awaiting him on the other side of the door.
He opens the door as quietly as possible and slips in without a word before the teacher looks above her reading glasses, shaking her head. Disappointed but not surprised, she looks back to her computer.
“Good morning, Takayama,” she says casually, announcing his business to the whole class. “Marking you as late.”
With a polite bow, he apologizes and greets her a good morning back. Sitting down at his desk, he huffs out a sigh as quiet as he could muster, not wanting to currently bother anyone. Beside him sat a familiar person with a look on his face that said ‘late again?’
Taki noticed but ignored, opening his bag and getting a notebook out. The other eventually stopped, rolling his eyes and speaking with a hush. “Again? How many times are you gonna be late? What do you even do when you’re gone?”
“It was unintentional this time,” he responds. “I meant to stay up all night but I was too tired apparently.”
The boy snorts beside him, “unlucky Taki back again to get revenge because of the terrible person he was in his past life.”
With an annoyed look, Taki finally looks at his classmate, Maki. “I probably wasn’t even that bad, I was probably a knight! or something..” he trails off.
With a half smile, eyebrows raised, Maki backs up in his chair. “Oh really? How many princes and princesses do you think you saved back then?”
Taki shrugs. “Too many to count on two hands, so I can't tell you,” he responds.
Maki was always good at poking fun at Taki, but he didn’t mind. He always found it fun to be teased, but he also found teasing from Maki to be sort of cautious as well. Maki was careful with him, maybe because he didn’t know him that well, but also maybe because he assumes Taki can’t handle anything too harsh. Or maybe Maki just wasn’t that type of person. Either way, Taki never minds.
“Do you think Yuma was one of them?”
Taki looks back at him, a bit more serious, but then he notices Maki was serious too.
Maki was also apparently good at feeding Taki’s delusions as well.
He honestly forgot he even told Maki. It was fair for him to forget though, Maki never seems to bring it up. Maybe he was feeling a little impulsive today.
Looking down at the paper he didn’t even remember doodling on the whole time, Taki sees a drawing of a cat with wobbly lines and wonky hearts strewn around it. To everyone else it was a normal cat, but anyone who knew Taki and Yuma would recognize the suspiciously familiar features of the feline.
Maki being one of those people, he wrapped an arm around the other, rubbing his arm a bit, half because he was sorry for what he said, half because of knowing.
Taki rotated his pencil, about to erase it, but couldn’t bring himself to. Instead, he turns the page.
The first few periods go by slower than Taki felt he could handle. He had yawned at least twelve times within the past four hours, and he was getting worried it was getting too obvious that he was exhausted.
Usually he would be able to get at least an hour or two in before getting to school. It’s not much, but it's something.
He looked around for a familiar face, and upon seeing a couple friends – a tall, lean boy with a calming presence, and a shorter boy with bleached blonde hair and shiny, wide eyes – chatting at a table near the middle of the cafeteria, he decided he’d sit with them.
“Hey Jo,” he greets them kindly. “Hey Harua.”
The two smile and bow slightly when they hear his voice, followed by hellos. Taki blinks away any signs of sleep, and tries to get in on the conversation, but it seems like Harua was likely continuing what he was talking about before, thus leaving Taki with no context. He supposes he’ll just space out.
Looking down at the tray full of school food, he jumps, startled by a hand on the middle of his back. He looks over and sees a close friend who had felt more like an older brother.
“Oh! Did I scare you?" Kei asks obviously, sitting down next to him. Taki shook his head, too drained to speak. He was starting to feel hazy and uncomfortably close to losing his appetite. Sensing he was lower on energy, Kei frowns, placing his palm on the younger's forehead. “Are you feeling alright? You’re not sick are you?”
“I’m fine, just tired. I didn’t get enough sleep last night," Taki sighed.
Kei flashed him a knowing look, “you look like you didn’t sleep at all.” Taki smiled nervously, poking at his food with a plastic fork. Of course Kei would catch on, he thought.
Kei is a TA for one of the 10th grade teachers. He graduated a couple years ago when Taki was just beginning high school, but they’d known each other years earlier, with Kei being Taki’s neighbor and their families being close. So Kei had always acted like an older sibling to Taki, and although they still see each other outside of school pretty often, a lazy smile spreads on his face the second he’s met with such a familiar presence on a tiring day.
Yuma then suddenly plopped down on the other side of the table without a word, startling Kei, Harua, and Taki this time. Yuma glances up at Taki and nearly does a double-take, hand immediately going to cover his mouth.
“God, you look terrible! I didn’t think you’d look this miserable by lunch,” he teases. If Taki wasn’t already regretting his decisions, he sure was beating up his past self for his stupid choices now. Kei looked between them, piecing together what he'd learnt.
“So this was your doing,” Kei playfully points an accusing finger at the boy across from them. He swiftly reaches an arm around Taki, taking both his cheeks in his hands and pushing them around, causing his face to smush together. “You made him look miserable,” he pouts, fighting a smile. Taki shrieks and flails about, embarrassed, causing Kei to let go and Yuma to cackle, leaning back and clutching his stomach.
Taki feigns annoyance but the snickering coming from the guy across from him had him breaking character. He catches himself chuckling a bit, watching as Yuma practically loses his shit and falls off his chair.
“He’s exaggerating! It wasn’t even that funny,” Kei accuses one last time.
Hours passed and Taki had never been so relieved that a school day was over, considering it was, you know, school. He’d also been able to get a few naps in, drooling all over his hand as he lay slumped on the desk.
He wakes up from the tune on the intercom, indicating that school is now over. Rubbing his eyes as they land on Harua beside him at his own desk, he catches the boy doodling a monkey and a rabbit – a strange pair to be sketching, Taki thinks – while resting his cheek on his other hand. Harua packs quickly as Taki struggles to stand up, legs numb from loss of circulation. He should really stop sitting like that.
But then Taki is graced with a wonderful realization.
It was Friday, luckily, which meant that he didn’t have school for the next couple days. He shimmied, grabbing his bag. He stumbles to put it on his other shoulder, so he just holds it by the handle and waits for Harua. Harua catches up with him, striking conversation as they walk.
“What do you think we’ll be doing tonight?”
And just like that, Taki’s world shattered as he felt his heart drop. That’s right, Friday also means hang out night, where the friend group stays over at their friend’s – Kei, Fuma, Nicholas, and Euijoo’s – house either playing games or watching a movie until they all pass out followed by the next morning with fluffy pancakes stacked on plates.
Taki really dreads cancelling plans with the group, but he feels like he quite literally won't survive the night if he tries to stay up any longer. He sighs before stopping, causing Harua to look at him, confused.
“I can’t go tonight, I’m way too tired, i won't be able to stay up,” Taki admits, sagging his shoulders as Harua blinks at him, he looks down for a bit. Crap, now Taki feels really bad.
“I’m sure the others won’t mind you going to sleep a little earlier in a room! That way you can still have breakfast with us in the morning,” Harua gleams up at him, jumping pridefully at his plan. Taki is sure he looks like he’s considering it, but the blonde then smirks, elbowing him lightly in the side.
“You don’t wanna miss seeing Yuma tonight do you?”
Taki gapes at him, cheeks turning red. Taki has said many times that Harua has a sharp tongue, which he is familiar with. What he failed to realize earlier is that he is much more obvious than he thought. He’s positive Harua didn’t know about his feelings for Yuma a few months ago. Sure he’s his best friend but he doesn’t have to know everything !
He would rather keep things like this to himself.
Taki clears his throat, eyeing an approaching Yuma behind Harua. He stands a little straighter before he mentally slaps himself in the face. ‘You’re being way too obvious,’ he yells in his head. He finds himself smiling awkwardly.
He’s freaking out. Not because Yuma is standing a foot in front of him, or because Harua is snickering at the sight of a mentally gone Taki, but because this is so weird! Sure, Taki has a crush on the guy, but he’s never been this weird about it! Usually he can be himself, not have to think about how obvious he’s being to the others, to Yuma. Maybe this is just his sleep deprivation playing him! Yeah, that must be it.
His heart thrums in his chest.
This is so messed up.
“Hi,” he yelps, voice cracking and sending Harua into a laughing fit, and a confused – cute, so cute – giggle from Yuma, threading fingers through his hair and tilting his head. Taki short-circuits.
“Hey,” Yuma teases.
“So, anyway,” Taki starts, looking away for a second, stuffing his hands in his pockets and rocking on his heels. “I’ll have to go to sleep earlier tonight, I'm not feeling up for a long night, but i’ll still go.”
Harua seems to perk up at that, cheering happily.
“I was just about to say I have to cancel since I’m not feeling real nice either, but,” Yuma nods, Taki deflates a little upon hearing that. “If we can just sleep early that should be fine. Plus, Kei says he’s making blueberry pancakes tomorrow morning. Can’t miss it.”
“Great,” Harua smiles, “let’s go then! The others are probably waiting for us in the parking lot.”
They arrive within a little less than ten minutes, and Taki already has a splitting headache from how loud everyone is singing along with the song on the radio. Taki groans quietly, looking over to Yuma who looks like he’s about to snap. At least he’s not alone in this.
Yuma is known to be quite cranky when low on sleep, and suddenly Taki’s blood is running cold, because he doesn’t want to be the one Yuma throws glares at. He quickly retrieves his bag and scurries into the house, greeted by Euijoo, Nicholas, and Fuma on the couch, already done setting up some snacks.
“A couple minutes late, don’t you think?” Nicholas teases, slouched on the couch.
“There were like- seven deer in the road, be patient,” Kei snaps back light-heartedly, flicking the other in the shoulder.
“How was school today?” Fuma asks.
“Like any other day,” Maki shrugs as everyone falls into their places on the couch.
Harua mentions that Yuma and Taki are sleeping early, while Euijoo surrenders his bed to the two for the night. They say their goodnights before heading to the room, Yuma immediately dropping himself onto the bed face first.
Taki picks at the skin around his nails, pondering how to go along with this situation as Yuma raises his head to look over at him. Taki’s sure he notices he froze at the eye contact, and this time Yuma furrows his eyebrows, genuinely confused.
“You’ve started acting weird a little bit ago,” Yuma thinks out loud, sitting up and squinting at Taki as if the more he looks the more he’ll find. Taki really hopes he doesn’t. “Is something going on?”
Taki shakes his head fast, failing to convince Yuma that he's fine.
“I’m just tired, head hurts”
Yuma laughs. “Yea, Kei sang really loud this time, if I wasn’t respectful I’d have told him to shut up.”
Taki snorts, feeling a bit more at ease as he forgets his dilemma, sitting on the edge of the bed.
“Wow, that must’ve been really hard for you,” Taki jokes, hearing a wonderful laugh and a “hey!” from the other.
Taki slides his sweater off his shoulders and places it somewhere on the ground, not bothering to actually put it anywhere. He apologizes to Euijoo in his head. He then climbs over to the pillows and slips underneath the blanket, he lays on his stomach as his head faces towards the wall. He hears Yuma shuffle for a second before he feels the blanket move and the bed dip a little closer to where he lays.
It’s silent for a bit, and Taki is on the verge of sleeping when Yuma speaks.
“There’s really nothing going on?”
Taki’s eyes flutter open, and he moves his head to face where Yuma is, only to hear himself gasp, seeing the other already looking directly at him. Taki fumbles on his words.
“I mean- I’m fine! Do I seem off,” Taki asks, shuffling to lay on his back.
It’s silent again, but there’s something different to Yuma’s gaze this time. Taki tries to make sense of it.
“I guess not,” Yuma smiles, a teasing glint in his eye, “you’ve always been weird.”
“Hey!” Taki pouts, pretending to be offended, causing Yuma to laugh again.
Seconds pass where Taki is staring at the ceiling with a dumb smile on his face. Suddenly, he hears breathing beside him and looks over to find Yuma fast asleep.
Taki’s always been confused by how fast Yuma can fall asleep. All it takes is the blink of an eye. He thinks that’s pretty cool, since it usually takes himself an hour to fall asleep, but he’s also Yuma! He’s always been cool.
Eventually, Taki drifts off to sleep as well.
“Shouldn’t we wake them up? Pancakes are almost done.”
“But they look so comfy! We’ll wake them later.”
“Nuh-uh, they’re not gonna want to miss the food, I’m waking them up.”
Hushed voices invade Taki’s mind, a conversation in his dream before he gets ripped from the fake reality with a gentle shake and a “Taki, wake up.”
He blinks open his eyes, but closes them immediately after whenever he’s blinded by the direct sunlight in his eyes. He stretches a bit, whining sleepily at the bright light.
“Maki, he’s still trying to wake up! Close the blinds!”
“Oh he’s fine!”
He feels himself laying there, boneless still, body heavy, too easy to fall back asleep. Yup, this is it. This sweet, comfortable bed, way more comfy than his back at home. Man, how did Euijoo get such a good mattress, and a weighted blanket too? This guy has everything.
“Taki, you might wanna wake up before Yuma does.”
Taki opens an eye upon hearing that name, seeing Harua and Maki staring down at him. He stretches again and wonders why he never realized how hard it is to move. He wonders if Yuma has woken up yet, and looks over to find he is quite literally laying on top of him, and suddenly everything makes sense.
Taki scrambles to sit up, pushing Yuma off, wide eyed. He feels his face get warmer as Yuma stirs, yawning with a stretch. Sat up but unaware.
“That worked better than I expected,” Maki laughs.
The brunette blinks over at the boy beside him, heart racing still as he gulps, looking in front of himself to regain his composure. He stands quickly, dusting off his clothes for no reason but to distract himself. He takes a few glances at the blonde, stretching and yawning on the bed still, shirt loose and hair fluffy. If Taki weren’t so scared of any attention from Yuma lately, he’d have jumped him already with a ‘cute’ and in return gaining a nasally nag from the other, but he genuinely can’t bring himself to move.
Thus bringing out Taki’s confusion once again. Why is he being so weird? Yuma is no different than lately, and his feelings haven’t changed. Taki sighs, wishing his brain would go back to normal.
Lost in his thoughts, Taki doesn’t notice the others dragging him along with them until they reach the kitchen, not failing to notice Yuma following along behind him. Suddenly, the smell of sweet pancakes makes him very nauseous as he says good morning to Kei, who is already working on the 5th pancake. He doesn’t feel the light grimace until Kei looks up at him from across the kitchen island.
“Are you okay? You look kind of sick,” Kei observes, and Taki swallows, nodding with a quick smile he hoped convinced his hyung he was okay.
The others watch Taki in confusion and worry, and Taki momentarily lets himself forget about the situation from earlier, trying to enjoy his morning. The others filter into the kitchen, stumbling in at the smell of the sweet breakfast and the loud noise of the ones already up.
Kei brings the plate around to everyone, letting them pick their pancakes. Euijoo is staring, blinking at the table cover in front of him, Fuma is scrolling through his phone, and Nicholas looks about 5 seconds away from falling back asleep.
He notices Harua glancing around at everyone, ever so observant before he smiles fondly, digging into his food, and Jo beside him who is almost past done with his food.
Everything seems so normal, for everyone else. Like nothing changed. This should be a normal observation. Except Taki is too hung up on why he feels everything but normal. Not within the group, but with him and Yuma. Normally, he feels like the others would notice this change, like it wasn’t just Yuma and Taki that noticed. But this feels like he’s just overthinking it, even though Yuma already asked him why he was acting so strange.
This feels like a Yuma and Taki problem, and he doesn’t like the thought of that.
Still, he pushes through, shoveling a few bites in his mouth and taking a few sips of juice. Yeah, it’s a normal Saturday morning.
Except it’s not, because occasionally, he notices Yuma is looking at him. Not normal. He buries it in the back of his head, or tries to, but once again he goes back to those stupid rapid thoughts of him being too obvious.
God, he’s so close to losing it. Yuma knows, he has to. Otherwise he wouldn’t be looking at Taki like that . Like he’s this close to slamming his hands on the table and demanding answers. Fingers jittery, Taki excuses himself quickly, autopilot taking over as he even pushes his chair in, and he retreats into the bathroom, locking the door behind him.
Running his fingers through his hair, he looks himself in the mirror. Taking deep breaths, he attempts to steady himself.
It all goes down the drain when he hears a faint knock on the door and hears Yuma’s voice behind it. No no no no no.
“Taki, are you okay?” The tensity in his tone immediately has Taki gripping the marble counter.
“Occupied,” he yells out, quickly facepalming at his own response. Luckily, it only earns him a small laugh from the hallway.
“I know. You looked- I don’t know, freaked out? Do you want to talk about it?”
‘Absolutely not,’ he thinks, shaking his head. He can’t, not now. He fakes his best smile, hoping it bleeds through his voice, hoping it sounds like this isn't so, so serious for him. He feels bad about lying, but he genuinely can’t talk to him about this right now.
“I’m good, just felt a little sick,” he responds. He continues, looking at the faucet in front of him. “I’ll be back out soon.”
Silence stretches, and Taki can imagine Yuma’s expression, cogs visibly turning in his head as he decides whether or not he should believe him. For once within the past 24 hours, he gets lucky, earning a quick ‘alright’ from the other side of the door. His ears strain listening for the blonde’s soft footsteps padding against the floor, away from where Taki currently resides, and he sighs, finally feeling a bit of relief.
This is fine. He’ll just take a breather before going back out there. At least he thought, until he hears a knock at the door, and he freezes.
“It’s Harua,” he hears, and Taki sighs again. “I know you’re not using the toilet, let me in.”
‘Too observant,’ Taki thinks, still a bit shaky as he unlocks the door and turns the handle for the door to open a bit. Harua quickly enters, shutting and locking the door once he’s in. He saunters past Taki to the toilet, putting the lid down and pointing at it.
“Sit.”
And here we go. Counselling session with everyone’s favorite therapist, Harua, begins. Taki huffs but sits down nonetheless, and the other leans against the wall beside him. He stares Taki through his eyes, right into his head like he knows something is up. He probably does, if this situation is telling enough.
“What’s going on?”
With that, Taki leans forward, head in his hands as he begins his ramble.
“I feel like I’m losing my mind. I’m being weird and Yuma can tell and- and you can tell but that’s normal and I just- I feel like everything's falling apart around me and I’m just trying to hold on to whatever normalcy Yuma and I have now. I feel like he knows and- he’s probably trying to find a way to let me down easy, and I feel so stupid about this, because if I just acted normal this wouldn’t be happening!”
Slowly inching closer, Harua finally wraps his arms around Taki’s head, holding him close, grounding the brunette. Taki continues, “everything was just fine yesterday morning.”
Harua takes a deep breath, playing with Taki’s hair softly, and in return the brunette softens a bit.
“I think you’re too worried about how you’re acting around him. Don’t think too hard about how you behave,” Harua says, and Taki nods, knowing he’s right. “But I really think you should talk to him, when you’re ready. It’s Yuma, you know any amount of weird can’t chase him away.”
At that, Taki stiffened again, shaking his head against his best friend's chest. Harua sighs at the defiance, parting from his twin and looking him in the eyes.
“Not right now, but think about it. Ask someone for advice, something. Communication is important, romantic relationships or not. Consider it.”
Taki looks at him for a second, nodding thoughtfully. Right, he should. Until now, everything with Yuma used to be so easy, Taki just made it complicated. He could fix this. He could fix everything.
“Other than that, you’re taking this really hard, Taki. Let’s just have breakfast, play some games, and hang out. Trust that everything will work out. Yuma’s not going to let any relationship just crumble like that.”
And with that, Harua’s counseling session came to an end. They link their hands together for a second, Harua’s hand squeezing his, passing strength to Taki. Grateful, he squeezes back. He takes a few deep breaths before nodding and standing up, ready to join back with the group.
Everyone welcomes them back, Taki going back to his forgotten breakfast sitting on the table and tries to stomach a few bites, surprisingly able to finish it eventually.
Kei had informed him that they planned on going bowling if Taki was feeling up for it. With a bright smile, he nods. Kei ruffles his hair and pinches his cheeks, making his way to Fuma, who was watching Yuma and Maki play a round of Smash.
Everyone gets ready quickly, most of them borrowing clothes from the hyungs since they didn’t initially plan on going out beforehand. It takes everyone approximately 45 minutes before they spill out the front door.
The bowling alley wasn’t as far as Taki expected, it turned out to actually be walking distance, so they left the car and started heading on their way. Taki thought this was a decision that will probably be a mistake later on when they’re drained from bowling but he said nothing about it.
On the way, he was sandwiched in between a bickering Euijoo and Nicholas. Nicholas accused Euijoo of being annoyed that he beat him in Smash before they left the apartment. Euijoo insisted he didn’t care but everyone knew he would get annoyed at the fight anyway.
Taki sighed, picking up pace and leaving them to argue by themselves as a few others laughed at the free entertainment.
Bowling was a huge mistake. Somehow, everyone had forgotten how terrible they were at bowling before they decided to go, and for a while no one was having fun. At least until Harua grabbed a ball, spinning around aimlessly, tripping over his own foot, and dropped the ball in the midst of catching his balance.
It landed with a loud thud and to everyone’s surprise, it actually earned him a strike. Chaos erupted immediately. The group hugged and cheered, and Kei was on the ground, rolling with fits of laughter. Maki, still holding his slice of pizza, somehow slapped Taki in the face with it, earning a yelp and a look of shock as Taki placed his hand on his cheek. Jo and Fuma witnessed, cackling immediately.
Since then, the group was rambunctiously jumping around, competing against each other to see who could send the ball the funniest. The winners with the most points were Jo, Harua, Taki, and Yuma, which earned them an extra celebratory pizza to themselves.
When everyone migrated to the arcade section, Taki stayed for just a bit longer, finishing his (what seemed like) sixth slice of pizza, basking in his team’s victory.
He paled when he noticed Yuma drag himself over, a defeated look on his face as he plopped himself into the chair opposite Taki.
“Harua and Maki teamed up against me..”
Taki snorts, jolting forward. “You didn’t attack them?”
“I triedd,” Yuma whined, slumping in his chair. “They’re an unstoppable force when they’re conniving against you.”
“Oh yea, I know, trust me,” he laughs. “What’d they do this time?”
Sighing, Yuma sits up, grabbing another slice of pizza, slapping it on a napkin as he begins opening another container of ranch.
“I was playing the racing game against Harua because we made a bet, and I was so close to winning. The finish line was right there!” He exclaims before dropping his head and slumping his shoulders one more time. “Until Maki came up behind me when I was focused and scared me.. I went off course and Harua drove past me.”
Taki smiled, shaking his head as he dug in for another bite.
“So annoyinggg,” Yuma groaned, leaning his head back to look at the ceiling.
For a while Taki sat there until he was done, stretching before he stood up, taking his napkin and throwing it in a bin nearby.
“Do you want to get them back?”
At that moment, a glimmer lit up in Yuma’s eyes, looking up at Taki. Without a word, he stands, throwing his napkin and ranch container away, a small smirk directed towards Taki.
In the arcade, it was every man for himself.
There were groups and duos at every game. It even looked like Kei had Euijoo on the floor, giving him the meanest(read: nicest) knuckle sandwich atop his head.
Jo and Nicholas were going against each other at the basketball game, a few of the others picking sides and cheering them on when Taki spots Maki and Harua, just finishing up at the racing game.
Yuma saunters up, smile on display as he clears his throat to get the duo’s attention. When Maki and Harua turn towards them, Yuma holds out his hand.
“Game?"
The duo looks at each other before looking back at the two that confronted them. Harua looks at his twin, eyeing him as if he knows what he’s doing. Again, much too observant for his own good. Taki doesn’t actually necessarily understand why he’s even looking at him like that.
Maki smiles, taking Yuma’s hand in his to shake. He nods before bringing Yuma into conversation about making the rules and what game they’re playing. Harua walks closer, standing next to Taki as he bumps his shoulder against him. Taki, again, pays too much attention to Harua’s behavior.
Zero words are uttered between them before Maki and Yuma agree on playing the racing game, since it was the game Yuma was playing with Harua before those two very rudely connived against him earlier.
“Alright, we’re playing. Teams are obvious, and the rules are simple. No cheating,” Maki announced. Word of what they’re doing spread throughout the arcade to the others.
Taki spared a quick glance over to his feline friend and was a bit taken aback when his eyes were met with excited, shiny ones. They smiled at each other with a competitive energy and sat down on the chairs resembling car seats.
Taki hadn’t really expected everyone to get as hyped as they did. It seems as though everyone took a side, and the arcade was soon filled with loud sounds of cheering and the roaring of the digital cars on the screens.
Harua was currently in the lead, making use of Maki’s distraction of attempting to push them off the map and into the much harder areas to drive in. It takes a bit for Taki to fully drive ahead of Maki, but when he does he hears the boy next to him cheer.
With a sudden curiosity, Taki looked over at his teammate. Yuma had a giant smile on his face and eyes shaped into crescents. He laughed so loud and free that Taki actually forgot what he was doing, concentrating solely on the person he was doing all of this for in the first place.
He felt a pair of hands on his shoulders from behind him, yelling and shaking him to pay attention to the screen. Thank you, whoever you were. Right as he looked to the front of him, he dodged a sign and drove right over the finish line, earning himself the 2nd place ranking, and immediately he was faced with disappointment.
If he hadn't won, who did?
In one quick motion, hands grabbed onto his own, pulling him up and enveloping him in a very comfy, very unexpected embrace. Yuma’s cheering was loud, a nasally screech flooding in his ears. Taki smiled fondly and hugged back as hard as possible while he too began to cheer for their victory.
The older had complained about Taki nearly knocking the wind out of him. Taki yelps at a small stomp at his feet. Yuma laughed once again, this time at Taki. His chest swelled with pride.
Not long after the game, everyone packed up their things, paid, and got out of there. It’s unexpectedly dark out. The sun is beginning to set, and the coldness of the growing night nips at the group’s skin. Taki beams with the aftereffects of winning the two games as he watches Yuma jump around, finding joy in their shared victory. Taki was too busy laughing and smiling at the sight to join.
The group decides on staying for another night, seeing as Yuma and Taki hadn’t been able to join in with them the night before.
After a quick dinner, the boys who didn’t help cook are assigned to help with the dishes, and once everyone is finished, everyone crowds around in front of the tv to watch.
A jungle of blankets and pillows are thrown around the floor and on the couch, and everyone takes their own seats.
Since no one is actually paying attention to the movie, it doesn’t take long for everyone to begin heading to sleep, exhaustion from earlier finally catching up on them. Everyone says their goodnights, and Taki finds himself alone.
He’s sitting cross-legged on the floor when someone plops down to the right of him and he’s suddenly making eye-contact with Yuma.
The way the boy looks at him has his heart tumbling in his chest, and he unknowingly sucks in a breath at the sight.
All that fear of Yuma possibly knowing about his crush smashes into him again with full force, making Taki look away awkwardly. A sigh leaves his right, and his ears strain to hear it before a small voice speaks out.
“I need to talk to you, Taki.”
Oh god. This is it. This is how Taki goes out. This is how he loses his friendship. Years and years of bonding with Yuma and the rest of the group. This is all it takes before the group is crumbling in Taki’s hands. The pieces are so small he feels like he’s digging through grains of sand, not able to get it all. His hands are shaking and his breath comes out ragged.
“I think I’m in love with you.”
Taki nearly gives himself whiplash at the sheer speed of which his head jerks to look at Yuma.
That. That doesn’t sound right. That is definitely not what Taki expected at all. Somehow, he started shaking more. Perhaps Yuma felt so bad about Taki’s obvious crush that he decided to pretend to be in love with him. Maybe he’ll let him off easy in a couple of weeks. Perhaps Yuma is playing some sick prank on him right now. That doesn’t really sound like something Yuma would do though.
Suddenly, a voice invaded Taki’s head. A voice of hope, but surely not a voice of reason.
Perhaps Yuma was telling the truth. No lies, no pranks.
“You- What?”
That’s all Taki could get out before Yuma moves to stand, blurting out an apology, telling him to forget it. But how can Taki forget it when he can still hear the words echoing in his brain, seeping into every membrane?
Maybe if Taki was like everyone else he would’ve been more prepared. Maybe he would’ve practiced this very moment in the mirror, every scenario, every word, every bit of punctuation, every detail in a script. At least that’s what he thinks doing that does?
I guess that all this just goes to show that Taki feels like he’s way underprepared. A sniff from above has him coming back to reality and throwing himself in front of Yuma, placing his palms on the other’s shoulders to stop him from going any further.
He looks into Yuma’s teary eyes again. This time, Taki is prying at the outer edges of what Yuma wants others to perceive himself to be. Usually, Taki doesn’t fall for this trick, but tonight he can tell that it’s much deeper than that, and suddenly he truly sees him for the first time. Tonight, he can see the deeper resolve of something more vulnerable, more emotional than he’s ever let Taki see before, and that’s when it hits him.
No matter what Taki thinks, no matter how much of Yuma he thinks he’s seen, he’s been tricked this whole time. This is a Yuma he’s never met before, and the revelation makes him want to cry.
“Yuma,” he breathes out. “You’re serious.”
“Of course I’m serious! Listen, I thought that maybe this could go well, maybe we could work something out, but I guess I was feeling impulsive, and-” The blonde rants, trying his hardest not to let the tears fall. Of course they do anyways, and all Taki wants to do is wipe them away. “It feels like this whole time Harua has been putting fake hopes in my brain, going on and on about how bad I need to confess. He sounded like he knew something but now I understand, he wants me to move on so I don’t ruin the friendship and- and I don’t even know why I’m telling you all of this!”
“Yuma!” Taki almost yells, but it seems to cut the older off, giving him time to respond. “I think I’m in love with you too.”
The blonde sucks in a sharp breath, something between a hiccup and gasp before he looks back up at Taki.
“Seriously, I-” Taki closes his eyes for a second, finding the words before they open again. “I thought you knew! I’ve been freaking out all day today trying to figure out how to be normal with you because I gained this random fear of you knowing I like you and you not liking me back!”
“Taki,” Yuma starts. “You know that’s ridiculous right? I’ve literally been trying to ignore everything because I didn’t want you to know! And then I blow up right here and confess anyways.”
Taki watches as Yuma rubs his hand over his face in disbelief.
“But, didn’t it work out?”
Yuma looks back at him, a small smile forming on his face and Taki’s hopeful gaze transfers onto the blonds. There it is, the realization that nothing will really change, because Yuma’s smile is the same as it’s always been.
Yuma smacks right into Taki, wrapping his arms around him with that lively laugh again.
Yeah, this is just how Taki wanted it to go.