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Akito sighed as he tossed his bag against the mattress of the hotel's bed. He had to admit this place was nicer than the dorms they were crammed in when they stayed at the conservatory, but such thoughts were inevitably fleeting when he remembered why he was here -- to impress the president of No.9 within the span of his 2-week trip.
Of course, his efforts so far had turned up fruitless. It didn't matter whether he sang in English or Japanese; he just couldn't properly catch the attention of the crowd the way Alan had demanded of him. His team's very future was riding entirely on his shoulders, and as if his current repeated failures weren't frustrating enough, the walls of this all-expenses-paid hotel room provided by the president made sure he would feel thoroughly taunted every time he thought of turning in.
"Ughhhh..." He chose to voice his woes very eloquently, flopping face-first onto the mattress in a faithless attempt at catharsis. The part of him that was certainly at its wits end was contemplating falling asleep then and there, skipping his usual nightly routine in anticipation for the cycle's next repetition...
Ding!
...until the reminder that he had a whole slew of people rooting for him deigned to buzz in his pocket. The squad had been shocked when he instantly accepted the invitation to come to America alone -- and honestly, he'd never been more thankful to have parents who held so much trust in his natural independence -- but they'd all been doing their utmost to support him in this endeavor either way. Even if he was physically alone, it was nice to be reminded that he wouldn't be forced to regress to his old mindset ever again.
The timezone difference between New York and Japan was a bit difficult to manage, so Akito often opened his phone up to a whole day's worth of videos and messages sent for him in advance -- as made clear by the lengthened unseen message history in their group chat. Of course, it would probably help if he actually took enough breaks to check his texts as he received them -- but he was nothing if not prone to losing himself in his passions, so he ended up ghosting them day in and day out without even realizing it...
Suddenly, just as he deigned to scroll through what he'd missed, his phone rang; and he didn't even need to know the caller ID to determine who it was. At exactly 10pm on the dot -- around noon back home -- was Toya giving him a call. About midway through his trip, the older seemed to figure out the time Akito usually got home based on when he began replying to his unread texts, and he'd been calling every day at precisely the same time ever since. Not even his typically impenetrable work ethic seemed to stop him, as evidenced by the fact that today was a school day.
"What's up, Toya?" Akito answered nearly instantly, barely catching what he almost swore was a physical reaction to the idea of getting to speak to Toya. He was no stranger to the concept of finding it relaxing to hear his partner's voice with just the two of them, but going straight from moping on his bed to perking up tail wagging at the slightest sign of Toya certainly had a way of making him feel like some stupid puppy.
"Hi, Akito." Toya answered in a slightly hushed tone, which probably meant he was still at the library. "Did you have a good day?"
"Can't quite get the reactions I want yet, but I think I'm gettin' closer..." Akito shrugged, trying to ignore how oddly domestic the conversation felt despite the fact that they were in entirely different countries. "What about you? Am I missin' anything good?"
"Ena-san goes on a rant every time we run into each other... I think she misses having you as her pack mule." Toya chuckled from the other end of the line, beginning to tell Akito that the answer to his question was apparently a resounding hell no. "Apart from that, there's only a few major lessons you've missed, so we could go over those together while I'm on my break if you'd like."
"Dude, I am not doing any math right now." Akito groaned in wanton protest, refusing to let his unwanted studies' taunts follow him all the way across the hemisphere. "I'll just cram everything in once I'm back, no sweat."
"...Well, you're doing something important for our music, so I won't scold you..." Toya sighed, though his tone certainly told Akito he was tempted to slip into his authoritarian mode. "...but once you're home, we're going to have a big study session, okay? I don't want to see any red marks on your exams."
"Yessir." Akito punctuated the promise with his best attempt a diligent tone, though the light chuckle that drifted through Toya's end of the line spoke to how easily his folly was called. Though, oddly enough, it seemed kind of... absent. Like his mouth was shuffling through an automated string of responses, but his mind was centered someplace galaxies away from the topic at hand.
"...You all good, Toya?"
"Hm?" Toya made a small noise -- a rare instance in which he was the one to be caught squarely off guard. "Yes, I'm fine... It's a little bit lonely not having you by my side, but it's nothing I can't handle."
"He revealed it without even realizing..." Akito thought to himself as he processed his partner's words. As much as Toya tried to do his utmost to avoid troubling others, he was extraordinarily bad at hiding things from Akito. Being deceitful about his emotions would only stir up his worst memories, yet trying to downplay them did nothing but lay them bare for Akito to dissect -- and dissect he certainly would.
"It's only two weeks, then I'll be back." Akito reasoned aloud. It was a tad hard for him to remember that most people found no comfort in objective logic -- laying it out like that probably just reminded Toya that he wasn't even midway through the arduous wait before him -- but that was simply the way his brain made sense of things. Obviously, he also missed his partner like hell, but the knowledge that their time apart was purely temporary did well to help him cope with the distance between them.
"Right..." Toya replied, his tone predictably even gloomier than before. A chuckling Akito couldn't help but feel endeared by the response -- after all, it was moments like these that assured him the alternate timeline they'd witnessed would never come to pass. This current version of Toya could barely stand half a week of separation before he went into full wet cat mode...
"You wanna meet up in SEKAI or something? I'm down if you are." Akito suggested with a tilt of his head. One of many advantages of having a whole dimension sitting inside your pocket was that you'd be able to find each other no matter how far apart you were in the real world. What harm could there be in taking advantage?
"...No, that's alright." Toya sighed over the phone, though it felt like the latter part of his sentence was directed more toward his uncertain self than anything. "To be honest... if I got my hands on you right now, I'm not sure if I'd ever allow myself to let go."
And there he went again, casually saying shit that turned Akito's cheeks firetruck red...
"...Akito?"
"It's cool." the ginger jumped in to remedy before Toya's obliviousness could drift into proper concern. "Lemme know if you change your mind, though."
"I promise." Toya chuckled over the line, his mood seeming to have sufficiently lightened a little bit. "Just... if you need anything, please don't hesitate to tell me. Even if you're halfway across the globe, I'll always rush to your side if you need me."
"Toya-"
"You know I would do that for you, right?" the boy in question continued without much pause to speak of. "If you asked me to, I would buy a plane ticket right away and come see you no matter what. I truly mean that-"
"Toya." Akito repeated stern enough to stop Toya's monologue before his spiral transformed into a full-fledged cyclone. "You sure you don't wanna meet up in SEKAI?"
"...Well..." Toya seemed more contemplative that time, but quickly shook off the temptation with a decisive clearing of his throat. "...No, it's really fine. It's very late for you, and I'm sure you have another big day tomorrow."
"Toya..." Akito groaned out one final time, taking up that specific tone of annoyance he typically only directed toward his partner when the older was keeping a secret he refused to tell. "I'm your partner, ain't I? It's my job to take care of you. You don't gotta tough it out for my sake."
"...And if I can't control myself?" Toya ended up mumbling out, ever conscientious to a fault no matter how many times you told him it was fine to discard his shame.
"When have I ever asked you to, dude?" Akito could only laugh as he shuffled into a more comfortable position. There'd never been a single moment since they met that he wanted anything more than Toya in his entirety -- and honestly, was he really supposed to sit here and act like getting wrapped up in affection by his boyfriend was a bad thing or something?
"...Heh." Toya chuckled back, as if he'd only remembered who he was talking to in that very moment. "Alright, Akito. Can we meet at MEIKO's place?"
"I'll see ya there, partner." Akito responded affirmatively. If they were having this conversation in person, that would've been the moment he punctuated his declaration with an affectionate hair ruffle, but that unfortunately wasn't an option right now.
Perhaps a bit more eager for their now-impending meeting than he was willing to let on, Toya gave a swift goodbye before hanging up. In a poignant role reversal, however, Akito lingered for a few moments in the time between exiting the call and opening up his music -- Was he too sweaty and disheveled from spending the whole day singing? Would the jet lag make him look a fool? Was meeting up a good idea to begin with when he was continuously failing at his own goal and Toya still had school-
...Nah. He couldn't lecture Toya about not stuffing down his feelings for his sake then chicken out because of his own present insecurities. With a decisive internal conclusion that it would be completely fucking lame to do so, Akito slammed his finger upon the play button and closed his eyes as those ever-familiar sparkles began to encompass him.
"Huh... Landed right in front of the cafe this time." Akito thought in fascination as he spawned into SEKAI -- directly beside the entrance to crase cafe. Sometimes he wondered if where you ended up upon entering the SEKAI had something to do with whatever intention you held upon doing so. As easy as it was to forget at certain points, this was a domain built from their very hearts...
Whatever. He had more important things to think about right now than the logistics of their weird personal pocket dimension -- namely the festering loneliness of his most precious partner, an issue which instantly made itself known as Akito threw open the cafe door to find Toya sitting alone with his cup of coffee.
"Welcome in, Akito-kun." MEIKO greeted as the doorbell rang -- a factor Akito had stupidly failed to consider when they decided on their meeting place. He wasn't arrogant enough to take issue with the literal owner of the cafe being there to operate it, but some part of him really wanted it to be just the two of them for this reunion.
"Ah... Hello, MEIKO-san. It's nice to see-" Akito put on his best polite voice, only to be interrupted by a pair of arms wrapping taut around him while he was distracted. Without so much as a single word of his typical courteous greetings, Toya had doven forward to encase Akito in a full-body hug. "...y...you."
"I can see you boys need some privacy." MEIKO declared in a bout of understanding Akito couldn't possibly have been more thankful for, only letting out a brief chuckle as she strode over to flip the sign to closed. "Akito-kun, I left your regular on the counter for you."
"Th...thanks." Akito stupidly muttered. MEIKO stepped out as promptly as was required of her, and just like that there was nothing to hinder Akito from the sheer embarrassment of getting tackle-hugged as though their brief separation had stretched across an era and then some..
"...You good, man?" Akito asked as casually as he could what with Toya sinking deeper into the hold he'd initiated, reaching one hand around to deliver his much-anticipated headpat while the other rubbed soothing circles into his back.
"Sorry... I'm not sure what came over me." Toya's words came out in a bashful little chuckle as he lifted his head just enough to properly face Akito with minimal sacrifice of skin contact. "It's only been a few days, but... when I saw you, something welled up inside of me and I couldn't help acting like it had been years..."
"That's cuz you keep bottling it up when you're upset, dummy." Akito scoffed as his hand traveled south, and the way Toya instantly melted when his cheek was cupped was downright adorable. "You don't gotta be so conscientious all the time, y'know."
"I do know..." Toya groaned with all the downtroddenness of a sulking little kid, his own hands coming up to rest upon Akito's shoulders. "...but I was trying to be a good partner for you. You're doing something that will determine the future of our careers, and you need somebody you can consistently rely on. My feelings should be secondary right now."
Ohhhh, the amount of heart attacks this sweet, beautiful idiot threatened to give him...
"Dude..." Akito sighed, leaning in to plant a kiss upon Toya's frowning lips. "You've always been my number one priority. It's because I've got you that I could even do something as crazy as this to begin with."
"Besides..." he continued before Toya's train of thought could begin taking off in the wrong direction again, punctuating his words with a more purposeful smooch. "I told you a long time ago, didn't I? I want you to rely on me, too."
Toya remained in hesitant silence for a moment before fluttering his eyes shut and giving Akito a brief reciprocating kiss -- as though it were his method of concession or something. Akito responded by chasing his partner's lips quite readily, moving the hand on Toya's porcelain cheek to the back of his head in order to keep them properly pressed together.
"Fwuh..." Toya made a mindless, infinitesimal noise as their lips separated, like their brief time apart had left him starved enough for a brief kiss to render him completely lost in the sauce. Surprisingly enough, Toya had always been particularly weak to kisses -- and though Akito typically utilized this knowledge as a backup ploy for getting out of homework, he didn't mind using his apparent powers of romance for good.
"I love you, Akito..." Toya mumbled out as coherently as he could in the midst of diving into another kiss -- proof that he'd taken Akito's advice and surrendered to his needs, one supposed. As his partner, there was nothing Akito could do from there but hold him tight and try his utmost to keep up with the rhythm Toya was beginning to set.
And, well... Akito would be lying if he said he wasn't equally bound by his desires. He was starting to realize he also needed this -- way, way more than he gave himself credit for.
"Love you too, Toya." Akito chose to mumble upon their next separation. At this point, it felt like every day marked another expansion of where he thought the boundaries of that love ended. If anyone else behaved the way Toya was now, he probably would've just told them to suck it up and shrugged it off -- but when it came to his most precious partner, he couldn't help behaving in a way soft enough that it might've felt out of character to any onlookers.
"I should probably get to class now..." the rational part of Toya's brain finally chimed in, despite the complete lack of effort to pull away on his part. Just as the opportunity to exercise some restraint found its way into his palms, a realization suddenly smacked him in the face -- if he left now, he wouldn't be able to see Akito again for the better part of 2 whole weeks...
"Ah-" A tiny, incoherent sound was punched out of Akito when he was suddenly enveloped in another full-bodied hug. Once again not very sure of where to put his hands, the younger simply allowed both palms to rest upon Toya's back.
"...Just a little bit longer." Toya declared, his rationale having willfully slipped out of his hand and splattered onto the floor. "Please?"
"Whatever you want, partner." Akito affirmed instantly. That was the very reason he'd come here, after all. Toya beckoned him in his hour of need, and he had no intention of leaving before the clock struck 12. In his mind, he made a mental note to take Toya on one hell of a date once they had the proper time for it, but for now...
"Sorry, MEIKO-san..." Akito thought in the instant between he felt his back hitting the wall and Toya's lips moving unto his yet again. "We're gonna need to borrow your place for a while longer."
~
🌕☀️
~
4:00PM
>> Toya: I'm on my way to practice. I hope you're having a nice evening, Akito. :)
4:30PM
>> Toya: I've been working on this move a lot. I'd like to try it together when you're back. (video attached)
4:35PM
>> Toya: Missing you right now. :( (image attached)
5:00PM
>> Toya: Shiraishi and Azusawa stopped to get breakfast with me in your stead. It's around dinnertime where you are, so I hope you're also eating properly. (image attached)
5:01PM
>> Toya: P.S. - This cafe has very good coffee. We should try it together sometime.
5:30PM
>> Toya: I'm almost at school. Remember to take a proper break if you haven't. I love you very much. <3
10:00PM
>> Toya: I hope you had a lovely day, Akito. I can't call right now since the library is busy, but I hope you're able to sleep well. I believe in you.
1:30AM
>> Toya: Hopefully this message doesn't wake you. I'm going to eat dinner and review my studies, so I'll talk to you later. I love you. <3
4:00AM
>> Toya: A little snippet of something I've been composing. (file attached)
4:30AM
>> Toya: Knowing you, I'm sure you'll be up soon. Good morning, Akito. I hope you feel well-rested and ready for another full day whenever this message reaches you. :)
6:00AM
>> Toya: I'm about to turn in. Good night from my end, Akito. As always, I love you more than anything. <3
"Jeez..." Akito scoffed with endearment as he checked his messages. "I know I told him to stop holding back, but he's really been texting me as much as he can manage, hasn't he?"
"...Dammit, why's he gotta be so cute?"
"Another message from your teammates?" Alan suddenly asked, knocking another storebought sandwich against Akito's side as both an offering and a signal of his entrance. "It must be nice having people who love you enough to cheer you on."
"Yeah, no kiddin'..." Akito chuckled as he took the sandwich, thankful for the reminder of just how ephemeral this separation would truly be. "My partner's really the greatest, y'know? One word from him and all of a sudden I feel like taking on the world."
'"Toya, right?" asked Alan as he sat beside Akito. "I could tell just from interviewing the four of you that you're particularly close with him. You kept glancing at each other every time I asked a question."
"Yup. I've been singing with Vivid BAD SQUAD for almost two years now, but Toya and I go all the way back to middle school." Akito explained, pausing in between to take in a much-needed mouthful of sandwich. "He's real special to me... so, of all people, I don't wanna disappoint him."
Ding!
>> Toya: I can't sleep. Can we meet up in SEKAI?
"...My apologies, sir, but I need to take a call before we get started for the day." Akito made up without hesitation, bouncing to his feet for a shameless retreat behind an alleyway as he hurried to open up his music app.
"Heh..." Alan chuckled as he watched the younger boy fade out of view. "It seems like you've already achieved your goal."