OOOOH BEAUTIFUL WONDERFUL, REMINDS ME OF SOMETHING I WROTE OWO
Leaning against the monitor was a photograph. He picked it up without hurry.
A beach. Sunlight, white sand, a clear sky. Perfect lighting.
Chiaki was standing on her toes, kissing his cheek.
Her face, always genuinely expressive. Her hair tousled by the wind. Her skin faintly flushed by the sun. And him... he was there. That was all.
He wasn’t smiling, not looking happy or uncomfortable.
Izuru studied the image carefully: the angle of the sun, the movement of the sea, the people passing behind them…
Then he looked back at himself.
He couldn’t remember what he had been thinking at that moment. He didn’t remember what he had been feeling either. He only knew that, back then, he hadn’t wanted to move.
He slid his thumb along the edge of the photo, thinking about his girlfriend.
About the way she talked about games with a seriousness that didn’t need justification, bout how she got excited over simple things and how she seemed to accept the world, not because it was good, but because it was “playable.”
How much she did for him without realizing it... and how little he did that could be called visible; Izuru knew he wasn’t affectionate. That he didn’t react the way the world expected. That his way of being made him seem distant, sometimes even indifferent.
But he also knew Chiaki loved him anyway
[Flashback to Chiaki's autism diagnosis]
He looked at the photo again.
Chiaki looked very happy, without being protected, without the need to be a symbol. Just content... That was enough.
Izuru placed the photograph back where it belonged.
“If this is what she receives from me… then it isn’t little,” he thought.
*And ofc Chiaki's point of view*
She got up, went to her desk, and opened the drawer where she kept important things that didn’t need to be on display; Notebooks. Her round Sega Saturn controller. And a photograph.
She took it out carefully, a very nice photo at the beach, she was on her toes, kissing his cheek.
Remembering the texture of the sand, the sound of the sea, the intense heat, the sun stinging her skin... looked at Izuru in the photo
He was as always, not stiff or uncomfortable.
She liked that he stayed by her side like that... She thought about how he didn’t ask unnecessary questions, respected her silences, and never tried to “fix” her.
And quietly told herself, "You can do this."
