Chapter Text
Akane Aoi was just heading home from his Student Council duties when he saw her — Ao-chan, cute as always, standing alone in the hallway. She must’ve stayed late for Gardening Club, but then why wasn’t she surrounded by friends, now? Nene Yashiro was probably off with him, Akane reasoned. With slimy Honorable Number Seven of the Toilets. Ao-chan looked small and cold, leaning against the wall, head bowed, even though she was already wearing her elegant buttoned-up jacket here inside. Akane had been admiring that jacket earlier; he’d told Ao-chan that seeing her at school was like finding a blue fairytale rose in a field of scorched earth. She’d given him “three points” for that one, and said two were because it had been a while since he’d used an over-the-top flower reference. Akane hadn’t been getting a lot of points with his confessions, lately, and he definitely hadn’t been getting any “Yes, I love you, too, Akane-kun!”-s. But then, Ao-chan jumped a little, when she noticed him walking past, out of the Student Council room. Ao-chan always kept her expressions so carefully planned, nowadays, like her soft smiles couldn’t falter, and her reactions weren’t allowed to be anything but uncontroversial and pretty. Still, there was an intensity in her eyes, when she looked at Akane, he knew it. A fury, sometimes. A wanting, that reminded him of how close they used to be. Ao-chan wouldn’t have wanted to stay in the hallway alone, when they were kids: she would’ve come inside the Student Council room to hang out with Akane until he was done. She would’ve always known she was welcome at his side — obviously, completely, forever welcome — and it would’ve been weird for her expression to stay so professionally still, even around him.
Why was Ao-chan angry? Was Akane misreading her, now? He knew she hid herself, and put on an act for strangers, but surely she had to know he thought she was amazing. Akane straightened his glasses and offered Ao-chan a smile. He started to compliment her — she was so patient, waiting at school after hours, her cookies for the bake sale had been so delicious and professional — anything to try and show her the way his heart got all restless as he looked at her, but Ao-chan cut him off.
“Those cookies weren’t anything special,” Ao-chan said, sweetly, but maybe with a dash of bitterness stirred in that Akane didn’t think anyone else they knew would’ve heard. She might’ve just sounded modest, to someone who didn’t think about the nuances of her voice so, so much of the time. “I set the best one from the whole batch aside last night. Do you wanna see it?”
“Oh! Ao-chan, of course, I —”
“Here it is.” Ao-chan reached out a slightly squashed cookie, held tight in a plastic sandwich bag in her coat pocket. The frosting was smeary, after having been carried around unrefrigerated all day, and it took a while for him to pick out the design. “This is the most perfect cookie I made last night, Akane-kun. Do you... do you think I’m wrong?”
Akane wasn’t sure what to say, for a second. He felt his smile flicker, and maybe there was something triumphant in Ao-chan’s eyes when it did. It felt like there was something here, something Akane was supposed to understand.
Then, he recognized what this frosting-picture was.
“Ao-chan, these are our gloves, aren’t they? You drew your lacy glove, and then one from my red pair...? I guess that is pretty perfect.”
“No —“ Ao-chan started to say. “I mean, they do look something like our gloves... but you can’t honestly look at this cookie and tell me it’s perfect, Akane-kun. It clearly isn’t. But I guess if you can’t see it for what it is, there’s no point, is there?”
“The cookie itself doesn’t need to be perfect for the story it’s telling to be, if you ask me...” Akane said. He lifted the squished cookie out of Ao-chan’s hand, and studied it closer. “It looks like our gloves are going on an adventure, or something. I’m almost jealous of them. That’s what I meant: it’s perfect. Our gloves together.”
“There are things that could be better...” Ao-chan said. Why was she glaring at him so helplessly? Didn’t she remember when they used to squish broken cookies into new designs, together? Why did she think Akane, of all people, would be super-picky about cookies? She made it — that was wonderful. It showed them together, somehow — wonderful. They were going somewhere in the snow — wonderful, wonderful, wonderful. Why weren’t they understanding each other, now?
“Ao-chan...” Akane wanted to ask what he could say to fix this. He wanted to ask why she pretended to be someone they both knew she wasn’t, from day to day to day. He wanted to ask why she looked at him like she was waiting for something, and what that “something” was so he could give it to her. But instead he asked, “Where are we going? You know, um — on the cookie?”
It looked like Ao-chan might not answer, for a long second. But finally she said, “The zoo. You can have that cookie, if you want it, Akane-kun. It isn't perfect, but you can have it if you want it anyway.”
Akane smirked. “Of course I do! I always wanted the imperfect cookies when we were kids, didn’t I?” A look like wonder, like recognition, passed through Ao-chan’s eyes, and was gone. But that was a start, wasn’t it? Imperfect cookies. Maybe it meant something, that Akane had said that so clearly. “Do you... do you want to go to the zoo, Ao-chan? We could go this weekend, you know.” We could go right now. Didn’t she know Akane would ditch school, even, to go wherever she wanted to go?
Ao-chan looked uncertain — she glanced over her shoulder, like people were always watching her, even through the wall. Always an audience, so she always had to say her lines just right. “Yes,” she murmured, though. “This weekend? Yes.”
“How many points do I get this time?” Akane asked. Maybe he was trying to make her smile, get her looking lofty and in her element again. Maybe he was teasing her. In the moment, it was difficult to say. His heartbeat was so shaking and loud.
They arranged to go to the zoo that Saturday, and Akane would make sure to wear his red gloves, to match the picture on the cookie. That’d be just perfect, right?