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“Hey dude, check this out!”
“Hm? A quiz to find out what your love language is…?”
“Yeah! It says mine is gift giving.”
“As if… You haven't paid for lunch since middle school, you know.”
“Hey, do you think Yuki-chan will like me if I do this more?!”
“How am I supposed to know…?”
“Love languages, huh…?” Akito found himself musing as he eavesdropped on his classmates' conversation – not with any sort of intent; it was just difficult not to listen in when they were being so loud.
For the life of him, Akito would never be able to figure out why some people were so obsessed with putting a label to everything. You like what you like, and nothing else should matter. There wasn't any point to inventing a million different rules to navigate through.
That being said, he was in a relationship with Toya, which ended up stoking his curiosity just a little bit. Call him weird for it if you want, but Akito took an iota of strange pleasure in studying his partner's habits like a biologist peering into a microscope. This was what pushed him to search up the topic of ‘love languages’.
Words of affirmation, quality time, receiving gifts, acts of service and physical touch. Some articles spoke of myriad different ‘subtypes’ and ‘attachment styles’ and whatnot, but these five seemed to be at the core of it all. Still, it was a bit difficult for Akito to wrap his brain around it. Weren't you supposed to do all of this stuff for your partner by default…?
“Maybe it's about what feels nicer to you.” was the subsequent conclusion Akito came to. Looking again, he did see a bunch of people drawing a line between giving and receiving – like if you enjoyed giving gifts to your partner but preferred physical affection from them in turn.
“I wonder what Toya's would be…” Akito thought to himself. At a glance, the answer was ’anything Akito does’, but leaving it there felt way too half-assed. He understood how Toya's mind and heart worked better than anyone – in fact, it sometimes felt like that included the boy himself. He could dig way deeper than this.
“Akito?” came the sudden voice of Toya alongside a demure knock against the classroom door, unintentionally plating up an opportunity caressed by Midas. “Are you ready for lunch?”
Come to think of it, they didn't make any explicit plans to have lunch together today… Maybe Toya preferred ‘quality time’, then? He did have a longstanding habit of following Akito around like a lost puppy. He was always pawing around for an excuse to stay by his side – even if the task at hand barely required one person, let alone two.
Ever since middle school, there always seemed to be this unspoken comfortableness between them. Whether they spent their time chatting the hours away, sweating out their latest dance routine or simply laying in silence while they went about their individual business, spending time alone together had always been something special between them.
“Akito?” Toya called again, dragging the boy in question from his ill-timed contemplation. “Did you hear me?”
“Oh…” Akito tucked away his phone, scooping up his belongings as he hurried to accompany his partner. “Yeah, I'm comin’.”
“Did anything happen in class today?” asked Toya as they made their exit, prompting them to disappear into idle chatter. It was sort of like a daily ritual for them, yammering on about what happened while they were apart as if that measly hour's worth of schoolwork had taken a lifetime to wade through.
“Oh, dammit, don't tell me I forgot it…” Akito ended up muttering as they encroached upon their usual lunch spot, the increasingly desperate patting against his bag bringing nothing but disappointment. “Sorry, Toya. Guess I gotta make a detour to the school store real quick.”
“No need.” Toya insisted with a shake of his head, calmly unzipping his own bag and beginning to rifle through. “I passed by earlier and noticed they restocked that curry bread you like, so I went ahead and bought some for you.”
“Wh-” Akito froze up in shock as a quintet of bread packages were produced from Toya's bag, spread out in his hold like a hand of cards. “Thanks, but why the heck did you get so many…?”
“You eat a lot sometimes.” Toya spoke simply. Coming from anyone else, Akito definitely would've taken offense – but he knew his partner better than that, so his only punishment was a playful bap and a scoff.
With that, the two of them sat down and began to tuck in. The juxtaposition of Toya having an actual lunchbox – bearing rice balls; somewhat of a rarity when he usually chose foods that paired better with his favorite canned coffee – while Akito tore open some prepackaged bread was a bit silly, but he was starved enough not to bother himself with conventions.
“...Is it good?” Toya asked as Akito took a frankly hulking bite. He stared at his partner undisguised, that ever-weakening look of endearment stretching out the corners of his eyes and mouth. Akito wasn't sure why Toya liked to watch him eat so much, but the weight of his scrutinizing gaze had yet to fail in turning his cheeks bright red.
Actually… When he put his mind to it, Toya really liked studying his reactions, didn't he? Not just when he was eating – he'd sneak a glance during performances, keep a trained eye on how his facial muscles flexed as he talked… And, of course, he'd shower Akito with little gifts, awaiting confirmation of his satisfaction like a penguin offering a pebble to its mate.
‘Gifts’... Would it be accurate to call that Toya's love language? He did it so often that Akito had a whole box full of related keepsakes in his room – plushies from the arcade, lent CDs, various matching accessories… and that wasn't even mentioning the times Toya had gone out of his way to win him concert tickets for his favorite artists and coupons for the snacks he liked.
The real kicker was that he knew Toya was far more meticulous in this regard. It didn't matter if it was something as major as those expensive headphones he'd given him for his birthday or that tacky list of music recommendations he drew up nearly 4 years ago. Toya cherished everything he received from Akito as though it were an incomparably priceless treasure.
“Akito?” Toya once again repeated. With a curious tilt of his head, he waited for the boy in question to finish the bite that had long since been pulverized into mush in his absence of mind.
“O-oh. Sorry.” said Akito, finally swallowing with a quick prayer that Toya wouldn't catch onto his apparent scatterbrainedness and start to worry. “Yeah, it's delicious. You want a bite?”
“That's alright. I bought them because I thought they would make you happy.” Toya hummed, taking a far more elegant bite of his own lunch just to punctuate. There he went again, spewing lines that sounded like something straight from a romance manga without even thinking…
Still, his choice of words kickstarted the gears of Akito’s brain back into motion. Could the gesture be more about doing him a service than anything...? It certainly checked out with Toya’s usual MO. He was the one who once shouted at Akito to rely on him more, after all.
For a while now, the self-imposed expectation of being a ‘pillar’ for Akito seemed to dictate everything Toya did. Obviously, that entailed doing everything he could to support Akito on a level both professional and personal, but this mindset also reared its head in ways so miniscule that most would find it completely unnecessary.
When they had to enter a building, he would practically jump to hold the door open. When they passed through the park, he’d subtly form a barrier between his partner and any incoming dogs. When they ate together, he would always volunteer to pick up the check even when Akito was the one to invite him out. He could barely count the number of times Toya had gone severely out of his way just to grasp the satisfaction of knowing he’d taken a load off his partner’s shoulders.
In a way, one could suppose he picked up that habit from Akito. He’d do anything for Toya no matter how bullheaded it required him to be, and it appeared his pristine partner had since rendered himself just as eager to butt his horns. It was one of many reasons they were perfect for each other, though perhaps the way in which this all crossed his mind made that conclusion a bit dramatic.
“Looks like you were hungry after all.” Toya’s voice cut through Akito’s inner dialogue for what felt like the millionth damn time in the last 20 minutes. Contrary to his prior silent doubts, it seemed like Akito indeed managed to end up smashing five packages of curry bread in a row... Bulking season was several months off, too. He was getting too used to Toya spoiling the life out of him.
“We should have a little while before our next period starts.” Toya continued, injecting an extra dose of humiliation alongside the knowledge that Akito had eaten that much with time to spare. “Do you want to lay down while you digest?”
“Huh…? No, I should be…” Akito trailed off when he noticed the shift in Toya's position. It didn't take a rocket scientist to pick up what he was trying to suggest as he patted his thigh with a smile.
“...”
A mysterious force suddenly forced Akito to move downward, landing his head atop his partner's lap in record time. Toya let out a chuckle at the quickness of it, placing a strategic hand into that bed of fluffy orange hair and beginning to deliver an affectionate stroke.
“Feeling comfortable?” Toya asked softly, though it might as well have been a rhetorical question. Akito's eyes fluttered shut as those dexterous fingers worked across his scalp, making the sort of face you'd see on a dog when you scratched its fur just right.
Akito had always been pegged as the more physical of the pair – and honestly, he usually was – but as any fortuitous passersby might've witnessed, Toya was just as prone to this sort of affection. The key difference was that he was far more quiet about it.
Where Akito might've tossed an arm around his shoulder and yanked him close, Toya would place a gentle hand upon his partner's back or shoulder. He'd oftentimes offer a subtle massage, working those porcelain palms of his to provide the perfect backnoted sensation. It was a bit embarrassing for Akito to admit how much of a sucker he was for a nice post-event backrub from his partner, but he'd come to realize he enjoyed Toya's touch just as much as he loved to deliver his own upon Toya.
…Well, if that wasn't obvious enough already. For fuck's sake, he was laid up in Toya's lap, getting his head pet like a damn dog while he waited for his stomach to settle after stuffing his face with food gifted to him by the very same boy. And to boot, the reason they were even here to begin with was because Toya invited him on an impromptu lunch date.
Damn… He was only joking about it earlier, but Toya's love language really was just Akito himself, wasn't it? He'd tell himself that ‘words of affirmation’ was the only missing piece of the puzzle, but everyone they knew held irrefutable recognition of how fervently he was spoonfed Toya's praise. Every day, he sapped up such a crazy amount of vicarious joy through Akito that you'd think there was a symbiotic link between their serotonin receptors.
Not that any of this was necessarily a surprise. To this day, Akito wasn't quite sure what he'd done to earn such borderline worship from Toya, but he knew well that ownership of his partner's reverence had belonged to him from day one. Even on that fateful day in which he left the livehouse with a dull sting in his knuckles and a crushing ache inside his chest, Toya had only ever considered his happiness alone.
“Akito.” Toya spoke again, though it was far less of a surprise that he'd been staring this time around. “You're making that face again.”
“That face?” Akito rolled over onto his back with a huff, forcing Toya to retract his hand as their eyes met.
“When you're overthinking something, you make a face like this.” Toya explained, subsequently furrowing his brows as deep as they could go with a matching purse of his lips. The display was so ridiculous that Akito couldn't help snickering – reminded of the days when Toya could hardly form a natural expression, let alone a conscious one.
“Nah, it's nothin’.” Akito dissuaded, adjusting his position to lay more comfortably against the pillow he'd turned Toya's thighs into.
“You can tell me anyway, if you'd like.” Toya hummed, this time bringing his hand down to carefully brush aside the bangs that had swept into his partner's eyes. “I like hearing your thoughts.”
“Jeez…” Akito grumbled, that classic ‘I hate how much I love this’ look on his face as he reached up to hold both of Toya's cheeks in his palms. “It's that, honestly.”
“Pardon…?” Toya blinked with curiosity, adorably unbothered as his cheeks were squished together.
“You're way too good to me, dude…” Akito sighed, unable to stop his frown from cracking as he continued to look into his partner's earnest eyes. “You always have been, and I don't really know how to handle it.”
“Hm…” Toya shifted in contemplation. “I'll have to disagree with you there. I treat you precisely how I believe you deserve.”
“Why you…” a flustered Akito grunted as he swung himself upward, shifting his hands around Toya's neck to give himself the needed leverage.
“You know… I didn't really have any friends before we met, Akito. I didn't know anything about forming and maintaining connections the way you do.” Toya began to explain, hooking an arm beneath Akito's knees to keep him supported in this somewhat awkward position.
“But you changed all of that.” Toya's smile widened, though Akito only saw it for a moment before his partner opted to nuzzle into his cheek. “You taught me how wonderful it feels to have someone to cherish, as well as the warmth that comes with making that someone happy.”
“I struggled to catch on to it until after our team expanded…” Toya continued, a spare hand tracing circles across Akito's back in a motion that rendered him feeling like a puddle more quickly than usual. “But eventually, I realized something important.”
“Y…yeah?” Akito struggled to flex his throat around the frog lodged within, suddenly feeling like the distance between them was far too close for comfort.
“No matter how many new friends I make, you'll always be my most important partner.” The words of poetry flowed from Toya's mouth so naturally that the question of whether he'd rehearsed the whole speech or made it up on the spot felt completely unsolvable. “That's why I strive to be your best partner in turn. I love you more than anything in the world, Akito.”
“Alright, alright…” Akito had to force himself to pull off Toya's lap for fear of his heart exploding, ending up on the opposite side of where he started. “I wasn't really doubting you, y'know…”
“Regardless, you deserve to be reminded that you're loved.” Toya replied, and perhaps the chaste smooch he delivered afterward might've evolved into something more if the bell hadn't conveniently blared out.
“Ah… Looks like we should start heading back.” Toya seamlessly began to pack up the rest of his lunch, separating his trash and leftovers to be taken care of later before clapping the box shut.
“Unfortunately, the rest of our classes are on the other side of the building, so we can't see each other until the end of the day…” The disappointment on Toya's face was visible as he stood up, his slight pout giving the impression of a wet kitten as he picked up his bag. “Let's meet up at the gate after school, alright? We can have dinner at that new cafe with the omurice you wanted to try.
“K…kay. See ya.” Akito muttered, reciprocating Toya's wave as he watched his partner stride away. Before long, he completely disappeared from view, giving Akito the leeway to faceplant into his raised knees with a flustered groan.
“Dammit, Toya… Why do you have to be so perfect?”