To fall in love with someone is to let the feeling flood under your skin before realizing its presence.
You’ve been together for two months now, but your relationship threads way, way back before he confesses to you that day in front of your house where he drops you off. It was a risky act for him to do, considering the fact that your friendship with him has been going on strong since your high school years—had you chose to reject him that day, the two of you would’ve lost something platonically beautiful going on, but thankfully he gained something even more beautiful.
Ruby eyes examine your form sitting in front of him across the quaint table for two. A steaming hot cup of tea is conveniently placed at your right-hand side, and he can faintly see hot vapor swirling out of the cup. Has it really gotten colder? You, on the other hand, are comfortably silent as you slice a piece of the shortcake he ordered for you, bringing the sweet to your mouth with a fork. He smiles as you munch—you really look cute like that.
“How do you like it?” He inquires, resting his chin on a hand while his other brings his own cup of latte to his lips. He still watches as he tips his head back slightly to drink, observing how your eyebrows scrunch up at the first taste. A second later, however, your eyes appear as if they’re twinkling and a smile slowly enters your face. When you look at him, he cocks a brow, a silent demand for an answer.
“It’s delicious,” you whisper, and a swell of happiness fills Akashi’s chest. It’s stupid, really—he shouldn’t be happy because it wasn’t him who made the cake, he merely suggested it… but as illogical as it is, Akashi welcomes the surge of joy (and a hint of pride) when he looks at you dig back in, cutting up the slice of cake into smaller pieces.
What he doesn’t expect is you holding up a fork with said cake at the pointy end in front of his face, dangerously close to his lips. You’re taking the effort to lean a bit forward to offer the cake—Akashi vaguely registers the brush of your knees against his. There’s something about the café’s atmosphere that makes the two of you feel a lot more intimate, despite sitting right next to a floor-to-ceiling window which allows bypassers to conveniently see what’s going on inside and vice-versa.
Akashi sends you a look that you interpreted as scolding, but not of the serious nature, but nevertheless, he leans forward to capture the cake on your fork into his mouth, all the while retaining eye contact with you. You blush a little bit because it feels different every time you feed Akashi something, and the fact that he was looking at you like that also sends a chill up your spine. He’s always teasing you like that.
“Somehow it’s better than the last time I tried it,” Akashi comments as he reaches out to take your hand in his, “maybe because you’re the one that fed me the cake.”
You try your best to stifle an embarrassed laugh by chewing your bottom lip, but a shy glance at Akashi is enough to bring your efforts useless. You let out a chuckle and play with his fingers that reached out to you on the table, your thumb drawing abstract patterns on the back of his hand. He returns with a chuckle of his own before quietly observing you again as the air around you turn into more of a resolute kind of silent. It’s not awkward, but there’s a certain amount of seriousness in his gaze that makes you feel like it.
“Thank you for coming today,” he says, soft enough just for the two of you, “I really appreciate it.”
“Please don’t thank me. If anything, I should be the one thanking you,” you reply, holding his hand a little tighter now. “I also thought it was a good idea to tell her…”
An hour ago, you were placing a bouquet of beautiful, fragrant flowers in front of the tombstone of Akashi’s mother, the two of you standing alone in silence as the wind run through yellow leaves. A cemetery certainly isn’t an ideal place for an eighth date, according to most people, but you’ve known Akashi for far too long and you understand him on a level that most people don’t. The redhead is silently thankful for that.
“Yes,” Akashi says, “we were too busy the past few months to visit, after all.”
“I’m glad you brought me there, Sei.”
He smiles in return, looking at your two hands linked together.
To fall in love with someone is to let the feeling flood under your skin before realizing its presence. In other’s eyes, Akashi is ever-precise and calculative, and they like to assume it applies to his love life as well. It’s not incorrect, but it’s also not necessarily true. After all, he didn’t plan on falling in love with you two and a half years ago, because at that time the feeling hit him like a truck. All of a sudden he lost a great amount of good night’s sleep staying awake thinking of you.
When he knows of your reciprocative feelings for him, only then he asked you out. You told him it took him a damn long time. He told you he wanted to be sure. The two of you kissed.
Although he has now fully accepted the fact that he loves you, he has never said those words to you before, neither have you to him. But today, when the two of you were standing side by side in front of his mother’s grave, he knows you know. More importantly, he knows that you feel the same—not just on a “like” level, but as far deep as he is. He knows you love him. That’s not enough for Akashi, however, so he pulls his hand away from yours, only to caress your cheek.
He brushes a strand of hair away from your face to stare right into your eyes. Your fork is forgotten, idly lying at the rim of the pristine white plate.
“I love you,” he says.
Two seconds pass by before you smile at him.
“I know.”
A question lingers in his eyes—at that moment, the confidence in him is completely shattered: what if you don’t love him back? but you don’t give room for his self-doubt as you reply.
“I love you too.”
He smiles. You probably didn’t catch him releasing a relieved exhale.
You tilt your head slightly, urging his hand to touch you more. His fingertips are warm against your cool skin. You always like it when he does this. Akashi brushes his fingers against the back of your ear, his palm cupping your jaw as if he were scratching a pet cat. You sure respond like one, he muses. Akashi wants to say that he’s been in love with you for two years and six months to date, but he has a feeling you already know.
“Can I kiss you?” He asks, gaze drifting downwards to your inviting lips.
Sudden shyness overcomes you as you avert your gaze, your hands flying up to cover the bottom half of your face. Akashi’s shoulders are moving slightly; he’s quietly laughing with amusement at your display of embarrassment.
“But… we’re right next to the window… a lot of people are passing by and they can see.”
Akashi smirks, using the hand on your face to keep you still as he leans dangerously close to your face, his head slightly tilted. Again, he steals a glance of your lips.
“I don’t care,” he states, and his breath against your skin causes you to shudder slightly. His eyes twinkle at your utterly adorable reaction, but he is not so cruel as to tease you again.
You look up at him, still shy like you always become when he makes such advancements in public. His knees brush against yours under the wooden table as he captures your lips between his in a slow, languid kiss, like the small steady fire burning inside his gut. Your eyelids flutter when he takes his time sucking on your bottom lip, before finally releasing it with a rather inappropriate wet sound, but he doesn’t waste his time in diving back for another kiss.
When he does pull away, half-lidded eyes examining how flushed your face is, he whispers against your ear.
“Stay at my place tonight.” He needs to properly declare his love to you. You blush and nod.
What a paradox. During the season of falling leaves, Akashi finds his feelings for you blooming, reborn a hundred times more powerful than when it first hit him. If he looks closer into your eyes, he’ll find that the sentiment is returned whole-heartedly.
Let's Otaku About It 