Akihiko is less than fond of how familiar it’s starting to feel, shuffling into the dorm in silence with the spectres of death and defeat hovering close behind them.
The juniors and Koromaru march in listless unison towards the stairs. Even Aigis is dragging her feet. Arisato and Takeba still hold Junpei propped up between them, sagging a little under his deadweight but grimly uncomplaining.
Akihiko slows to a stop just over halfway through the lounge. Mitsuru and Shinji linger beside him. They both look as wrung-out and weary as he feels, and he wonders if it’s also the same impulse overriding their exhaustion as it is for him.
He just isn’t ready to separate quite yet. The idea of being apart from either of them right now makes his blood ice over with dread, like they might vanish the moment they leave his line of sight.
It’s irrational, probably to the point of being stupid, but–
At least it doesn’t seem like he’s being irrational alone.
Akihiko and Shinji accept the offer silently, following Mitsuru into the kitchen. She settles into a meditative state as she prepares the tea, but Shinji continues to look tense, his expression stormy. Akihiko wants to ask about it, but for the moment he holds his silence. Mitsuru hands him his cup, and he lets the heat soak through the china and his gloves to warm his palms before he takes the first sip. It’s only then that it feels right to speak.
He berates the version of himself from three weeks ago, who hadn’t thought to ask that question when they’d believed Jin and Takaya had leapt to their deaths. There might be no love lost between Shinji and Strega now, but that didn’t mean that was always the case.
Shinji takes a long drink of his tea instead of responding. Mitsuru follows suit, so Akihiko does too. When they lower their cups again Shinji glowers into his like there’s some kind of answer inside that it’s withholding from him.
He sighs.
Silence ebbs over them again. There’s nothing else to be said, really. Nothing that could make what had happened tonight feel any less senseless and unfair.
They nurse their cups, huddled close enough for their arms to brush nearly every time one of them moves. Akihiko drinks in their nearness as much as he does the tea, lets it fortify him.
Soon enough there’s nothing left of their tea but the dregs. Akihiko still doesn’t want to go their separate ways, but the feeling’s jagged edge has been smoothed away, softening anxiety into sentimentality.
Shinji volunteers to clean up the kitchen, taking the empty cups from their hands with that gentle and incredibly fake brusqueness of his. Akihiko rolls with the sudden impulse to lean in and kiss his cheek as thanks– he is feeling sentimental, after all.
There’s no bite at all to the words and the color that’s burning at the tips of Shinji’s ears doesn’t fade even a little. Akihiko can’t help grinning, and Mitsuru politely pretends that it’s a yawn she’s hiding behind her hand instead of a smile. Deciding to be merciful, he and Mitsuru head for the stairs together.
They both slow to a stop at the landing. Akihiko eyes the shadowy impressions of the furniture in the lounge area, then glances back at the kitchen. It’s all too easy to imagine Shinji crashing on one of the couches instead of climbing the stairs to his actual bed.
When he looks back to Mitsuru, her gaze is returning from the same direction.
The smile Mitsuru offers is warm and genuine but utterly exhausted. He’s nearly overwhelmed by the urge to cradle her face in his hands and try to kiss the brittle edge of fatigue from her mouth; the impulse so strong that it makes his throat ache and his head swim with static.
He could. Just like with Shinji (less than twelve hours ago– almost twelve whole, entire hours ago), there’s nothing really stopping him. But…
It just isn’t the right moment. Not after everything that’s happened tonight.
There’s also the issue of the circumstances around their “technical” first kiss, and how regrettably, shamefully far from ideal they’d been. He can’t do anything to fix that, but he can at least try to make sure he gets it right this time. He wants more than anything to get it right this time– to create a memory that isn’t complicated and fraught.
Maybe that’s maudlin of him. Shinji would definitely say so (as if Shinji wouldn’t make the same choice for the same reasons in Akihiko’s shoes).
He reaches out and takes Mitsuru’s hands, squeezing gently. She had taken off her gloves to prepare the tea, and some of its warmth still lingers in her fingertips. He shifts his hold so that both of her hands are folded together in one of his, and wraps his arm around her shoulders to draw her close. Mitsuru settles against him as lightly as falling snow.
He can offer them both some comfort like this, at the very least.
His voice is slightly muffled by her hair. The warmth from his breath stirs up a faint scent of lilacs, the last echo of her perfume. She frees one of her hands and winds her arm around him in return.
He’d be content to stay just like this for the rest of the night, Akihiko thinks– but he really does need to get some sleep. There may not be any classes tomorrow, but he still has work to do for the boxing team. Mitsuru will have quite a bit to take care of too, no doubt. The world keeps marching onward, as oblivious as it had been to the last two life-altering disasters their team had endured.
Before he lets her go, Akihiko works up the nerve (or gives into the temptation, he can’t exactly tell which) to nose into Mitsuru’s hair and brush his lips against the crown of her head. When they pull apart her gaze is warm and the curve of her smile is a little less tense.
The kitchen really isn’t big enough for three people, and usually Shinjiro won’t tolerate having someone underfoot at all unless he’s playing teacher.
He doesn’t mind being crowded so much right now, though. Maybe it’s even kind of nice.
Nice in an incredibly weird and surreal way. He’s still not sure how to wrap his head around it.
Aki’d been right though, when he’d given his little speech upstairs. After everything the three of them have been put through together, turning his nose up at this chance wouldn’t just be stupid, it’d be downright ungrateful.
And to be honest, he’s tired of pushing them away. It’s not like it ever worked out the way he’d meant it to anyway, no matter how many times he’d tried it. Despite all his efforts to convince them to give up, they’re still reaching out to him– this time he’ll try reaching back.
Aki sticks his nose over Shinjiro’s shoulder like he’s never seen a pan of hot oil before. Shinjiro hip-checks him out of the way and tells him off for being a pest, but there’s no bite to it. Aki’s all smiles and zero signs of remorse.
There is no good goddamn reason why hearing that should make him feel like he’s just knocked back something high-proof and fiery, but here he is.
…Of course that was why she’d jumped straight back to ‘Aragaki’.
He’s spent so much time and energy overthinking the switch, and with just three half-finished sentences she’s dissolved all of that stress into something fluttering and soft.
Because of course she’d been playing some weird mental chess game with herself about manners. She practically makes a hobby of that– he can’t believe he didn’t pick up on it.
It’s unfairly cute for something that he’s been giving himself an ulcer about for nearly a week.
Goddammit, there really isn’t another way to put it. She’s adorable.
And he’s absolutely hopeless.
Mitsuru pouts for a half-second, although only someone with even less good sense than Shinjiro would dare to call it that. Before he can blink she’s back in full heiress mode, regal and serene.
…Okay. Alright. He really should have seen that coming, and it really shouldn’t have been enough to knock him flat on his ass.
But he didn’t, and it was.
So yeah, he is absolutely fucking hopeless.
Aki doesn’t bother to pretend that he’s coughing into his fist instead of laughing, but it’s the sheer fondness in the sound that gets to Shinjiro more than the fact that it’s at his expense.
Shinjiro beats the eggs for the breading with maybe a bit more force than he really needs to. The tips of his ears feel like he’s dunked them into the frying pan.
They don’t, technically speaking, stop distracting him, because just being around them has gotten him at least a little bit distracted for years now. It’s not so bad though, having the two of them talking and laughing close by, or occasionally brushing elbows. And it’s not terrible for his ego, either– how Aki repeatedly hypes up the katsudon and the way Mitsuru (Mitsuru) keeps making these small, impressed sounds like he’s putting on some kind of celebrity-chef performance.
It would be scarily easy to get used to this. The cynical part of him says that he really shouldn’t, because it’d be just as scarily easy to lose it– and it’s not as if that’s actually wrong. It’s not as if he’s forgotten.
But that’s exactly why he ought to really bask in every moment he does get, isn’t it? He should have figured that out ages ago, so there’s a lot of lost time to make up for.
And of course he can count on Shinji to ruin the moment. Really, why would he expect anything else?
The sound of Mitsuru laughing, soft but clear and light as air, cuts through their bickering before it can even really get started, as cleanly as a slice from her saber.
Her voice is warm and rich and agonizingly fond. Her eyes are so, so soft.
Akihiko suddenly feels short of breath. Shinji looks almost dizzy.
What was it he and Shinji were getting ready to pick a fight over just now?
Mitsuru hides more laughter behind her hand. Akihiko’s face floods with heat again, but somehow he can’t bring himself to mind all that much.
Briefly he wonders if that would count as their first or second date. Maybe their tour of Nijo Castle on Wednesday was a date after all– can something count as a date retroactively?
He knows better than to ask. He’d never live that kind of question down.
Akihiko’s mood has already been steadily getting more and more buoyant, and the prospect of Shinji’s cooking on top of it all makes him feel like he might float right out of his shoes.
At the same time, though, he can’t quite help himself–
Akihiko’s never been drunk, but this must be what it feels like, right? His head is cloudy, fizzy; his thoughts dart around too fast for him to catch; his joints feel loose and his chest is full of a pleasant warmth. He half wonders if he’ll be able to manage the stairs.
Well, if it turns out that his coordination really is shot, then at least he knows he can rely on Shinji and Mitsuru to catch him.
He stands, offering an assisting hand to Mitsuru and helping Shinji to lever himself onto his feet as well.
No one remarks on it, but as they head downstairs there’s less space between them than usual.
It’s honestly refreshing to have someone lay out all of Shinji’s good qualities. Akihiko had already known that Mitsuru gets it, that she understands Shinji, but god does it feel good to hear it said in true Mitsuru Kirijo style: elegantly stated and thoroughly cited.
For Mitsuru, specifically, to be the one presenting the evidence is also a good thing. If Akihiko had tried making the exact same points, he knows beyond a shadow of a doubt that Shinji would refuse on principle to accept a single word of it.
And maybe it’s also nice to see Shinji be the one getting flustered for once. He rarely ever shows that side of himself, even to Akihiko. It’s been that way since they were kids.
The whole conversation so far has only been round one, though, hasn’t it? They already have another challenge waiting for them.
“So, we’ve, ah–” Akihiko clears his throat. Slowly, Shinji thumbs the edge of his hat up to uncover one eye. He and Mitsuru both peer curiously at him, and Akihiko quails under their attention even though he’d literally just asked for it. “So with that all hashed out… What do we do now? I mean– Do we just– ah–”
His face feels scorched. Is this really so difficult or is he just that bad at it? He knows what he wants to say, so why can’t he actually say it? “Just– start, um–”
Shinji laughs, because he’s an asshole (and god, Akihiko really is beyond help, because the thought is tinged with as much fondness as it is irritation). As if Shinji has any room to talk anyway, when getting nice things said about him was all it took to make him run and hide behind his hat.
“Pretty sure the word you’re lookin’ for is ‘dating’, Aki.”
“I– Yes, thank you, Shinji. I was getting there.“
He’d been hoping that once the question had actually been asked out loud (mostly out loud), it would feel easier.
It does not feel any easier.
He’s out of his depth here. Despite his ‘fans’ and all of the interest they supposedly have in him, he’s never even been on a date before, let alone had any experience with dating as a continuous, ongoing state of being. Other people make this seem so easy– to hear some of his boxing teammates talk, they navigate this obstacle course more than once per school year. How?
Shinji laughs again. Akihiko is half tempted to punch him, but the closest shoulder is the bad one, so that’s not happening. Then the laugh trails off into something warmer, softer, maybe even a little shy, and that impulse to slug him fades away entirely.
“I mean. If you’re really serious, then– I’m not gonna say no,” Shinji says. The look on his face is complicated and hard to put a name to. Something between a soft smile and almost a grimace.
It’s relief, maybe. And if Shinji’s really been wanting this at least since they were fifteen (how on earth had Akihiko never noticed?), then– relief would make sense.
“Yeah, of course I’m serious,” Akihiko nods. “I wouldn’t have said anything if I wasn’t.”
They both turn to look at Mitsuru just in time to catch some kind of realization darken her gaze. Her summery smile wilts. Her mouth flattens into a tense line and she closes her eyes as though against pain– worse than pained, she looks guilty, somehow.
Something ices over in Akihiko’s stomach.
“Mitsuru?”
“I’m sorry, I…” Why would she think she needs to apologize to them? The chill slithers up into Akihiko’s chest and his heart spasms against it. “Nothing would make me happier, truly. But…”
Mitsuru trails off, as if searching for the correct words.
“But…?” Shinji urges quietly, leaning forward to prop his elbows against his knees. He’s using the same gentle cadence as he does with Yamagishi, and under nearly any other circumstance Akihiko would laugh about Shinji proving his and Mitsuru’s point so easily.
He’s never felt less like laughing. The sudden, careening nosedive the mood has taken leaves him nauseated.
“I’m afraid I may have gotten ahead of myself. I was so swept up in– in the excitement of it all, that I allowed a rather critical complication to slip my mind.”
Akihiko’s head bobs forward; it feels more like his body deciding to move on its own than him telling it to do so. Shinji nods too, prompting silently for Mitsuru to continue.
“Do you recall when I told you about– about my engagement?”
…Oh.
Akihiko does remember, now that she mentions it.
It had been during their first year, not long after the end of summer vacation. Mitsuru had come back to the dorms one afternoon after attending a business luncheon with her father, clearly off balance. By that time, he and Shinji both had become pretty adept at picking up when something was bothering her even when she made her best effort to hide it, and that day had been far from her best effort.
It had taken a lot of coercing (and a little bullying from Shinji) to finally get her to spill about what was wrong, but eventually she had confessed:
A match had been arranged for her with the scion of another powerful company, one of the Kirijo Group’s corporate allies. The luncheon had served as an introduction between her and her new fiancé.
Both he and Shinji had been aghast and incredulous about the whole thing, especially since by Akihiko’s recollection, this fiancé of Mitsuru’s is quite a bit older than her. Shinji’s view on the issue had been especially belligerent (Did he already have feelings for Mitsuru by that point? For Akihiko…?), but Mitsuru had eventually talked them into letting it drop. This kind of thing wasn’t unusual for families like hers, she’d said, and she had assured them again and again that she wasn’t upset, just caught off guard.
Shinji fidgets in his seat. He looks serious and somber rather than outraged like back then. “You ain’t married yet though, are you? Not for a while.”
“That was originally the case, but…” Mitsuru lowers her gaze. “The Kirijo Group is in a rather precarious position after my father’s passing, and it’s been decided that it would be in the company’s best interest to accelerate the timeline, somewhat. With regards to the– marriage.“
She bites the last word out like it tastes sour. Akihiko wants nothing more than to go over to her and hold her tightly, and to hell with manners, but he stays rooted in place.
“Accelerated it–” He swallows nervously. “By how much?”
“An exact date hasn’t been chosen as of yet, but the plan is for the wedding to take place soon after graduation. Within that same month, most likely.”
Shinji and Akihiko share a look, equally shocked. That’s so soon. That’s too soon. Forget anything to do with the two of them, Mitsuru won’t even have had the chance to live like a proper adult yet…
Would she still get the chance to attend university? To study abroad like she’s always wanted? What would it mean for her role in S.E.E.S. if they still haven’t gotten rid of the Dark Hour by then?
“I’m sorry.” Mitsuru lowers herself into an apologetic bow over her hands clasped in her lap, rendering the both of them speechless. “I realize now how terribly selfish it was of me to say all of this. I’m grateful that we had the chance to speak openly, but it was never my intent to– to bait you with the prospect of–”
Akihiko doubts she’s able to actually catch any of the individual words from his and Shinji’s overlapping protests, but she seems to get the gist at least. She sits up, looking mollified.
“Perhaps that was rather dramatic of me,” she murmurs, looking off to the side. “I suppose the truth is that– I feel as though I baited myself with the idea. I forgot myself, for a moment.”
Akihiko’s limbs finally seem ready to obey him again.
“Mitsuru, hey–” he says, reaching out one hand towards her. “Come over here, sit with us.”
For a moment she simply stares at him. Horror begins to creep up the back of his neck– that was way too forward, it had to be– but it’s quelled when she stands and crosses around the table. He and Shinji both shift a little to give her room to settle between them.
After a brief hesitation, Akihiko carefully (carefully) wraps an arm around her shoulders. To hell with manners, right? She’s trembling slightly, he realizes, but some of that tension drops away almost the instant he touches her.
Shinji seems to be having a hard time deciding what to do with himself (or maybe what he’s allowed to). Eventually he settles on lightly resting the back of his hand against her upper arm, which in Akihiko’s opinion is maybe one of the weirder, more awkward options he could have gone with. He’ll have to remind himself to laugh at Shinji later. Now’s not the time, though, because Mitsuru has started speaking again.
“I couldn’t be…faithful to you both. Any relationship with me would come with a predetermined expiration date. Neither of you deserve that, so, in that regard–” She takes a deep breath and squares her shoulders under Akihiko’s arm. “I think it would be for the best if the two of you just–”
“I don’t wanna hear you say we should just leave you out of it,” Shinji cuts her off, quietly but quick as lightning. Thank god, honestly, because Akihiko isn’t sure if he could have gotten his tongue to unstick from the roof of his mouth in time.
“Maybe whatever this is can’t be forever, sure. But if that’s your reason to stay out of this, then I shouldn’t be a part of it either.” Shinji continues. “After all, we still don’t know how long I’m even gonna be here.”
“Shinji–”
Akihiko speaks before he even has a chance to think about it, and Mitsuru does at the same moment, their voices overlapping.
”Aragaki…”
"I’m not goin’ anywhere if I've got any say in it.” Shinji makes a placating sort of gesture with the hand that’s not still touching Mitsuru’s arm. “I can promise that at least. I'm just sayin’ it still might not be up to me.”
That’s… that is true. As much as Akihiko hates that Shinji brought it up to begin with, he hates even more that Shinji is completely correct.
“But I know that neither of you’d ever let me even try that argument, so I’m not lettin’ you get away with it either, Kirijo.”
He really wasn’t expecting something like that from Shinji, and clearly Mitsuru wasn’t either. She looks stunned.
“He’s got a point, Mitsuru,” Akihiko urges, hope blooming in his chest again. “Maybe the future isn’t certain, but if that’s a reason for Shinji to go for it, then it can't be a reason for you not to. Right?”
Slowly, her gaze becomes chastened, then contemplative, and then–
Then she smiles again.
“Yes…” Closing her eyes, she tucks a curl of hair behind her ear. “Yes, you’re absolutely right. I– I can’t let this hold me back either. I won’t. I want to have this with you both, more than anything. Temporary or not.”
“Glad you’re listenin’ to sense.” Shinji’s clearly trying to sound nonchalant, but color has flushed back into his ears at Mitsuru’s proclamation. Honestly, hearing her say it so openly also has Akihiko’s head swimming with restless heat.
“But really…” Shinji trails off, then turns his attention to Akihiko. Akihiko blinks back in confusion. “You’re the only one out of us without something hangin’ over your head about this. We oughta be asking you if you’re sure you’re okay with that more than anything.”
Akihiko remains silent for a moment while he mulls over Shinji’s words. He’s really not used to being the somewhat ‘normal’ one in any group, even one as weird as his circle of friends. It seems insane to him– the fact that he doesn’t have any kind of illness or arranged marriage looming threateningly over his shoulder somehow increases the pressure on his decision.
But even knowing that there’s a time limit on this– this relationship, Akihiko feels more and more confident by the moment about what the right thing to do is.
They all want this, after all. They all know how it feels to nearly lose something vital because uncertainty made them hesitate.
But how does he say any of that?
How did they do it, seriously? If they’re experiencing anything even close to the absolute maelstrom that’s got Akihiko’s brain spinning in his skull, how did they ever manage to make something coherent out of it? He feels like he’s taking a test he hasn’t even tried studying for.
Akihiko takes a deep breath, leans forward on his knees, and lets the words come spilling out.
“...I'm– I've been stuck, for a long time, in this loop thinking 'if I had only done more' or 'if I had only worked harder' or 'if I'd only been better', then maybe I wouldn't have lost someone that mattered to me.
“But I've been getting a lot of second chances lately. I think I'd have to be an idiot to turn away from one of those chances because I'm afraid of what might go wrong, when I was…when I was lucky enough to get it at all."
He’s not sure where all that came from, but he hopes at least that he got his point across.“Akihiko…” Mitsuru murmurs. He lets his eyes dart up to meet hers only briefly. The expression on her face, and on Shinji’s for that matter, is too– just too much (hopeful, wounded, soothed, touched, warm...) for him to look at for longer than a moment.
Shinjiro’s gaze snaps up to meet hers, astonishment apparently overriding shyness.
“The–” His voice stumbles over itself. “You–”
It’s rare for him to be at a loss for words, and Mitsuru doesn’t believe she’s ever seen him so openly thunderstruck. Something about it makes her… uncomfortable. Perhaps even upset– not on her own behalf, but his.
“It–” Shinjiro clears his throat. “Is it?”
“That comes as a surprise?”
“I mean… Yeah.” He rubs the back of his neck uneasily, looking away from her again. “I could kinda guess that Aki felt that way, but I didn’t think– I had no idea about you.”
“Wait, what gave ME away?” Akihiko cuts in before she’s able to find the words or the composure to respond to Shinjiro’s unfinished presupposition.
Shinjiro blinks several times at Akihiko, then fixes him with a flat stare. Mitsuru gets the impression that he’s trying to look irritated, but he comes across as utterly bewildered, instead.
“....Aki, you literally almost kissed me that day in the hospital.”
Well, that’s certainly news to her. What day would that have been, she wonders? The same day as their shared second-awakenings, perhaps?
Faint pink blooms on Akihiko’s cheeks and the bridge of his nose almost immediately. The color slowly deepens across a series of indiscernible expressions, rose darkening to ruby.
She isn’t without sympathy for his embarrassment, but– it is a very endearing sight. One that more than makes up for the shock of only just now learning of this incident, in her opinion.
“O-oh,” Akihiko finally manages. “Right.”
“Did you forget?”
“NO.” Akihiko briefly squeezes his eyes shut. When he opens them again, he aims his gaze at the ceiling. “I just– I– kinda hoped you hadn’t noticed.”
“Yeah, I noticed,” Shinjiro snorts. “You weren’t exactly being subtle, Aki.”
Akihiko groans and covers his face, now claret-red, with his hands. Subtlety never has been his forte, and thankfully he seems to know better than to try and deny it.
“You didn’t say anything,” he wheezes, muffled.
“I mean, I was kinda high on painkillers at the time,” Shinjiro shrugs, either unbothered by Akihiko’s fall to indignity or, perhaps more likely, simply relieved that the spotlight has been redirected. “Couldn’t be sure if I was seein’ things that weren’t really there.”
“Well…” Akihiko’s hands are still tented in front of his eyes, but they no longer dampen his voice. “I guess now you can be sure you weren’t.”
“Guess so,” Shinjiro quietly agrees. “Glad to know it.”
“I didn’t– I mean, I– I hadn’t ever realized it until then.” Akihiko’s voice has gone soft and careful, like the admission is made of porcelain, fine to the point of translucency. “At least not in a way that stuck.”
“Yeah?” There’s an arch to the word, but it’s too gentle to be quite teasing.
After humming in affirmation Akihiko is quiet for a moment, and then:
“Shinji,” he says in that same delicate tone. “What Mitsuru said– Why is that so hard for you to believe?”
There’s a particular weight to the question, a history behind it, as though Akihiko is picking back up the thread of a conversation that Mitsuru had not been present for.
“I can’t say that I understand, either,” she says.
Shinjiro remains silent long enough that Mitsuru begins to think he has no intention of responding.
Finally, though, he does. “I don’t see why you would.”
For several moments all Mitsuru can do is stare at him, bogged down by confusion and more than a little dismay. Has she truly not made herself clear enough?
Then she remembers that she’s talking to Shinjiro Aragaki, whose allergy to being held in high esteem she has long been aware of and whose position as the most thick-headed person she’s ever met is rivaled only by the one sitting next to him.
Mitsuru thinks for a moment on how best to exemplify before settling on:
“You made me tea.”
Akihiko nods– he understands her perfectly. Shinjiro, however, clearly does not. His eyes dart around, and he shifts uncertainly.
“...I’m– I am… gonna need you to elaborate on that.”
Of course he would. Mitsuru shakes her head slightly, a warm spark of amusement glowing in her chest. She doesn’t mind spelling it out.
“You went to the trouble for no other reason than to be kind–” As she says this, Shinjiro fidgets again, lifting one shoulder in a half-shrug. She can practically hear him protest that the gesture wasn’t big enough to count as going to any kind of trouble; he seems to be aware of it, and doesn’t try to speak that point aloud.
“You claimed to lack expertise with tea, but the cup was perfect– you put forth the effort to ensure that it was. You took the time to prepare it how I would, even though by your reckoning I wouldn’t be able to tell the difference.”
“I mean. I coulda been lyin’ about that.”
“You could have been,” Mitsuru concedes. “But you weren’t.”
Shinjiro does not contradict her.
“You do things like that all the time,” she continues. “Even if you were to claim that each gesture was too small to mean much on its own, the pattern inarguably does.”
Mitsuru speaks on every instance she can remember:
He kept the entire dorm well fed in the aftermath of the last full moon. He had made sure that a good meal was waiting for her when she’d returned home, after the longest and most exhausting week she could ever remember having.
“He sure did do that,” Akihiko cuts in, rolling his eyes. “Even though he was supposed to be resting.”
“I already told you, I was gonna go stir crazy if I just kept sittin’ around.”
Mitsuru laughs softly and keeps going. He’d gone out of his way to make rice porridge for their leader when he had fallen ill during the typhoon. He’d done the same for Mitsuru and Akihiko as well, back when it was only the three of them in the dorm. And in Mitsuru’s case, it was before the initial animosity between them had fully cooled.
"And speaking of the typhoon, you also valiantly faced the beast in the attic for our sake."
Shinjiro groans. "Don't go bringin' that up."
She laughs softly. She’s tempted to prod further about him being unable to handle a bit of teasing when he’s so fond of doling it out, just to see how he might react, but instead she moves on.
“I know you’ve been making an effort to spend time with Amada. I’ve seen you studying together, or helping him with his homework–” Shinjiro mumbles something at a barely discernible volume about Amada being too sharp to really need his help, but does not properly interrupt her.
“Yukari told me that she’d seen you and Akihiko watching a movie with Amada the night before we left for Kyoto, as well.” Despite everything that’s happened, he’s still going out of his way to make things right between them.
“You change the way you speak when you talk with Yamagishi. You soften your voice around her.”
Akihiko chuckles behind his fist. “Even I noticed that.”
“Shut up, Aki.”
And then, of course, there was their first encounter with the Reaper, and everything Shinjiro had done for them during and after.
“Okay.”
She contemplates her hands where they lay folded in her lap. There are dozens of other moments she could cite; examples of his kindness, his ferocious loyalty, his warmth. Which should she choose as her closing argument?
Ultimately, she decides to bring things full circle, and return to her initial thesis.
“You remembered which tea blend I like best. In all the time it’s been since we’d ever spoken on the subject of tea, you still remembered something so small, and– it meant a great deal to me. That attentiveness–”
“Okay.”
Mitsuru looks up, startled. Had she said something wrong?
No, perhaps she hadn’t, if the scene in front of her is anything to go by.
Akihiko presses his knuckles against his mouth, presumably to stop himself from laughing. Shinjiro has pulled the edge of his hat down so low over his face that practically only his jawline is still visible. His ears are vibrantly, nearly incandescently red– and how on earth had she never noticed that charming little detail before?
“Please, just– just stop. I get it, alright?”
“Very well,” Mitsuru says. Her voice wobbles slightly– she is fighting valiantly to suppress her own laughter and is only barely managing. “I believe I’ve made my point clearly enough.”
What a treasure of a discovery: that the self-serious, implacable Shinjiro Aragaki can be brought to a state one might easily call ‘adorable.’
As the good humor softens, so too does Shinjiro’s expression. His gaze skates off to the side, growing distant. Mitsuru and Akihiko catch one another’s eye. Akihiko leans over and checks Shinjiro lightly with his shoulder.
Shinjiro gestures vaguely in a way that appears to indicate ‘everything,’ which elucidates nothing.
Briefly Akihiko matches his gaze with Mitsuru’s once again, and she has a feeling that their thoughts are closely aligned:
Usually Shinjiro demonstrates far more subtlety when he tries to hide something.
Akihiko folds his arms and scoffs.
Ah, so he does have a timestamp, after all. Akihiko looks a little too stunned to call him out on the lie this time.
He averts his eyes.
The implication hangs heavily in the air. Akihiko seems to decide, wisely in her opinion, against dwelling on it. Mitsuru opts to jump back to a topic that may be slightly less fraught.
Shinjiro glowers down into his lap, his mouth thinning into a tight, sheepish line. Evidentially he’s only now realized what he’d let slip.
He continues to pointedly avoid eye contact with either of them. There is most certainly more that he isn’t saying– Shinjiro’s ability to maintain his trademark opacity truly does seem to have abandoned him this evening. Mitsuru will hold off on probing further into it for the time being. She’s already demanded a great deal of vulnerability from him throughout this conversation.
He sighs, world-weary as always.
His tone is no different than any of the other, numerous times he’s used that nickname to underline his exasperation with her, but…
Context makes all the difference, it seems. And this context has Mitsuru’s heart leaping into her throat, her pulse suddenly rabbit swift.
At some point she had begun to dig a fingernail into the skin of her thumb. Thinking of Shinjiro’s admonishment before the trip, she folds her hands in her lap, thumbs tucked under her palms, to try and quell the restless urge to fidget.
