Furihata had decided to go for a simple proposal, and so there he was in Maji Burger a week ago around seven in the evening, sitting at an empty table, cueing at the staffs from time to time and rehearsing his speech as he waited for the arrival of his long-time girlfriend, Miyu.


"All right…"

Catching a glimpse of his girlfriend's figure through the glass panel fifteen minutes after he called her over, he took a deep breath and gave the plan one final run-through, "Once she gets here, she's going to sit here across me. We're going to exchange greetings. Small talk—small talk—If she asks why here, tell her it's for old time's sake since this is where we met—then divert the topic—hold her hand; say what you wanna say, ask for the burger and remove the upper bun then—"

"Kou-chan."

He jumped. Almost too quickly, he turned to her and squeaked, "M-Miyu-chan!"

She blinked. With brows knitted together, she tilted her head and cautiously asked, "Are you okay?"

"A-ahh! Yeah—No—Uhm… Sorry! I guess I'm just nervous because I'm about to propose to you—ughhk!"

The worry in her face morphed into shock.

"W-What…?"

Furihata mentally smacked himself.

"I—uhh—" he glanced at the crew members of the establishment and cued them to bring over the burger.

And so they did.

Clumsily but without missing a beat, with a frown on his face, Furihata picked up the burger, went on one knee and removed the upper bun. He gulped then said, "Will you make patties with and be the upper bun of this humble lower bun—will you let me have the honor of being a complete burger with you? In other words, will you marry me, Miyu?"

For a split second, Miyu's eyes shimmered as they widened. She was so close to smiling (she got the joke; the love of her life was proposing to her)—so close—but when she did, the kind of smile she gave was not a happy one. It was a small sad smile, and by that time, the shine in her eyes was long gone, replaced by a faraway look.

Noticing the dejection in Miyu's expression, Furihata's fingers trembled. Hesitantly, he asked, "H-Hey, is everything all right?"

She picked up the ring from the patty, and as she stared at it, she murmured, "I love you, Kouki—do you have any bill you need to settle? I want to walk. Outside."


The two silently walked loosely hand in hand until they reached the park which was currently devoid of people. There, under a lamppost, Miyu broke both the silence and the touch. With a fragile smile, she brought out the ring from her pocket and muttered, "You've made me really happy today, Kouki. You always do actually. In the end, falling in love with you's the best. It was a good choice. So let me return the favor and grant you happiness as well."

After saying so, she took Furihata's hand and placed the ring on his palm. Closing her eyes, she took a deep breath as she closed his hand and squeezed it. A smile broke out of her face as she opened her eyes again. With hand still squeezing Furihata's, she spoke softly, "I love you. I love you so much, and I've always have wished you'd love me back as much as I love you. But we've reached this far, and you still haven't, so I must decline and put an end to this relationship. Thank you for being kind, patient and understanding up until now, Kouki."


Furihata could only stare at her with a frown of confusion on his face as she held his hand and said her piece. Aside from the "I love you" and "I must decline and put an end to this relationship", nothing else from what she said made sense to him.

His head shook; his eye twitched.

"Miyu, what are you talking about? I love you too! Is it my job? Do you feel that I'm not spending enough time with you anymore? I—I can do something about that; I'll do anything—"

A soft giggle passed her lips, but the sad smile did not leave them.

"Can you stop loving Akashi-kun then?"


For the past few days since the breakup, Furihata had done nothing but think about Miyu's words and reflect. As much as he wanted to think that she was just imagining things, the things she said and the rationale behind them—they made an awful lot of sense.


"Are you saying that I just went out with you to distract myself from the fact that I actually like Akashi-san!? Miyu, I've liked you even before I met Akashi-san!" At this point, Furihata was brimming with anguish and was beginning to seethe in anger and frustration.

If they were in a stereotypical shoujo manga, this would probably be the part where the female lead would be taken aback, where her will would begin to waver, where she'd realize she had misunderstood and finally she and the male lead would get together—or get back together.

But they weren't in a cliché shoujo manga. This was real life—and Miyu was not a one-dimensional character who's incapable of applying logic.

Calmly, she replied to him, "I'm not saying you used me or that you never liked me. You probably really did like me back then, and I felt that when you confessed that's why I went out with you—but somewhere along the way, you might not have noticed, but I have—you liked me, but you started falling in love, not with me, but with Akashi-kun."

"I—"

"You just didn't notice, and even if you did, you wouldn't have wanted to admit it and would stubbornly deny those feelings anyway. Either ways, it's easy to bypass such a thing when you have a convenient excuse to rid of the thoughts and feelings whenever they'd arise.

"'Ahh, it's impossible to be in love with Akashi-san because I have a girlfriend and that's Miyu-chan.' You weren't afraid, because in the end, I know you, Kouki. You're not afraid of falling in love with someone; you're afraid of them finding out that you are, especially if the person you fell in love with happened to be your heterosexual best friend, and we both know why—and if you have a girlfriend, there's no way Akashi-kun would ever suspect you of holding such affections for him.

"Having me around made not noticing them so convenient—you not noticing, and Akashi-kun too. I'm not saying you did it on purpose; you wouldn't have. All I'm saying is that you did it. More or less unconsciously. And I'm telling you this because I want you to be happy. I don't want you to end up marrying someone whom you'll eventually realize you don't love. You're… too kind to experience that."

And at the end of it all, the one who was taken aback and the one whose will wavered wasn't Miyu but him.

"Kouki, think about it. Try to live the way you do with Akashi-kun as a single man, as a man without any convenient excuse. If I turn out to be wrong, then call me, meet me—I'll apologize to you, and if you still love me, if you still want to, I'll get back together with you and marry you. But right now, it's no good. I hope you understand."


But even if they did make sense, he didn't want to believe it was true—not that easily at least. And so he decided to put himself on trial—and we all know that evidence is everything in a court of law, and so he thought he'd experiment to gather the much needed evidence that will either end or open this trial.

Four days later after much due consideration, he brought himself in front of Akashi's doorstep.

Hesitantly, he rang the doorbell, and the moment Akashi opened the door, his hair stood on their ends. His heart began pounding crazily. His fingers began to fidget. He couldn't even look him in the eyes until he invited him inside his apartment.


The orange juice Akashi served helped calm his nerves, as well as the feeling of Akashi's cushion against his skin (It didn't smell like him. Thank God.), the darkness, the silence and being able to wail. The thought of his boss's daughter surprisingly also helped calm him down.

But Akashi was a sharp one; he didn't miss a beat and noticed every suspicious thing he ended up doing, and that made Furihata quite nervous.

In the end, he didn't get to ask Akashi what he really wanted to ask him—and that was to pretend as his boyfriend on their upcoming company party, because the more they talked about Miyu and the less they talked about Karin, the more he felt self-conscious and hyper-aware of Akashi's presence, and he was afraid that if asked and Akashi asked him why him, why a boyfriend and not just hire some girl, he'd end up blurting everything out, and that would be the end of their friendship.

Plus, it wasn't like he was going to agree doing it for him.


Was what Furihata thought.

And yet there he (Akashi) is now, dressed up as a pretty woman even, on the dance floor with him, pretending to be his girlfriend, dancing with him to the tenuous beat of Haley Reinhart's cover of Can't Help Falling In Love With You.

It's crazy.

It's crazy how Furihata is slow dancing with Akashi to the song he thought he would've liked to play in his and Miyu-chan's wedding. It's crazy how his hand is on Akashi's waist, how he's touching it and feeling it and how those facts are making his heart pound painfully against his chest.

It's crazy how the hand that was holding Miyu's just a week ago is now holding Akashi's. It's crazy how their fingers are intertwined and how close their faces are.

Crazier when Akashi pulls their bodies closer together and rests his forehead on his.

They've done this before. This isn't the first time they've been this close. He had taken care of Akashi when he was down with a fever and vice versa—and this forehead thing, they did this a lot. He even remembers sleeping beside each other. But it feels so different now that he, as Miyu had put it, doesn't have a convenient excuse.

God help him. He doesn't know what to do.

Furihata feels his whole body heat up. His head begins to feel like it's spinning.

He feels Akashi's breath against his skin—his throat runs dry.

This is too much.

He decides to speak up, "A-Akashi-san, a-aren't we too—I don't know—close?"

Akashi looks at him in the eyes.

Furihata bites his lower lip to hold back a squeal.

"She's watching."

Relief—that's what he should've felt, but instead, it's disappointment. And from there he just knows, he won't be calling Miyu, and there isn't going to be a wedding or getting back together that's going to take place. Not anytime soon.

Instead, what will be taking place is a purge—one hella purge, because these feelings actually exist; they're very real.

But he isn't about to scare Akashi away and lose what they have now because of a stupid crush.


*note: originally posted in ao3.