▲ lounging in the living room go ( to orion <3 )
send ▲ to pull my muse into your muse’s lap! ACCEPTING.
SHOUTA HAS NEVER BEEN EASY TO READ. couple that with orion being chemically terrible at reading people and you have a crush that never quite progresses beyond agonizing pining. in this case, it's a crush that has lasted for years, so many years that it's worn a groove in him. even now, lounging with shouta on the couch, orion's heartbeat flutters just the same as it did when they were in high school. he still loses the ability to speak when shou compliments him, and he still feels himself melt like a burning candle under the attention of those eyes.
something is different tonight. it starts with a conversation, a shared snack bowl, orion doodling in his sketchbook while they watch a show together. orion finds his eye wandering: the stubble, the knife-sharp line of his jaw, the wild hair, the corners of his mouth. all traits that have graced the pages of orion's sketchbooks and easels many, many more times than he'd be comfortable sharing.
it's when orion returns from the kitchen now, fresh off of chugging a glass of water (after, yes, forgetting for most of the day again.) that their called-from-another-room conversation falls into a lull of silence. a long look. in the silence, in the stare, shouta leans forward and takes orion's long and pallid hand in his.
even that small touch is enough to turn off every single thought in his brain. gone. a white screen, 404 error. is — ? is? at first he's not fully sure of the intent: there's a tug at his hand, down and toward. closer, it says, and he obeys wordlessly, every nerve in his body alight as he follows the other's gentle guiding until his long, spidery body is folded in shouta's lap. the hum, the sing of the blood in his veins.
❝ shou — ❞ just barely, the tremor in his hands flares. it's a side effect not of anxiety, but of adrenaline, a decade of yearning with no end in sight being acknowledged — accepted? — for the first time. worse in the left, the one shou's holding. despite it, he presses forward just a bit. those pale and uncalloused fingers, shaking fingers, brush over the stubble he'd been staring at earlier before coming to rest on his jaw. a smile, then. hopeful, a little afraid. there is still a chance he's reading all of this wrong. ❝ ... hi. ❞