Chapter Text
It’s, simply put, a beautiful day.
Akihiko opens his eyes, his heart still beating fast despite the long rest after a jog. Clouds are breezing above like puffs of clustered bath bubbles, slanted light shining through the breaks in between to illuminate their contours in bright yellows. There’s a gentle wind, just cold enough that he half-unzipped his red hoodie to cool off the sweat glistening down from his neck.
He's sitting on the horizontal bar, the long morning shadows of the trees painting part of the playground in stripes of ink, delicately running the tip of his fingers against Minako’s shoulder. She’s standing below on his left, her back to the bar and her head barely leaning on his knee, her ponytail writhing in the breeze like so many coppery snakes on his lap.
A cellphone rings in some beaty melody and stops soon after; her hand is snoozing the alarm in her pocket.
It’s been at least 5 times.
They’re probably in some trouble at this point, they need a shower before school and at least a decent snack; they ran here pretty hard and they barely slept.
I should probably care. I can’t. Not today.
Forever or barely a minute passes, but eventually the alarm rings again. This time, Minako takes a glance at the clock on the cellphone by barely sliding it out of her hoodie pocket, never moving from her position.
“…We can make it if we run back.”
…………………………
The monorail is packed again since it’s the last one that gets to Gekkoukan on time. Apparently, summer makes everyone late, so they’re stuck standing in the crammed space. Akihiko is shielding her from most of the crowd and holding on the handrail above. Minako is standing facing him but eyes on the passengers, earphones on as usual, her arm above to steady herself as well.
Except her burning hand is on his exposed inner wrist, her fingers resting in his palm inside his glove, and nobody is none the wiser as he stares at the sea, waves crashing in his mind.
…………………………
Akihiko leaves boxing club with a stack of instruction plans and a few notebooks filled with stats to peruse. A lot of the training regimen on the team needs adjusting before the regionals to give them that last good push and it’s not something he can scribble on the fly. He could wait for tomorrow and prep it in the afternoon for club week, but that would be cutting it short.
Sighing, he makes a stop at Hakagure instead of the dorm; better to nail this now and keep tomorrow free, it’s Sunday and there’s no school. Needing the space, he takes a table at the back, orders his meal, and takes all his paperwork out with a sigh.
This might take a while.
…………………………
It’s early evening by the time he gets back to the dorm, somewhat jittery. They’re going to Tartarus again tonight and he just wants to unwind a bit, perhaps he can slide in a short routine to warm up beforehand.
He walks in the lobby and Minako is sitting in a corner of the larger sofa, holding what looks like a handheld game console. By herself, for a change.
“Oh, hey, you’re back.”
She flashes him a smile and keeps pushing buttons, then sighs and shakes the device in the air like it offended her.
“Goddamit, again!”
Curious, Akihiko places his bag on one of the seats and folds his jacket on top before sitting next to her.
“What’s this?”
She reorients herself somewhat to the side so he can look over her shoulder at the screen.
“Junpei’s been having issues with this boss, and I promised him I’d take care of powerleveling his team since he did so well yesterday, but his equipment sucks.”
He raises an eyebrow, laughing.
“Are you bribing him with video games?”
Minako chuckles, making a haughty pose.
“Hey, a good leader uses anything at her disposal to keep the morale high. Plus, if I fix that gear and update his party, he’ll owe me a favor. I can use that.”
Maybe it’s her smug voice, or her teasing streak that he rarely gets exposed to, but he’s feeling cheeky suddenly and he smirks at her.
“A good leader makes do even if the parameters suck.”
She eyes him with mock outrage.
“Are you saying I’m not?”
“No that’s not it, quite the opposite, you’re good because you can adapt, and I respect that.”
Minako huffs playfully, slightly blushing, but he’s smirking still.
“Now prove it.”
She narrows her eyes in reply, piqued.
“Is that a challenge?”
Oh oh, she’s worse than Shinji!
“If you want. If you can’t do it first try, you owe me a favor.”
“Wow, and I thought you believed I was a good leader a minute ago. You’re on!”
She side-eyes him with something of an evil stare, but reboots the console and reloads her savegame, pursing her lips all the while. She’s going through the menus for a bit, grumbling about Iori being a dummy and can’t he figure out to leverage accessories, then speaks up.
“Alright, I’m ready, look over if you want, in case you think I’m cheating too.”
Someone’s a little riled up.
He chuckles but looks over her shoulder nonetheless as she engages the boss. Her eyes look intense in the reflection of the game console, scrounged and darting every which way to direct her virtual party members.
The good thing to do would be to let her win and she probably will at that, but the competitive streak in him really wants that favor. There’s absolutely nobody around but they could come back any second and her back is turned to him, the screen raised at somewhat of an angle so he can observe.
Akihiko leans over to get a better view and there’s something in the reflection of her eyes on the glass that wavers. His brow furrows, and the dawning realization that he’s always looking at her from the back without a window to her reaction hits him like a ton of bricks.
It’s not cheating, not really, it’s just going to be incidental. Curiosity is ramping up the cacophony of sound in his mind and he leans closer, not touching her, just enough she can feel him.
There it is again.
Her eyes are twinkling and she exhales slowly. He just takes two gloved fingertips to the middle of her spine and trickles them down slowly, barely brushing the fabric, watching her eyes widen by proxy. His ears are buzzing, dimming the game’s sound to a murmur.
Score.
“If you tickle me and I break this, you’re paying for it!”
I don’t care.
She’s still playing, and he lets his fingers trail back up, watching her bite her lips in furious concentration in the game’s backlit glass. He couldn’t care less about how her boss fight is going, he’s just entranced by the intensity churning in those rubies.
Minako is still wearing her school ribbon, holding her shirt collar high, but her head is angled a bit down. Just enough that he can tickle his nose with her hair and breathe slowly on her neck, lips parted, amazed at the fluttering of her lashes.
There’s a galaxy of vivid and specific memories standing somewhere in the very padlocked backroom of Akihiko’s brain but a single one escapes, and he catches it in passing.
His parted lips are barely a hair from her earlobe when they hear a sound and jump in fright. It’s Ikutsuki, standing in the open doorway of the dorm, with his hand on Ken’s shoulder.