Love was a curious emotion for Neku Sakuraba.
As one who had shut out the world, dissed the concept of friends, and found touchy feely to be an abomination of all things considered manly...he found himself ignoring practically every girl who shamelessly threw themselves at him, and mocked in his head those boys who let those same annoyances woo them into 'relationships'.
Then came Shiki Misaki.
'Stalker'
He rarely thought of her as that anymore. She had effectively changed him...had made him open up to her in ways he never wanted to open up to anyone. She helped him expand his world.
Yet...did he love her?
Neku didn't know really. He cared for her deeply, that was for certain. They had hung out quite frequently, had long talks, even had a few dates…
But they hadn't kissed. There was no, as he tended to put it 'lovey dovey crap'. Heck, they never even refered to the dates as dates, and those were seldom alone for them. Of course, that didn't stop everyone else from teasing the two about their relationship…
"Yo, when you two gonna fess up, Phones?"
"Neku, I know he's new at the concept but...Josh spoils me more than you spoil her!"
"Honestly, Neku, would it kill you two to get a room once in a while?"
After punching the last bastard in the nose (a gesture that held a much deeper meaning between him and the ash-blond and succeeded in getting the Composer toi leave the topic alone for three whole weeks…) and turning bright red, Neku decided to forgo being subtle and began slowly coming more out of his shell.
He held her hand when she allowed it. He opened doors, and begrudgingly went to more shops with her, making an effort to keep his face scowl-free as she dragged him in and through the mountain that was 104 shopping pavilion. He gave his honest opinions on her look of the day, tried to treat her as much as he could, and slowly made an effort to form longer sentences when she looked at him endearingly.
Neku Sakuraba was quite the cassanova...when he actually put effort into it, if he did say so himself.