It's not that Aichi hasn't seen this coming. He always knew Misaki and Miwa and Kai would graduate before he did and it was something he already thought about before. But that was more about how he would have to deal with things on his own, how it wouldn't change too much about the Cardfight Club and his school life and less about how the whole graduation itself would turn out. He's not at Hitsue like Miwa and Kai, but he'll miss Misaki for sure and just not knowing what his friends will do when April comes it sort of. Nothing he wants to think about too much, now that it's happening.

But hey, after all, there's a reason he came back to Miyaji instead of staying at Hitsue. He left because he knew he couldn't just cling to his friends for the rest of his life, knew he needed to fight his own battles. Fight them on his own.

Because back then, I decided I could take my own path. Because back then, I wanted to meet you. Because back then, you promised our paths would cross one day.

Because back then, you had faith in me.

Kai will probably keep trying to play his graduation down, as if this was nothing special, nothing at actually affects him and hey, maybe Aichi just really wants to break into his house and shake him until he gets his shit together, until he stops hiding and waiting and does something about that graduating thing.

Miwa says Kai's not ready yet, that he needs his time and that he's sure everything will work out in the end. Aichi just can't believe Kai's taking this so easily. Of cause, stressing too much or being to excited is wrong, but just doing nothing sounds even worse to Aichi. It's about Kai's future after all.

Three weeks before they graduate, Kai doesn't come to Card Capital, but Miwa tells them it's okay. He wasn't at school because he's probably just ill, but it's nothing to worry about and he'll get better soon. Two days later, there's still no sign from him and Aichi has enough.

The moment he gets out of the school building, he heads to Kai's place. He's only rarely been there before, but remembers the way by heart. Soon, he finds himself ringing the bell.

Once, there's no response. Twice and he can hear movements. He frowns and after waiting another minute, he rings for the third time.

The door is slammed open. If it wasn't for Aichi jumping back quickly enough, it would've hit him. Kai doesn't even bother apologizing and instead looks at Aichi with a blank expression.

"Aichi...", he says and then remains silent as if he's waiting for confirmation, which is, uhm, yeah, pretty unnecessary. Aichi knows his name after all and he's sure Kai knows it too (or at least he hopes).

When he's sure Kai won't say anything else and just continue staring, he clears his throat. "Can I come in?"

"Oh, uh, sure." With a shrug, Kai steps back and after closing the door and waiting for Aichi to take his shoes off, he leads him to the main room of his flat. There, Aichi pauses and his resolve wavers a bit. Sure, he came here to ask Kai why he's skipping classes again, but, well, there's another thing involving Kai on his mind.

Kai sits down on the edge of his head and, taking a deep breath, Aichi settles to sit on the spot next to him.

"Why are you here?" It's rather rude to say things like that, but knowing Kai and seeing the honest curiosity in his eyes, Aichi doesn't even bother to care.

"Kai-kun," he pauses, just to make sure the green eyes are fixed on his ones, trying to register any change in Kai's expression. "You're skipping classes again."

"So?"

"You're not denying it."

"Hmm, I didn't feel like going. So?", he repeats with a bit more force than probably needed. The expression on his face hasn't changed, though. Cleaning his throat once again, Aichi tries his best to control his voice to make it sound stronger, more convincing and more confident.

"You're graduating soon. What are you thinking? We were worried about you." Again, he pauses. Hell, what if he just makes one thing out of the two matters he wanted to sort out. "I was worried about you."

"You... were?" Kai slightly raises an eyebrow at that. Aichi shifts.

Actions speak louder than words, huh?

He hesitates a moment, stretches to be more on Kai's level, thinks and then relaxes again. It's so awkward, he wonders why it has to be this way. After he got used to Kai, he hardly feels nervous around him any more. But now he does, thanks to the things on his mind, things he could technically do now, but won't, and it feels like their relationship got back to the point where they started years ago. When Kai watched him on his way home and he was too absorbed with his own thoughts that he never noticed.

But hey, now he does. He learned to see the people who care about him, to listen to them, to return their feelings and to understand them. This isn't really different, is it?

A last deep breath and he straightens his back with his eyes wide open.

"Yeah, I was."

A step forward and he presses his lips against Kai's, who seems to be frozen in place. Seconds pass by, but nothing happens, so Aichi decides to push a bit more firmly against Kai's lips, trying his best to do this as well as possible. Oh, well, at least it's nicer when he pushes his lips against Kai's because just sitting there waiting is really awkward.

After a while, Kai kind of wakes up and pushes against him too. He's a bit more forceful with his pushing, but he carefully puts his hand on Aichi's shoulder and than slides it upwards and into the blue hair to hold Aichi's head in place. Oh, that's a game two can play. With his left hand on Kai's shoulder now, Aichi pulls at Kai's tie with his right one. He's not sure if he does it to get closer to Kai or just to have something to hold onto, but he doesn't bother thinking about it.

With Kai pushing against him and pulling his hair, and Aichi pulling Kai's tie and pushing their lips together, it gets hard to tell who pushed and who pulled when and how. But somewhere between all the pulling and pushing, it gets hard to breathe, but whenever Kai moves back to take a breath, Aichi can't wait to kiss him again. This really isn't what he wanted to do when he came here, but how is he supposed to remember, when he pulls away to get his thoughts in order again, but Kai pulls him back in – oh, and there the both of them are again, doing the probably least romantic thing that has ever happened between the two of them.

Though it's really easy after it becomes unclear who pushes and who pulls, after they don't care how sloppy and weird and desperate what they're doing is.

Only when Aichi's phone rings, both of them simultaneously flinch away. He's not sure if he should be disappointed that Kai's face looks really composed and not flushed at all, when he can feel the heat in his own cheeks. And the look in his eyes, oh, it's really embarrassing. Aichi can tell that he'll never be able to look at Kai without remembering what just happened. He shakes his head, tries to shake off these thoughts, but he forgot that Kai's still looking at him.

When he notices Aichi looking back at him, Kai seems to falter for a moment, a reaction Aichi can't really place as good or bad, but it takes him only a second to be perfectly composed again.

"You don't want to answer your phone?" he asks casually and yes, here they are again. Not really the kind of friends Miwa and Kai are or Emi and Mai are, but definitely friends in some way. To be honest, their relationship is mostly ridiculous. After all this time, Aichi tries to remember if they've ever talked about anything besides Vanguard. Probably not.

"No, it can't be important," (or at least he hopes it isn't) "I'll just call back later." He shrugs.

Silence.

"So?" Kai starts for the like hundredth time that day and licks his lips, obviously lost in thoughts.

"So?" And, oh man, they're both really bad at starting conversation, aren't they?

"Uhm, well, yeah. I've been skipping school, because I, uhm," Encouragingly, Aichi nods to motion Kai to go on. "Because I didn't really... feel like going."

"I know." With a smile, Aichi turns to face Kai better. "I think I might understand what you're thinking."

But Kai shakes his head. "No, I don't think you do." Aichi shrugs. He remembers the empty promises he made a year ago when they were fighting on that rooftop and, hey, he really has no idea what the future holds for the two of them. But together they've never been afraid to just go ahead and find out what's waiting for them.

"Well, maybe I don't. But I, I just wanted to let you know that our paths will definitely cross. No matter where you'll go, I'll try to be there as well. No matter what happens, I'll be there for you. I'll accept you," there he pauses, because a frown appeared on Kai's face and suddenly, Aichi feels like he's the young boy who just started playing Vanguard, went to the National and has to face Suzugamori Ren again. Back then, he has said the same words to Ren. I'm done rejecting this part of myself, so I've accepted both parts of me. And I'm done rejecting you, too.

"Ren's graduating too, you know."

"Next year, you'll do that as well." A smile plays on the corner of Kai's lips and he has just a small hint of a sneaky undertone in his voice. "What brought that on, by the way? I mean the kisses."

"Uh, nothing, really." Instead of waiting to face any other questions or to get forced to say more about the really embarrassing thing he initiated, he jumps off the bad and gets on his feet. Running towards the door, he shouts goodbye over his shoulder, slips into his shoes and hurries home. Kai shouts something he can't quite understand before he gets out of the flat and slams the door shut quickly.

They'll have to talk about this sooner or later, he knows that. He just doesn't feel like talking about it now. For now, he's fine with feeling light and happy.

On his way home, Aichi doesn't bother to hide the smile on his face.

The next day, Kai gets up pretty early. He takes his time to get dressed and eat breakfast. Just when he's about to leave his flat to go to school, he casually shoves his hands into his pockets, but there's a small piece of paper he can't remember putting in there. He pulls it out, unfolds it, only to find something on the paper, written in neat small handwriting.

It's your big day soon. Don't forget to smile on your last few days, even if our paths will be parting. Don't forget to be happy, I'm sure they'll cross again.