His house looked familiar. As Evergreen stood outside the front door, she remembered feeling extremely small seeing this palace-like place. It seemed so huge to her twelve year old self, but after seeing real castles in Europe, it didn't seem all that wonderful anymore.
But her heart still tingled.
She couldn't help but smile.
She was back.
She was back. Akashi could see her from the window of the drawing room on the third floor. He couldn't see much of her face, she covered it with her hand as she looked up the house, but he could see her frame.
It was nice.
She was still small, but he could make out the subtle curves beneath her clothes. Her hair was longer than the shoulder length she had when they were ten years old. He could bet she didn't cut her hair once these past five years. It was reaching past her bottom and just around her knees.
It, too, had beautiful curves.
She was wearing red—her favorite color from what he remembered.
He couldn't say it looked bad.
A maid opened the large French doors for her, and inside she was approached by Akashi Masaomi, Akashi Seijuro's father with a polite smile.
He was as intimidating as she remembered, but she smiled brightly and bowed. "It's been a long time, Uncle," she said, getting up.
The older man held out an arm, which she took, and led her up the stairs to the drawing room.
On the way, they exchanged polite small talk and tight lipped smiles, and then he left her in the room for his son to deal with.
Looking at the real Akashi after getting by with pictures for so long made her brain freeze. Only the conditioned responses imbued into her by her mother came out of her mouth.
"Hello," she said. "It's been a while."
Seeing her up close pretty much took the breath right out of Akashi's lungs.
She was incredibly pretty.
Her face was just as he remembered, except of course she was bigger. Like an angel. Puberty had been good to her, and the curves he'd seen from above earlier looked more pronounced from up close.
And so he said, "You look pretty."
All the blood in her body rushed to Evergreen's face. Her happiness flowed like water through her system, and she stopped functioning on auto-pilot.
She laughed and said sincerely, "You look good, too, Sei-kun. I missed you."
Akashi startled when she laughed. He felt giddy, and he had the urge to run to her and smother her in hugs and kisses and never let go. Just one look at her had awakened the sleeping emotions he had buried in the past five years, and it crashed into him all at once.
His breath catching, he answered, "I missed you too."
