Yukiteru's eyes were downcast, staring down at the bright pink notecards he'd presumably prepared for the beginning of the year's "your life" assignment. Akise, personally, thought it was stupid, but he supposed it was a reality of high school that teachers had to come up with ridiculously simple assignments to pass the time. He had to give them credit for making it so vague; Talk about your life. Your family history. Your hobbies. Your life.

Yukiteru coughed, still looking down at his notecards. "Well," he started. "I'm not a very interesting person."

Akise felt his lips curve up into a smile, resting his chin in his hands and listening intently. It was funny, really, what a skewed perspective teenagers have of how they really are. The homecoming queen thinks her pimples make her face undesirable. The most valued player on the soccer team thinks he can't kick the ball. The most interesting boy in the world thinks he's boring.

Akise knew more about Yuki than he'd like to admit, but he gave himself the excuse that detectives should have significant information on persons of interest. Amano Yukiteru. Walked home by himself every day. Lived by himself, too, because of his parents' failed marriage and a distracted mother who worked far away in Tokyo. A person of interest.

But of course Yuki didn't say that. He'd say that his parents were very nice, hardworking people and that he's learned a lot from them. He spoke about himself as though he were talking about a type of spinach his parents had forced him to eat, interlacing little sentence fragments of "I know, this is pretty boring" and "I'm sorry, I'm not very interesting."

And what saddened Akise was that most of his class seemed to agree. Ouji Kousaka was trying to discreetly shoot spit balls in some other boy's direction, someone in the front of the class had fallen asleep, and Nonosaka Mao was flipping through her phone's camera roll under her desk. But none of them mattered, Akise thought to himself.

When Yukiteru finished, the class gave a half-assed sort of applause that Akise thought sounded a bit like a television's laugh track. Yukiteru walked back to his seat, still looking down, as the teacher thanked him in that way teachers have of thanking students that make one think that they might perhaps be robots.

When class was let out at the end of the day, Akise walked behind Yukiteru. "Yukiteru-kun, I thought your presentation was quite interesting."

The other boy almost flinched as though someone had attempted to hit him. "W-what?"

"I thought your presentation was quite interesting."

"O-oh. Thanks." Yukiteru's face had gone red and he stared down at his feet.

"You've got lovely eyes, Yukiteru-kun. You should try looking up more." Akise smiled. "Would you like to walk home with me today? I believe our houses are fairly close by."

Yukiteru's violet eyes, which were indeed quite lovely, were blown wide from surprise. "I-I…I guess. Sure." He grinned awkwardly, and Akise felt his heart melting in his chest. His smile could make most girls his age squeal, but it was nothing compared to Yukiteru's. Akise realized that he was beginning to blush, and had to remind himself that he was a detective, a man of logic. Not a schoolgirl.

"So, should we get going?"

"Of course," Akise said quickly. "You know, Yukiteru-kun, Sakurami really is a beautiful city. I don't think we give its architectural features enough credit. And the parks are quite lovely, don't you think?" He smiled at Yuki, wishing he knew how to properly orchestrate small talk. He couldn't help thinking that he would rather talk about how beautiful Yukiteru's eyes were, or how cute it was that his hair was spikier on one side than the other. But no. You had to start with small talk, didn't you?

"I guess." Yukiteru looked away, fumbling for his phone in his bag.

"Say, what do you do on that phone of yours?"

Yuki flushed. "I keep a diary. Of stuff that happens. I guess. It's not very interesting."

"Don't second-guess yourself like that!" It was out before Akise could stop it. "That's incredibly interesting. I don't know any other person who keeps a diary on their phone." Yuki looked puzzled, and Akise just sighed and smiled patiently as they crossed the road onto the street which both of them lived on.

"Which house is yours?" Yuki asked suddenly.

"It's on the end of the street. It always smells like cut grass, since my parents make me mow the lawn every weekend."

"I do that, too."

"Mow lawns?"

"Yeah. For extra money, I mean."

"Perhaps you could help me sometime."

"My lawn's overgrown, though. I don't like to cut it. The flowers and plants are nice." Yukiteru covered his mouth as though he'd said something wrong, and Akise laughed.

"That's adorable."

"H-uh…?" Yukiteru took on that absolutely adorable embarrassed expression Akise had seen on him so many times.

"That's adorable. You're adorable." Akise placed a hand on Yukiteru's shoulder. "And you know what else you are?"

"What?"

"Very, very interesting."

And then Akise leaned over and kissed him. For a moment he disregarded all the books he'd read on how to make someone fall in love, because he knew that it was Amano Yukiteru, fourteen years old, living alone, constantly acting as though he himself was the one who brought all his troubles upon himself.

When Akise let go, Yuki looked stunned. Akise felt his heart jumping up and down and had an urge to run down the street yelling nonsense phrases out of pure happiness. Finally, he took a deep breath and spoke. "I believe we've arrived at your house. How about we do this again tomorrow?"

"That would be…t-that would be…" Yuki looked around nervously, then down at his hands, then back at Akise. There was a sort of adoration in his eyes that Akise hadn't seen before, and that made his chest swell with something that wasn't quite pride.

"That would be very interesting."

birthday present for my lovely friend poppy (queernico on tumblr) yeah. thats basically it.