i took the stars from my eyes and with them i made a map
i knew that somehow i could find my way back
and i heard your heart beating, you were in the darkness too
so i stayed in the darkness with you
- florence and the machine, "cosmic love"
Akise Aru used to pride himself on being an observer. On being exempt to the wide spectrum of emotion, only being the silent viewer who watched as it tore apart penniless families and doomed relationships and adolescents alone in their rooms. He could recite every chemical with triggered the reaction that made love, state the theory of cognitive dissonance without so much as blinking, but he was merely a scientist. An observer. A detective.
Until now.
Perhaps it was that he'd let his guard down, focused too much on the others' emotions and forgotten to reign in his own. Maybe he'd spent one second too long standing on the other side of the intersection, watching Yukiteru being dragged along by Gasai and maybe, maybe it was because he'd taken a moment to look into Yukiteru's soft, violet eyes, and he'd seen something he couldn't take apart and decipher in there.
And that was it, really. He couldn't solve the mystery that was Amano Yukiteru. Yukiteru was a fighter, a soldier, always brave and ready to throw himself into battle if one of his friends should need it. But Yukiteru was gentle and kind and soft, hesitating to kill if he knew there was no real purpose. A knight, really.
Unlike Gasai Yuno. Akise pursed his lips thinking of Yuno. Gasai was a warrior, too, but a different kind. If Yukiteru was a knight in shining armor, then Gasai Yuno was a suicide bomber, an explosion strapped to her chest, ready to die for something as silly and petty as the lies Yukiteru told her.
And they were lies. That Akise was sure of. Yukiteru did not think of Gasai as his girlfriend. He did not love her, not the way normal people love. He was afraid of her, yes, he cared about her, yes, but no, no, he did not love her.
Akise wondered how he'd ever grown so attached to the idea of love, or why he now claimed to know what it was
Maybe it was because of the blush that formed on Yukiteru's face as Akise's fingers ghosted across his cheek momentarily, the way the words feelings beyond friendship slipped from his mouth to none other than Gasai Yuno. Ruses were ruses, that was true. But he knew how to lie, and he knew he wasn't lying to set Yuno on his trail.
And he hated himself for not lying. He hated that when he typed out the words 'I love you' over and over again on his useless phone, they were completely true. He hated that when Yukiteru looked at him, he was suddenly reminded that he too, had a heart. A working, beating heart whose pulses reached his ears and his throat and his skull. A heart just like Ninth or Fourth or Sixth had.
A heart that could die far too easily. A heart that if Gasai Yuno penetrated it with her knives, would send a burst of blood from his body and he would no longer be able to feel anything at all. Not love or hate, not remorse or embarrassment.
Most of all, what he hated was that he held back. That he was the observer, he was Daedalus in the tower fashioning wings made of wax for everyone else. From observing Amano Yukiteru, he had gathered that for the majority of his life, the boy had spent most of his time alone, having no friends and a mother who was never around.
And he hated himself for wanting to have been there. He wished with all his heart (That word again. Heart. Akise could no longer tell what it really meant, whether it meant the beating, working organ or the way Yukiteru's name scrawled itself across the walls of his brain like lovestruck graffiti.) that he would have stepped out of his hiding place in the shadows and wrapped his arms around Yukiteru and told him that it would all be alright and he didn't have to be alone anymore.
But Gasai Yuno, a tornado of a girl wielding weapons and leaving a path of destruction everywhere she stepped, had beat him to it. Gasai Yuno, who would only bring Yukiteru grief and pain and suffering. Akise knew her type. Probably a hell of a past and a hell of a future. Too detached to attach to anyone properly.
That made Akise furious, that Yukiteru was given a horrible, twisted vision of love. That he wouldn't be able to feel anyone's soft, pure touch or a kiss that wasn't purely the way you would kiss a prized possession. And that's what Yukiteru was to Gasai. A possession. Not a thinking, feeling person. A possession to be kept away from anyone who would break it slightly.
Akise Aru understood enough about love to know that to truly love someone, you had to be able to watch them break.
He opened his window, looking out into the fading dusk. Cars silently sped across the road, at least one of them disregarding a law and a dirty-looking hitchhiker standing on the side of the highway. He wondered if Yukiteru was asleep right now. If Gasai was with him. Yes, she was probably with him.
He flicked on his phone, staring down at the saved photos. His phone may have been useless as a diary, but it could do what any other phone could do. And sometimes that was all he needed. Scrolling through the photos, a smile played across his ghostly features. Yukiteru smiled in one of them, a shot he'd snapped in a spur of the moment in the observatory.
Yukiteru was smiling at him.
He'd loved it, loved seeing Yukiteru enthusiastic about his ideas, loved seeing Yukiteru admiring his intellect and his skills at deceit, that adorable grin on his face as he practically jumped up and down. And Akise had been able to place his hands on Yukiteru's shoulders. The other boy had been warm, so warm and so soft in contrast to Akise's perpetually cold and pale body.
"Yukiteru-kun," he said aloud to his empty room. "Yukiteru-kun, my heart belongs to you." He stupidly hoped that somehow, wherever he was, Amano Yukiteru heard him.
oh boy do i love akiseteru i'm actually pretty proud of this fic tbh. i claim no ownership to mirai nikki.