A Winters Love
It was the end of the school day, Ryuugamine Mikado had been in the classroom cleaning up, as was his job of being the class representative. Sonohara Anri, the other class rep was ill that day so Mikado was alone in the classroom. Being winter, it was cold in the empty classrooms, Mikado even had to put his thick coat on over his uniform as he was finishing up.
"I hope it gets warmer soon, I hate winter" Mikado said to himself as he grabbed his bag from his desk and began to leave the classroom. He was expecting a pretty bland walk back to his apartment which wasn't too far from Raira Academy, but long enough when it was this cold out, this idea was shattered, however, by the appearance of a young, blue haired underclassman.
"Hey, Mikado-Senpai! Good work!" The dark blue haired boy exclaimed.
Mikado was taken aback at first, the surprise of seeing this underclassman washed over him and left him speechless for a minute.
"Mikado-Senpai? Are you feeling alright? You haven't caught a cold have you?" The blue haired boy questioned, with genuine worry in his voice. Aoba put his hand on Mikado's forehead to check his temperature. The black haired boy noticed his heart rate increase slightly.
"Ah, sorry, I'm fine Aoba-kun" Mikado blushed and smiled awkwardly as he often did in many social situations. He was always a shy boy, most likely due to his sheltered childhood in the country. However, he had been in Ikebukuro for over a year now, and had changed drastically from when he first arrived. Mikado believed he had grown a lot, and had improved when it came to talking to others, but he was still caught off guard every now and then, like this moment for example. Although he knew Aoba, so he wasn't sure why he got nervous, he always did in Aoba's presence. He wasn't able to stop and think about the reason before Aoba had another outburst.
"Let's walk home together Senpai!" Aoba said this more as a command than a question, but Mikado didn't mind, he was going to be a bit lonely walking home without Sonohara-San, and so he welcomed the company.
"That's fine by me, Aoba-kun" Mikado replied as they began to walk out of the building. The whole school was empty besides the two of them. Realising this brought on a feeling of awkwardness and nervousness. Again with this nervousness, what was it about being with Aoba that made him feel like this? Aoba didn't have a threatening aura about him, if anything it was quite the opposite.
"Senpai…?" Aoba asked noticing the extended silence between the two boys as they walked out of school.
"Are you sure that you're feeling ok?"
"Yeah, I'm fine" Mikado was just distracted by his own thoughts. This was going to annoy him, he could tell. Due to this, he had completely overlooked the fact that the two of them had never walked home together before. He didn't even know where Aoba lived.
"Say, do you live near me?" Mikado asked, assuming he must if they're walking home together.
"Hmmm… Sure!" Aoba's response was unclear, his upbeat tone made it so that Mikado couldn't tell if he was being serious or not, but he wasn't going to push it any further.
The two were now walking through the backstreets of town on their way home, this isn't the way that Mikado would usually go home, in fact, this route was actually longer, but Aoba had sort of led the way and Mikado just went along with it. By now they had begun to walk through the underpass. This place brought back memories for Mikado as this was the place where he first talked to Celty-san, the Headless Rider. A chill swept through the tunnel and hit the two boys, the sharpness of the cold even reached Mikado's hands that were inside his coat pockets.
Somehow Aoba had managed to notice this, something that bewildered Mikado, how could someone notice that? People had told him he was easy to read, but that was ridiculous… The thought of Aoba paying that much attention to him made his heart beat faster. Badump.
"Are you cold, Senpai?"
Badump.
"A little, yeah."
"Then…" Aoba's voice drifted off as the boy veered towards Mikado.
His heart rate shot up at this point.
"W-what are you..." Mikado stammered as Aoba took his hand out of his own pocket and put it in his.
Aoba wrapped his hand around Mikado's and intertwined their fingers.
Mikado's heart felt like it was going to burst at this point. "Why…? Why is my heart doing this…?" Mikado thought to himself as other thoughts began rushing in, anything to take away the realisation that he was holding hands with another guy.
"What do you think you're doing!?" Mikado exclaimed in a panicked voice.
"Keeping Mikado-Senpai warm!"
That line that Aoba came out with caused Mikado's cheeks to flare up even more than the cold had already caused them to.
"What if somebody saw us?" This should have been the last of his worries, he should have been more concerned over why he wasn't trying to get his hand back from Aoba. All of these feelings and emotions that were rushing over Mikado were confusing him even more.
Why was he ok with this? Why hasn't he felt like this with Kida-kun or Sonohara-san…? He wasn't able to work it out before Aoba replied;
"I wouldn't care, it's Mikado-Senpai after all!" This put Mikado into a stunned silence.
Aoba turned to look at his upperclassman and saw an almost distressed look on his face.
"We're taking a detour here" Aoba said in a flat tone, not his usual upbeat voice that Mikado was so used to hearing around Aoba.
Mikado simply followed sheepishly as they began to climb a huge flight of stairs up a hill. The whole time Aoba didn't let go of his senpai's hand, in fact he actually tightened his grip, making sure that their hands couldn't be separated.
By time they'd reached the top of this hill the sun was beginning to set, causing burnt orange rays of light to be shine between the buildings of Ikebukuro.
A silence had fallen over the two the whole time they had been climbing the stairs. Mikado felt guilty, he knew that he had pulled a strange face at the kindness that Aoba had shown him and this was mainly due to the swirl of emotions inside him that he still didn't understand.
The two walked a little bit further until they reached the highest point of the hill, from here you could see Raira Academy as well as a large part of main Ikebukuro. Aoba stopped walking and let go of Mikado's hand. He turned to face his Senpai and took a deep breath. Mikado was expecting to get yelled at for being rude and yet…
"I like you"
The words that Aoba shot out didn't sink in to Mikado until after Aoba had repeated himself.
"I like you, Mikado-Senpai"
Mikado couldn't help but blush. Was he really being confessed to by an underclassman? And not only that, a guy? He stood there in silence not knowing what to say, when he noticed his heart was pounding again. Just like it had done when Aoba took his hand.
"But you like Anri-Senpai, don't you…?" Aoba let out in a disheartened voice, he appeared to believe he had lost before he even started.
"I'm sorry for confessing to you so suddenly, but I've liked you, no, loved you, from the moment we met at the start of the year… I just couldn't hold it in any longer"
"I-" Mikado could barely speak, his heart was beating out of his chest and he was still confused by the whole situation.
"Please, just reject me and let me move on…" Aoba looked like he was about to cry after saying that.
"Are you sure it's love?" Mikado wanted to avoid hurting his friend if he could so he had to make sure.
"Of course. When I'm around you my heart starts beating like crazy and I can't stop thinking about you… I'm sorry… this isn't helping you is it…?"
"That… that's exactly how I'm feeling now" Mikado thought to himself. "I finally understand, this feeling is love isn't it?" Mikado had a sense of relief once he realised this.
"Please Senpai! Just do it! This is unbearable!" Aoba was clearly desperate for this pain to stop, and Mikado was the only one who could do anything about it.
"Aoba-kun… I can't reject you"
"Wha- why?"
"Because I like you too" Mikado gave one of his smiles which showed just how much he cared.
As soon as he had said this it began to snow. The sunset bouncing off the falling snowflakes created an extremely romantic setting for the boys' confessions.
"E-eh? Really?"
"Yeah, I just realised it… this feeling I've been having for a while now… it's love, isn't it?" Mikado was still smiling.
Aoba flashed a smile back at him as he blushed, he looked as if he was holding back tears as a huge weight was lifted off his shoulders. He walked forward and took Mikado's hand again, looked straight up into his eyes and went up on tip toes to kiss Mikado on the lips.
After their first kiss, the two embraced each other in a gentle hug as snow began to build up on their coats.
"Yeah, that's love"
