Standard disclaimer applies.
This story was written as per request by Asinful on Livejournal.
Summary : Akira just keeps on giving. First it was a contact, then it was a chopstick and finally it was a kiss. Shuji just can't help himself but accept it all.
Tale of Two Wafers
By Reiven
"Shuuuuuuuji-kun."
"Would you knock that off?" said Shuji irritably as the taller and lankier Akira draped himself ungracefully over his shoulders.
"What are you thinking about?" Akira said, letting go of Shuji's neck and taking a seat beside him. His eyes gazing off into the horizon, watching as the sun slowly set behind the edgeless ocean.
"Nothing," replied the boy irritably, resting his chin on his knee as his eyes gazed blankly off in the distance.
"I know you're thinking of something, Shuji," Akira coed, reaching over to grasp Shuji's face in the palm of his hands. "Whenever you're thinking of something deeply, your eyebrow creases and your lips purse into this cute little pout," he pursed his own lips in emphasis. "It's cute! But what's wrong."
Pulling his face back and clearing his throat, Shuji adjusted the collar of his uniform, trying to get used to the smothering feeling of the stiff jacket. He much preferred his old school uniform...and his old school and his old school friends and his old school teachers and...Nobuta.
"Shuuuuuji-kun. Are you ignoring me? It's not very polite," Akira said, though he wasn't really paying much attention to his own words. Reaching a hand into the pocket of his jacket, he pulled out two small packets of wafer biscuits; one strawberry and one vanilla. Holding out both to Shuji, he waited for the boy to pick which of the two he wanted.
Shuji stared at the two packets Akira was holding out to him sceptically; this reminded him too much of the first time Akira's presence had actually made mark on his being.
"You miss Nobuta, don't you?"
Akira said suddenly, causing Shuji to splutter out the proverbial water he'd been drinking.
"W-What? I am not," he nearly pouted, turning away and resting his chin on his pulled up knees.
"You are, I can tell," Akira said, opting for the strawberry flavoured wafer. "I miss Nobuta too," he said solemnly.
By now, Shuji was all too used to Akira's ever changing moods. He was the only person Shuji's could never really add up in his minds' calculation; everyone else was like a simple, grade school math equation, simple and straight to the point. Whatever they did, whomever they associated with, it would always add up and equal 2. But Akira was like algebra; X could sometimes equal 9, sometimes it would equal 9Y and sometimes it never added up at all.
"Nobuta powar, chyuu nu!" he said suddenly, mimicking the moves Shuji had first seen Nobuta do. He should have expected that she'd learned it from him…it was always him. At one point, Shuji just stopped trying to figure Kusano Akira out; it was just too tiring a task, even for someone as immaculate as he was.
"Hey, Shuji, look what I found!" Akira exclaimed; brandishing a lone chopstick he'd picked up from out of the sand. "You can add it to your collection if you want," he said with a lopsided smile, holding out the sandy, dirty and used stick to Shuji.
A few months ago, if someone had told Shuji that a day would come when he would be sitting on the beach with someone, whom at one point had been the person he'd hated most in the entire school, and accepting an unsanitary eating utensil from, Shuji would have thought them mad. But now, it all just seemed so normal. Akira's unique personality seemed so normal, even to a point that Shuji would have been shocked if the boy did hug him or rest his chin on his shoulder or flap his hands gaily as he sashayed down the steps at least once a day. He didn't do the last one quite as frequently nowadays.
"Aah, I dropped my contact!"
"Again?" Shuji sighed. He wondered how much money Akira's father spent on contact lenses alone per month, seeing as how his son was prone to losing at least one in the span of 3 days. "It's impossible to look for them in this sand, even if we had such luck, I doubt they'd still be useable. Just use your glasses."
"But, Shuuuuji! That contact is the sign of our friendship; the object that holds our bond together. Didn't you say that the first time you came to my house?"
"That wasn't what I meant," Shuji nearly slapped his forehead. "Wait. Do you mean that that's the same contact I blew into the drain? You're still using it!"
"What--no, of course not."
It wasn't a farfetched possibility as far as Shuji was concerned.
"Oh, good. Anyway, just wear your glasses; it looks better on your," he said and immediately regretted it when the boys snapped around to stare at him.
"You think I look good in glasses, Shuji? You should have said so sooner, I would have worn them all the time if you wanted," he cooed, almost tackling him to the ground but seemed to hold the urge back.
"That's not what I meant--" he started, but by the glee in his friends' voice, he could tell that the words would fall on deaf ears. "Oh, shut up."
"Shuji," said Akira, grabbing Shuji by the shoulders and pulling him into a hug; "I think you look good too…even if your hair does need a little cutting, and some new shampoo. I think I see dandruff right here," he brushed aside a lock of hair before his hand was slapped away.
"I didn't mean it that way, idiot," he glowered; "And I do not have dandruff," and added as an after thought.
Akira didn't answer. Shuji watched silently as he took out his one remaining contact and placed it in a small container he pulled out of the bag then took out his black rimmed glasses from the other pocket.
"There," he'd said finally, turning to Shuji happily, the glasses perched low on his nose as he stared at Shuji from the top of the lenses. "What do you think, Shuji?"
"Hn," came the reply.
Akira leaned over, resting his chin on Shuji's shoulder, arms circled around the thinner boy. "Shuji," he said quietly, waiting for the boy in question to turn his head to look at him. When he finally did, irritation creased his forehead, Akira leaned over and planted a kiss on his cheek. "Love you too," he said out of the blue before pulling away.
Shuji didn't say anything after that. He burrowed his head deeper into the crook of his knee to hide the blush that had spread across his nose and cheeks and listed to Akira's rhythmic chewing of the final wafer.
Maybe thing wouldn't be so bad after all.
…End.
