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The world seems a little fuzzy around the edges as Akito feels himself get down on one knee, and Touya’s widened eyes come into his field of vision.
“Will you marry me?” Are the words Akito speaks, but they currently feel like they’re just floating about. He didn’t feel himself saying them, but he can feel the arms thrown around his shoulders as Touya gives an immediate yes.
The lights around them feel too bright as well, making Akito squint as he holds the other man — he feels so warm, which is also strange to Akito. Touya has always run cold. Maybe he’s sick?
Touya says something that Akito can’t make out, and hears his own voice in response. Also too faint to make out. Touya laughs, and Akito’s chest tightens at the sound. Their hands intertwine, and everything feels normal again.
The feeling never quite leaves, even as Akito’s surroundings begin to warp, leaving him disoriented and vaguely nauseous. When everything finally settles, Touya is standing in front of him, white suit and hair slicked back at the side while squeezing the life out of his hands — he looks around, trying not to appear too lost. He spots Ena in the front row— so many people, why? — looking tearful despite her smile. His eyes fall to Mizuki sitting right next to her with almost the same expression, and then it hits him.
My wedding?
The voice of the officiant drones on in his right ear, sending a chill down his spine — he still can’t understand what’s being said. His chest feels tight once more, and then he hears Touya’s voice as well.
This time, he knows exactly what is being said.
He understands why his heart feels like it’s about to explode as Touya recites the vows he had spent several months agonizing over, trying to figure out the right words to say. He feels the amount of love weaved into every syllable, and he can’t stop the watery smile that makes its way onto his face. Tears are quick to follow, and Akito immediately goes to blink them out of his eyes, squeezing Touya’s hands back just as tightly.
The next thing he opens his eyes to is completely different, but still familiar. The weight of Touya’s hand is still in his, but they are in a different type of spotlight, music thrumming through his chest as he feels the weight of more eyes on him. He feels himself spin, and as Akito makes more sense of where he is, Touya’s hand comes to rest on his cheek.
“What’s wrong?” Touya asks, thumb moving gently over Akito’s cheekbone. Akito smiles, shakes his head, his eyes flick to the floor they have occupied the center of. They have been swaying together, but then the song changes to something a bit more upbeat.
When Akito looks back up at Touya with the intent to change up their dancing, something in his stomach drops. Touya’s expression directly contrasts the upbeat music in the background, and there are suddenly several other couples around them now, also dancing. Eyebrows are furrowed, eyes cast to the side — Akito knows this expression through and through. What he doesn’t know is why Touya is making it right now.
He tries to remember if he said anything and comes up empty. In fact, he doesn’t remember when everyone else made their way onto the dance floor either. Akito instinctually steps away from Touya’s touch, but almost trips over his own feet while he’s lost in thought. Touya immediately has his hands on his waist to steady him.
The pained expression from earlier is gone — the original joy having returned, somehow. Akito just feels confused, and hopes that it doesn’t show on his face. Touya laughs and pulls Akito closer once more, just staring down at him as if he had hung the stars in the sky himself. One by one. Akito feels drawn in, also unable to look away from his — well, his husband until Touya’s hands have returned to his face. Everything becomes more and more blurry as he moves closer, and Akito wonders if it’s just because of how close their faces are. When Touya’s lips finally connect, Akito feels everything and nothing at once. His ears are ringing, Touya’s touch suddenly disappears, and it’s like the ground has moved out from under him.
The next thing he knows, he’s staring at a familiar and old vending machine. It’s dark out, and there’s a slight breeze. It’s pleasant. He feels content, and turns his head when he hears Touya’s voice.
They are younger now — Touya is sitting on the bench that they’ve basically claimed as their own turf. There’s the most apparent smile that Akito has ever seen come from the guy settled onto his lips, and Akito smiles in return.
“It’s the first time my birthday’s been this lively,” Touya starts. Akito quickly looks back to the machine in front of him, remembering what he was in the middle of doing. He looks back to Touya as the drinks are dispensed.
“Shiraishi and Azusawa made some coffee jellies. While Meiko-san and everyone else made a cake.”
Akito scoffs, but the smile on his face is huge as he joins Touya on the bench.
“What? Don’t tell me you’re expecting me to make some cookies for you too.”
It’s a joke, but Touya’s expression immediately softens as he accepts the can of coffee Akito is offering.
“Of course not,” Touya raises the can, smiling to himself as he gathers his words.
“Simply having you by my side like this is enough.” Akito raises his can as well, the tips of his ears warming at a rapid speed.
Touya continues speaking at the same time that Akito’s ears start ringing again, effectively drowning out his next words. Their cans clink together while Akito is still trying to recover from whatever the hell that was, and a weak “yeah” leaves his mouth.
Touya seems none the wiser as Akito sets his drink down and brings his hands up to his face, rubbing at his eyes briefly. Maybe he’s just tired. They did a lot today, after all.
But, when he removes his fists from his eyes, their drinks are gone. A significantly taller, older Touya sits next to him on the bench, looking off into the distance, and every hair on Akito’s body stands up.
Again, something here is wrong, but he can’t tell what. Not until Touya takes a deep breath and finally turns to face him. Akito immediately feels like he’s been stabbed, or maybe had a thousand bricks dropped onto him. Touya’s eyes are red-rimmed, and there’s still more unshed tears gathered there as well. Akito sits there, staring back. His mouth wide open like a fish as he attempts to figure out what the hell was happening. They helplessly stare at each other, neither willing to break the suffocating silence.
A car drives by, and the headlights reflect off of something on Touya’s hand. He immediately recognizes it as the pair to the ring on his own, and a feeling of overwhelming dread makes itself at home. He stares at the way their hands lay next to one another, in the gap between their bodies. It feels wrong. Wrong to even be sitting so far apart. Touya takes another breath, and Akito wishes for him to stop. To just let the silence continue.
“I can’t do this anymore, Akito.”
Touya’s hand balls into a fist atop the bench, and Akito fights the urge to place his own hand over it. He’s still extremely confused about how he wound up here.
“What…what do you mean by that?”
Akito can barely hear his own voice, the question sounding more like a low rumble than anything. Touya’s breath hitches, and he starts biting at the inside of his cheek. Thinking again.
His next words are sickeningly familiar.
“I won’t be your partner anymore.”
Touya begins to stand, hand coming to wipe his eyes. His ring presses into his skin a bit, and he drops his arm back down as if he’s been burned, staring down at his ring finger. Akito’s eyes follow every movement as he wills himself to say anything. To do anything, before he loses Touya for good.
Touya’s opposite hand moves to slip the ring off, but Akito scrambles to take his left hand before he can. He’s still staring at the ring, hands shaking as he clings to what he can still reach.
“Why? Why not?” Akito hates the petulance in his voice, curses it even. Touya is free to make his own decisions, he’s always said that. Reminded him over and over. Is it selfish to want to change this one just because he feels so crushed?
Touya stills, and goes silent. The strange ringing returns, as well as the weird distortion of his surroundings — it’s like he’s in two places at once. He can feel a hard surface on his cheek, also annoyingly pressing into his chest. There’s the buzz of multiple conversations, and a bell. There’s someone calling his name, over and over. Louder each time.
At the same time, he watches Touya’s hand try to move out from his grip, and panic surges through him. Touya’s mouth forms one word, Akito’s own name, but it is way closer to his ear than it should be, and startles him.
Right after, he’s thrusted into reality as his knee smacks into the bottom of his desk.
“Ow, fuck, fuck..” He’s still half asleep, mumbling to himself.
“Akito?”
He almost smacks his knee into the desk again as Touya’s voice is still way too close to his ear. He finally lifts his head and opens his eyes.
His own classroom fills his vision, as well as Touya’s slightly worried-slightly amused expression as he moves out of Akito’s immediate space. The next thing he blearily notices is the death grip he has on Touya’s hand. He stares for a good 30 seconds, eyebrows furrowing in confusion as he blurts out what is potentially the most embarrassing thing he has ever said in his life.
“Where’d your wedding ring go?”
There’s an uncharacteristic panic to his voice as Akito finally fully sits up, tugging Touya’s hand closer to look at it. Touya almost stumbles, caught off guard by everything that had just happened.
Touya knows Akito has finally realized what he’s doing when the other freezes, shoulders tensing. Immediately followed by the tell-tale wide eyed stare that he directs up at Touya.
“Shit, sorry,” he still doesn’t drop Touya’s hand, instead rubbing his face with his free one.
He pauses with his hand sort of shielding his eyes.
“I’m gonna explain. Don’t laugh at me or I’m not eating lunch with you for a month.”
They both know that’s a flat out lie, Akito could barely make it a week without the other when they had their little fight before.
“Alright.”
Akito hesitates for a moment and then moves his hand away from his eyes, instead rubbing at the back of his increasingly flushed neck. Even his cheeks are red, which Touya almost wants to point out as it’s a somewhat rare sight, but he holds that back. For now.
“I had this really weird dream, right,” he finally glances at Touya, falters, and then goes back to glancing around the classroom. He’s so glad no one else is in here. Touya nods at him to continue.
“We got married, and, like— well, it was pretty nice but a bunch of shit seemed sorta off, like you would look fine one minute and then upset at me the next, that type of thing,”
Touya’s mouth opens as if he’s about to interrupt, but he just closes it again. He can feel heat starting to prick at the tips of his ears as Akito continues.
“I went from being at our wedding—” Akito abruptly stops as he recalls the details of that part of his dream, and then quickly shakes his head as if to physically shake the memory of kissing his partner out of his mind. Touya simply continues to look mildly confused.
“We were at our wedding, obviously, cause it’s our wedding. But, stuff kept getting all weird, my ears would start ringing and then we’d be some other place?”
Akito frowns, and then realizes he keeps cutting himself off, and needs to get to the point.
“Basically we were sitting at the bench we usually go to and you told me you couldn’t be with me anymore.”
Touya immediately frowns at that. He briefly averts his eyes and Akito wants to console him, telling him that he’s not upset about their old fight still, but Touya beats him to it. With a completely different comment.
“Aren’t you supposed to at least be dating the person before you marry them?”
Akito blinks.
“Huh?”
Touya goes back to the small, amused smile he had worn when Akito woke up.
“Well, you’re dreaming about our wedding, yet we aren’t even dating.”
Akito stares at him, trying to formulate a response. He shouldn’t be shocked by how blunt the comment is, it’s actually what he should have expected in the first place.
He settles for just squeezing Touya’s hand, stunned expression melting into something more like his usual.
“Maybe we’re just an unconventional couple. Ever consider that?” He teases, enjoying the way that Touya’s amusement is replaced by wide eyes.
“So we are dating?”
Akito laughs, covering his face with his hand again. Neither of them have been particularly subtle, and he’s honestly not sure why it took some weirdly vivid dream for them to finally talk about this, but. He nods.
“If you want to be, then yeah.”
Touya’s face immediately lights up, and he nods. It’s not the most romantic of confessions, and Akito is sure An will be teasing him for months to come about how this all went down; but for now he’s content to finally grab his bag and tug Touya out of the classroom.
“Come on, partner, we’re gonna miss lunch.”
If anyone notices their intertwined fingers as the pair weave through students, Akito hauling the other down the hallway, nothing is said.
“Slow down, you’re going to pull my arm off.”
Touya’s quiet laughter makes Akito feel like he’s floating, and the pair continue to banter as they make their way through the halls.
Later, after Touya recounts every detail of Akito’s dream, An’s hysterical laughter makes Akito’s ears ring just as bad. He pushes her out of his ear, putting on his best grumpy face as he tries to tell her off. Everyone simply watches the banter, Kohane just barely moving an empty coffee cup out of the line of fire while the two push and prod at the other.
He can’t really find it in himself to be truly embarrassed though, as Touya smiles at him from across the table, dyed in the colors of the Street Sekai’s sunset.