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When Aoi awoke, he noticed the ache in his overextended neck before he became aware of his arm. It still had a deep sting from last night’s injury. He paid more attention to the uncomfortable itch from the sling he had fallen asleep wearing.
He did not remember falling asleep. He certainly did not remember the knit blanket currently draped over him, or the pillow softening the space between his head and the armrest of the couch.
He turned his eyes to the sound of footsteps. Light Field glowed in the fluorescent lights of the adjacent kitchen, an oversized white T-shirt hanging asymmetrically on his sharp shoulders. One sleeve was empty. Something about the sight was comforting, at least for a moment, until Light turned his head towards the living room and smiled, as though he knew he was being watched.
Aoi locked his breath in his chest and dared not move a muscle until Light moved out of sight. He remembered the mistakes he had made last night, the way his anxiety and pain shattered the guard he usually kept around his heart, the things he had let slip from his mouth, the desperate touches, the unfettered emotion. His left arm protested with a sharp sting when he tried to bring both hands to his face. With one hand and an ugly grimace, he pressed down on his tired eyes. When he lifted his hand, his vision sparkling as the blood returned to it, Light was walking straight towards the couch.
“Are you awake?” he asked, setting a small, full glass of water on the coffee table.
“Y-yeah,” Aoi said through a dry throat.
“Your breathing changed,” Light answered before Aoi could find a way to ask how he knew. “It sounds unsteady. Are you in a lot of pain?”
“No, it’s… it’s okay, actually,” Aoi mumbled. “Better’n last night.”
“It hasn’t been much time since last night. Your last round of medication may not have worn off yet.” Light waved his hand towards the glass he set out. “But, when it does…”
Aoi blinked. He had heard the glass touch the countertop in the kitchen and the water being poured into it, and he had seen Light bring it out to the living room, but he had not processed that this had been done for his sake.
“What… what time is it?” Aoi asked.
“It would likely take more effort for me to find the answer to that question than you,” Light said with a shrug. “I believe it’s still morning.”
Aoi bristled as Light turned his back. He felt his phone in his pocket still. He forgot what time he read when he unlocked it, too fixated on the low battery notification and the four messages he had received from Akane.
One was a selfie. A stunning image of her glowing, gently smiling face, overlaid with some kind of filter, perfect for posting online and garnering attention and admiration, if it weren’t for the open-mouthed face of a sleeping Junpei encroaching in the corner of the shot. She had sent it along with three texts: i love you, good morning!, and how are you feeling?
who says its a good morning, he responded. feel fine actually but
“Would you like breakfast?” Light asked from the kitchen. “Coffee? Tea?”
Aoi seized up in the middle of typing his message. “I can get stuff myself.”
“You don’t know where anything is,” Light replied.
He did not know, but he could figure it out, thanks to his working eyeballs. Rather than say anything to that effect, he finished typing: feel fine actually but im gonna die
“Are you sure you’re alright?” Light asked, his eyebrows knotted together with concern. His messy hair swayed a little when he tilted his head. “Your breathing really does sound uneasy. Do you need anything?”
“I’m… I’m fine,” he managed to respond.
i need him to stop being so goddamn, he furiously typed out in the time it took for Light to approach the couch. He could not figure out the adjective that encompassed Light, that made it so hard to breathe when he was near.
“Ah.” Light cocked an eyebrow and halted in his tracks just before the coffee table. “The breathing gets worse when I get closer. This is new.”
There was no way to respond to that. Even if there had been words, Aoi would never have been able to get them out after Light planted his hand on the armrest beside Aoi’s head and loomed over him, wearing a devilish grin.
“Charming as it is,” he said, “I do hope you can relax.”
Even as Light’s lips came closer, even as he felt their softness and tasted spiced black tea, Aoi could not believe what was happening to him. The events of last night seemed faraway and dreamed up. The moment when their lips met again seemed no more real. It was just a soft, slow touch to awaken his senses on a lazy morning. Aoi shuddered as the delight swept through his body, followed by a cold chill of uncertainty. When he reached his hand up to press against Light’s chest, it was because he was not sure he would feel anything solid there. He tried to sit up, to press himself closer to this impossible man, but his body was too weak to move.
Light snapped away and frowned. “You’re shaking,” he said softly. “Let me get you something to eat.”
Aoi could not speak through his panting to say that he was not yet hungry. It felt like he blinked and then Light was back in the kitchen. Slowing his breaths with his gritted teeth, he snatched up his phone again to finish his last message. Akane had already responded to the previous one with a teasing, hehe is something wrong?
yeah, he added to the beginning, i need him to stop being so goddamn
He still could not figure what the next word was supposed to be. A million could fit. Smart. Confident. Fucking gorgeous in a T-shirt and flannel pants. All of the above and more.
He deleted the words in the textbox and instead sent, why the fuck did you make me go home with him
She was quick, too quick, to respond. Thinking of her had linked their minds. She had watched him type.
because i always know what’s best for you even if you don’t <3
He huffed out a sigh and squeezed his phone to let off some of the steam building in his head. The volume button got trapped under his index finger. Akane’s next message made a loud chime.
is the word you’re looking for ‘intimidating’?
jesus akane im in a dudes apartment. no morpho
ohhh is it romantic already?? (i was only there for a second, promise. sorry)
Having spent most of the last evening unconscious, Akane had no idea just how romantic things had already gotten between the boys. After switching the phone back to silent, Aoi tossed it to the other end of the couch with another disgruntled sigh. The word she had suggested lingered in his head. It was another of the million words he could use to describe Light Field without ever being enough to fully capture his infuriating essence.
But it was one that he could use to explain himself. He inhaled, exhaled, inhaled again, and said, “You’re intimidating, y’know.”
Wearing an incredulous smirk, Light leaned into view of the living room. His T-shirt made a captivating shadow at the point of his hips. Aoi shut his eyes to stop himself from looking at it.
“How on Earth can I be intimidating?” Light asked with a chuckle. “I’ve got a body working at about seventy-percent functionality of most humans. I only make it over one hundred-fifty pounds because my left arm has metal in it. Ah—kilos, that’s about sixty-five, maybe seventy—”
“You fucking know why you’re intimidating,” Aoi snapped.
Light lowered his chin with a sheepish smile. “Yes, I suppose I’ve been a bit hypocritical, haven’t I?”
He took measured steps back to the couch. His fingers glided across the coffee table to come to Aoi’s side, where he knelt.
“Could I have your hand for a moment?” he asked, holding out his own.
Holding his shaking breath, Aoi stared at Light’s face, trying to discern his intention. He had to break the gaze to accurately place his hand in Light’s palm. His whole arm tensed up when Light traced the shape of his hand to determine whether it was left or right by the location of the thumb. He lifted Aoi’s right hand to the left side of his neck, pressing Aoi’s fingers under his chin.
A pulse throbbed—and sooner than it should have, it throbbed again. More than twice a second, it beat with fast blood.
“I am aware that I come across as an irritatingly confident prick,” he said with a small laugh, a nervous laugh. “I promise it’s entirely an act I’m not very good at dropping. But here’s a glimpse behind the curtain, as the saying goes.”
The pulse was slowing, but it still had not fallen to a true resting rate. Light’s lips were quivering in his smile.
“So then,” he said, “does that put us on equal footing?”
Still it did not.
Finally, Aoi recognized the phenomenon wreaking havoc in his head. He heard the voice of reason, the one repeating countless facts—Light had woken up this morning and chosen to kiss him again, Light wanted to make him breakfast, Light’s heart was racing just from sitting in front of him—and it could not shake his belief that Light Field was too perfect to stoop to Aoi’s level and wanted nothing to do with him. In a week, this fling would be over.
Recognizing a thought pattern caused by anxiety did not make the conclusions it drew any less believable.
“You don’t even like me,” Aoi muttered.
He had meant to ask it as a question—do you even like me—but it did not fall out of his mouth that way.
With a delightful laugh, Light moved his hand to Aoi’s cheek, stroking his skin with a thumb. “How many times do I need to kiss you on the mouth before you believe me?” he sighed. “Because I would gladly exceed that number.”
Aoi stumbled into the kiss Light drew him towards. The way his stomach flipped made it taste sour. He cut the embrace short and shook his head. “Why?” he demanded.
Light gave a half-smile. “You asked me that last night.”
“But you didn’t answer.”
“Do you want to know the truth?”
Aoi lifted his head very slowly, running his eyes all across Light’s face.
“If I’m being perfectly honest,” Light sighed, “it’s definitely for your money.”
The breath Aoi had been holding burst out in an aggravated sigh. “I fucking hate you.”
Although Light laughed, underneath Aoi’s fingers, his pulse stuttered. Light could not see how Aoi’s eyes went wide at the sensation.
“You’re a… an intriguing person, Aoi,” he said. “You’re quite different from me, which is likely what makes you so intriguing to me.”
This only fueled the fire under Aoi’s fear that Light was going to lose interest in him within a week. The only thing keeping the flames at bay was the sudden speed of Light’s pulse as he inhaled to speak again.
“I’ve known you for only a few short bursts over a long span of time,” Light said. “You’ve changed, of course, but at your core, you’re the same person I’ve admired all this time. I’ve always liked the way you manage to be both an extreme pessimist and a steadfast optimist at the same time. You see the worst in everything, yet you’re always determined to persevere. Even when things are entirely hopeless, you believe your own wits will get you through.”
He broke off into a shy laugh and dipped his head lower. His pulse accelerated further.
“Only I could try to make a heartfelt compliment and have it come out so belittling. I promise I’m trying to be sincere,” he sighed. “It’s entirely different from how I conduct myself, and I admire it. It’s that simple, on the face of it—I see who you are as a person, and I like it. I like you.”
There was no way to respond to that. Light was not going to give him a chance to respond, anyway.
It was as exhilarating as the first time he pressed his lips against Light’s in a frenzy of passion he could no longer contain. It was as intoxicating as the hazy, gentle embrace that made him forget the bullet in his arm as they tangled together in the backseat of a car, giddy to have escaped with their lives. Like the kiss Light had given him when he first woke up, this kiss felt like home. They hooked their right arms around each other, sharing a slow rhythm of fitting themselves together, pulling a few inches apart, and coming back together because they still wanted more, until Light suddenly jerked his head back and muttered, “Ah, shit.”
He swore so infrequently that, when he did, it still took Aoi by surprise.
“Remember when I was making you breakfast?” Light sighed.
At that moment, the scent of char in the air reached Aoi’s nose. Light slid back to his feet, wearing a pronounced grimace. The laugh that rolled out of Aoi's chest made him feel suddenly lighter. For the first time since he woke up, he was breathing deeply.
He found his phone slipping between the cushions on the opposite side of the couch. Without reading the messages Akane had sent him in the meantime, he typed, ok hes not actually perfect
The response came about a minute later. oh no… what happened?
good morning, he replied.