Title: Watching

Author: shimasama

Pairing: Akane Narita and Subaru Yagi

Fandom: Hot Gimmick

Theme: #15 - perfect blue

Disclaimer: I don't own Hot Gimmick, that belongs to Viz and Miki Aihara! As for "Perfect Blue," that isn't mine either. Eep.

He still blushes whenever they brush arms while reaching for the popcorn. He can't help it, really. She was always beautiful while he...wasn't. And almost every night now she would come to his apartment, sit next to him, and let him play any dorky anime he wished on the DVD player.

Sometimes she talked through every single episode, and sometimes she didn't talk at all. She rarely actually watched, though, except on the rare occasion that Subaru picked an anime with romance in it.

What Akane obviously hadn't noticed was, the more frequently she came over, the more anime Subaru chose with just a touch of romance. He really wanted her to watch, but not because he wanted her to become an anime nut.

See, if Akane was watching the television, she wasn't watching him, which was what made him so uncomfortable. Whenever Akane became bored, she would start watching Subaru for his reactions to what she should be paying attention to.

And her eyes were so... invasive.

So when she told him-not asked, she would never ask-that she was coming over that night, Subaru was prepared to pick out an almost purely romantic anime just to keep her eyes off him. Instead, something in him pulled out a movie that wasn't even his own. Actually, it was his sisters, a horror and drama anime. Asahi would never admit to owning any anime at all, which is why it lay within Subaru's massive collection.

Perfect Blue... Subaru had never watched it. The fact that it was about a female performer kind of turned him away from it. Besides, what kind of name was "Perfect Blue?"

Just maybe, though, it had enough horror to have Akane clinging to him...but not watching for his own reactions.

Akane came promptly at six-thirty, apparently stuffed from dinner and once again annoyed with the slightly older Narita, Hatsumi.

"She's just so dumb," Akane commented, taking her coveted spot on the floor just in front of the couch. Subaru had already put down a pillow for each of them. Subaru touched her shoulder gently, trying to be sympathetic, before excusing himself to get the popcorn. When he came back, Akane was beginning her quick glances from him to the television while he settled on the floor next to her.

Akane never actually screamed during the movie-but her hand clasped Subaru's during almost all of it. At one point she even whimpered, to which Subaru tried to be bold: he kissed her gently on the head and squeezed her hand.

And through the entire movie, not once did Akane look over at him.

When Akane left for the night, Subaru fell onto his bed with a sigh. Thank god for "Perfect Blue."