Akashi Seijuurou can't even begin to describe how much of a bad idea this is, and yet he still reaches for the door pull; he still opens the door and steps inside the banquet hall. Usually, being looked at doesn't make him self-conscious; however, right now is an exception—
The gaze of the crowd makes his glossed lips purse. He gulps. As he lets go of the door and lets it close behind him, he suddenly wonders how most of the women he knows are able to walk around wearing clothes like this without feeling vulnerable. It's amazing how even a number of them that claims to feel empowered as they walk around in tight and breezy article of clothings such as the the one he's currently wearing.
He closes his eyes briefly and takes a deep breath. He'll figure out later; for now—he reminds himself of the reason why he came to this place in a strapless burgundy silk cocktail dress and a pair of gold stilettos, equipped with hair extensions that matched his original hair color and… fake boobs that had been strategically placed as to look like real ones.
That's right.
He's on a mission.
Having conditioned his mind, he reopens his eyes and gives the place a quick but thorough scan from left to right. It takes him less than thirty seconds to spot his client.
Akashi pushes his hair (extensions) behind his ear. With newfound confidence and poise, he strides to the direction where a particular brunet is currently being inconvenienced by an orange haired, big-busted woman clad in black.
"Fu—" he clears his throat, "Kouki."
The brunet immediately turns to him. Probably realizing who it is that called him, he chokes on his drinks and ends up spitting out the beverage. His eyes widens and his jaw drops. Hesitantly, he points at his caller and stammers out, "A-Aka—?"
Before he can coherently utter his name, Akashi gently places his index finger over Furihata's lips. As shyly as his acting skills can go, he pulls the finger away from his friend's lips and methodically places his hand over his fake cleavage.
He cracks a small smile—he pictures Kuroko and tries to imitate his smiles (but he tries to make it look like an apologetic one by furrowing his brows and refusing to look at Furihata just yet). Then he pictures Momoi and how she used to act around Kuroko during the days—he decides to mimic that.
Softly, Akashi takes Furihata's hand and just looks at it. As he looks at it, he wonders if he's doing this correctly. He mentally takes a deep breath to get the thought off his mind so he can focus on the job at hand. Pseudo-shyly, he looks up to Furihata. (For some reason, he's beet red and warmer than usual—maybe he's been drinking too much.)
"Sorry I'm late, darling."
After finishing his sentence, Akashi suddenly feels as though poisoning the woman in black is a better option than this.
Somehow, something about this felt… awfully wrong.
Their friendship sort of just happened.
It started during Kuroko's birthday party celebration some time after the Winter Cup where they talked quite (at first it was just Akashi talking, but then eventually, after realizing Akashi wasn't so scary, Furihata started talking as well)—and then they realized that they had chemistry (as friends), and so they exchanged numbers before the day ended.
At the beginning, their friendship mostly comprised of petty but amusing text messages and IMs—but as time progressed, so did their relationship. The next thing they both knew, the petty but amusing messages turned into 3 A.M. brainpukes which range from something similar to that of shit posting and night blogging (except they don't post or blog about their thoughts, they just share it with each other through calls or messages) to heart-to-heart conversations (which aren't usually conversations but more of an exchange of understanding silence and a quiet word or two).
Things just better when they ended up attending the same university. Whenever they could, they'd go home together, eat out together or just hang out and relax somewhere nice and quiet. Sometimes Furihata would ask Akashi to tutor him on the subjects he'd find difficult, and sometimes, Akashi would ask Furihata's opinion on certain matters related to his major.
Now, they're both twenty-five and working professionals. Akashi has taken over his father's business; meanwhile, Furihata has become quite a successful architect and everything's going smoothly for him—that's until his long-time girlfriend breaks up with him and he becomes the object of his boss's daughter's affections.
Precisely three days ago, Akashi found a distressed Furihata on his doorstep. There were bags underneath his eyes—bags darker and more heavy-looking than usual—his hair was unkempt, and his posture—don't get him started with his posture. It was terrible. He looked just like how he looked like when they first faced off on court.
To ask whether his friend was fine or not was out of the question; he obviously was not. And so he decided to ask the more reasonable question after letting him in and serving him something to drink, "So… what may be the problem, Furihata-kun? You look—I apologize for the term I am about to use, please try not to take offense—but you really do look awful."
Furihata took a sip of the orange juice Akashi served. After, he just stared at the juice for a while then sighed. He put the glass on the table, but continued to stare at the juice. Then he sighed again. He placed his palm on his face and let his fingers rub his temples.
"I… I honestly don't know anymore, Akashi-san. I don't know which is worse, the fact that Miyu-chan just… uhh," he looked down then scratched his cheek, "well, she broke up with me," he let out a nervous chuckle then cleared his throat, then he continued, "or the fact that I don't have a girlfriend to bring this Saturday at our company party to discourage my boss's daughter to stop pinning after me. I'm so… I'm a mess—a mess in a mess. I'm so tired!"
The seemingly emotionally-harassed brunet let out a wail. As he heaved a long sigh of exasperation, he pulled on his hair, let go then buried his face in one of the cushions on Akashi's couch. There, he wailed again. This went on for a while.
As this occurred, Akashi, on the other hand, although surprised about the breakup, couldn't help but notice shadiness of Furihata's statement a moment ago—or rather how his statement had been delivered.
Not that he thought Furihata was lying about anything—rather than lying, it kind of more of… hiding. He seemed to be hiding something from him. And he guessed what he was hiding was something related to the breakup.
That's right.
"Miyu-san… haven't you two been going out since high school? Weren't you going to propose?" Akashi left his real question unspoken, but he knew Furihata's smart enough to catch on that. And judging from the sudden stiffening of Furihata's shoulder, he most likely have realized where Akashi wanted to get at.
But instead of breaking out into a rant—which he would by default do, unless he was hiding something—Furihata forced out a laugh, then went quiet. Eventually, he sat up and put the cushion away. With an apologetic smile, he looked up to his friend and vocalized his apology, "Sorry. I don't think I can talk about it with you just yet. I mean, I still don't quite get it myself. She just said something and even it caught me off guard! But…! I promise you'll be the first to know when I get things figured out!"
His curiosity was eating him—but Akashi decided to just leave it at that, for now anyway. He trusted Furihata would tell him in time so he hummed in agreement, "All right. If that is what fancies you."
"Yeah… thanks," Furihata smiled, then all of a sudden he jumped out of his seat with another topic, "Oh yeah, Akashi-san—I… I know this might be really, I don't know, unfair, I guess, because I just refused telling you about what happened between Miyu-chan and I, but…
"She told me something all right. I'll give you that. And I absolutely have to think about it, and so I really have no time to think about my boss's daughter pinning after me, so, I was just wondering… Can you please find me someone who can proxy as Miyu-chan and discourage Karin-san from pursuing me?"
By the time Furihata had finished his asking, he was already on his knees with hands clasped together and head bowed as though praying to a god.
Akashi put his hand over his mouth, but it was no use. A snort escaped anyway.
"My, my, haven't you grown into a lady's man, Furihata-kun? But kidding aside, that wouldn't be a problem. I could pull a few strings, I suppose."
Was what he said.
And then he ended up pulling a broken string, and the next thing he knew, he was Momoi's house fifteen minutes before the party because the proxy contracted sore eyes and was only able to inform him less than thirty minutes prior to the event and there wasn't really anyone else who knew the plan or would be able to answer any impromptu probable couple question thrown by Furihata's admirer…except him.
Furihata stares at him for at most a full ten seconds before being able to talk again, and when he does, he winds up becoming a stammering mess, "A-A-Aka-M-Miyu! Y-you're late. I-I'm so…pissed off…? Uhm, we need to talk! Karin-san, if you excuse us for a bit! Ahahaha! We just need to… talk… about… a lot of things." He then proceeds by taking Akashi's hand and dragging him out, back in, (all to confuse the lady he was talking with a while ago) then under an unoccupied table.
There, he lets it all out—through hysteric whispering.
"A-Akashi-san!? W-what are you doing here? W-Why are you… Are you supposed to be my date!? W-what happened to Ishikawa-san?"
Akashi heaves a sigh. He fishes his phone out of his purse and shows the original proxy's message to him.
"Sore eyes. I apologize about this, Furihata-kun. I did not want to do this; I never thought of doing this, but she only contacted me twenty-five minutes before the event, and there wasn't enough time to brief anyone with what to do. I am truly s—"
Furihata cuts off his apology with a sincere thank you. For some reason, his cheeks go pink after thanking Akashi. He looks away immediately then scratches his cheek. He gulps then provides an explanation, "I mean, this really means a lot to me. I really need to focus, you know. So uhmm, thanks for doing this even though I, uhm, kept certain things from you."
Akashi offers him a small smile as he puts back the phone in his purse, "It's nothing. We are friends after all, are we not?"
"Yeah. Friends…" Furihata scratches his cheek again and breaks into a soft chuckle. Eventually, he looks at Akashi and offers his hand, "Do you, uhm, wanna dance? I mean… uhh… errr… we gotta do something, right? To show that we're a couple?"
He's doing it again—Akashi notices—Furihata's nervous tick. The thing he does when he's hiding or lying about something. He frowns, but decides against prying and takes his hand instead.
Furihata leads him out of the table and to the dance floor. As they made their way there hand in hand, Furihata mutters shakily, "Hey, uhh, right now, you…look pretty by the way."
Akashi notices Furihata's ears blushing from where he's standing. His brow raises.
"Furihata-kun, how much have you been drinking before I arrived?"
Furihata flinches but continues walking.
Akashi feels Furihata's hand shake and his index finger make a scratching gesture as he answers the question.
"A…A lot."
It doesn't take a genius to be able to tell that Furihata has just lied, but it might just take one to find out why.
*note: originally posted in ao3