Ai waited patiently, like a dog, before the door. Or well, not so patiently. For part of his mind was focused on solving a new puzzle game that had been released this week, while yet another was busy delving through the street cameras that perched along all the awkward angles of Yusaku's favoured route home from school.

Luckily he didn't have too long to wait. For a few minutes later, he ended up snickering to himself, amused as the darkened blobs of Yusaku's hair and uniform wobbled across the visual feed from at least two of them. Along with the paler flashes of both shirt and skin, they managed to cut a shaky path across the road, much akin to the crawl of a caterpillar.

Slow. Walking in the real world was so slow. And the jerks of movement human limbs made always looked a little weird, when observed from a distance. Especially when portrayed through the lens of a camera specially brought on a, let's say, economical budget for the more run-down areas of town.

Still. Slowly but surely Yusaku was getting closer and closer to the door. And Ai clapped his hands together excitedly at the thought. For oh, he couldn't wait! And he had been so good as well, only leaning in a less than forty-five degree angle this morning, when he allowed his lips to trace across the veil of Yusaku's cheek, even though he knew it annoyed Yusaku to be woken up that way.

'Good Morning,' he had sung out, letting his voice drone into the sensual pull of sound that his partner was unfairly immune to. 'How is my favourite human today? Eager to repay his boyfriend's ever-so-thoughtful and lovingly-crafted gift from last Valentine's Day?'

And after blinking, no, after glaring at Ai for his present of a kiss, Yusaku had furrowed his brow into a perplexed manner.

'Hmm?'

It was a low burr of sound, rolled out of the throat, almost like a purr and it made Ai squeal internally just to hear it. And not just that! But to see the actual motion behind it, the visual aspect of the science to it all, the combination of the slope of Yusaku's chest with the gust of air that branched out of his nostrils, always, always made something in Ai soften, just a little, and think 'aww.'

For even though the human body was such a weird machine, flawed and delicate in its mess, no greater perfection existed than when the mountain of it caved and rose, creating tiny earthquakes of movement in Yusaku's form to portray the effort it put in to keep him alive and feeling things Ai's code was, once upon a time, only crafted to imitate.

It was enough to get Ai to lean his chin into his hands and let his elbows sink into the mattress, all as he knelt by the side of the bed to peer adoringly up into his Yusaku's sleep-mussed form.

'That's right,' he coached with a grin. 'Remember? I made you chocolate! All by my little old self! Without the aid of this very nice SOLtiS body!'

He puffed his chest out proudly, the buttons across his shirt catching the glint of morning light, as though to demonstrate that this time round he was locked up inside the right sort of 'nice' body.

'I remember,' Yusaku muttered, leaning up to stare Ai right in the, well, eye. 'I also remembered how much of a mess you made as well.'

Ai sharply stuck his nose up in the air, letting his curls toss away from his neck in a sulky flounce. 'The end result is what matters! And I don't remember you complaining about the taste!' He narrowed his eyes at the wan amusement that flittered across Yusaku's face, pulling his mouth up into a strange crook of a smile. 'Unless you were lying? Hah! As if! You would never be that tactful! Say what you want, but I know you were impressed.'

Yusaku stared up at the ceiling, right at the cream coloured dot that marked out the pesky smoke alarm that Ai had waged war against and then spent days ranting about to Yusaku afterwards. 'Impressed? That's one way of looking at it...'

Ai scowled, fingers twisting into his hair and fondling it with the same sort of spontaneous tugs Yusaku had probably seen girls do at school.

'Zing,' he said empathetically and with a much larger pout that, no doubt, Yusaku thought his words merited. 'Take another shot at my heart, why don't you! Fine then! See if I get you anything next year!'

And with that he had attempted to flounce off, springing up from the bed like a rocket...only for Yusaku to grab his hand before he could fully launch himself away.

'Ai,' he said, with a laugh to his voice, as Ai stared down resentfully at the bridge of their fingers, tangled together like the snarls of barbed wire. Still, he let Yusaku's hand tighten on his own, allowing that human arm to become a rope that pulled him back down to the bed.

'Ai,' his partner repeated, fondness leaking into his tone, as Ai determinedly stared away, pretending to develop a fascination with a large crease of the duvet, arranged like knot of dough around the contours of Yusaku's knee. Without warning, that human hand slipped away from his own, coming to join its partner as fingers folded their way round his face to entomb his cheeks.

'I love you,' Yusaku breathed out, voice warm and steady, as it slammed into Ai with all the force of a weapon.

And what a weapon it was! Had this been an anime, there would have been a harsh crack of sound as Ai's mind stopped working, his character design becoming temporally dyed in shades of sepia tones or outright white, like a ghost, to portray the way his brain had been knocked out of the world.

As it was, Ai merely froze, every minuscule movement involved in the mimicry of blinking, suspended. It made him rigid, like an actual piece of computer hardware, for less than a second, and then his eyes poured into Yusaku's, to avidly drink down the soft expression on his partner's face-

Except he couldn't. Because cruel, mean, harsh Yusaku had now pressed both of his palms over his eyes.

'Unfair!' Ai declared, his visual sensors reading every line and wrinkle in the human skin swimming before his face. 'Yusaku, you cheat! I don't hide my face from you when I give you your daily power-up of love!'

'No thanks. I don't need anything like that.'

'Mean!' Ai exclaimed, taking great delight in the fact that Yusaku couldn't hide his face from the monitor of his computer nestled away in the corner of the room; and so Ai all too eagerly diverted part of his attention to accessing the camera there, catching the outline of Yusaku's smile and his smug, teasing look before he let Ai pull his hands away.

'You do need me to say it! Everyone in a relationship needs to hear they're loved from time to time!'

Yusaku shrugged. 'Don't call it a power-up then.'

'You should accept it however I say it!'Ai snapped. 'Just as I'm about to graciously accept whatever you've given me for White Day!' He then held out both palms expectantly, flashing a bright megawatt smile at his partner as though to say all was forgiven.

Only for Yusaku to stare steadily back at him and say, completely deadpan: 'Ah. I forgot White Day was today. I'll get you something later.'

Ai blinked. His smile wobbled. And he thought furiously of all the hints he had dropped, of the way he had highlighted today's date in Yusaku's email calendar, how he had purposefully fiddled with his desktop background and changed it to pictures of a guy in white suit offering out marshmallows as white as his photo-shopped teeth.

And then came something soft and wet, pressing determinedly against the sensors on his face. Yusaku's mouth, a kiss, and it rested on the place his own lips had been forced to sprout.

Ai's eyes locked onto Yusaku's, still open in that annoying unromantic habit they had of analysing every twist and flicker of Ai's expressions, pre-programmed or otherwise. He drew back with a clipped, 'be patient; wait until after school' dropping out of his mouth, before clambering out of bed.

Ai blinked.

'Eh? You were joking? Yusakuuuuuu...'

Ai frowned to remember it now, presently locked in place behind the door Yusaku would soon open to give him the gift he had been very patiently waiting for. Whatever he had got for him…it better be good!

The righteous of said thought was enough to get him practically hopping from one foot to the next, as he heard the creak of the opening door and saw a familiar face press itself out into view through the gap that followed.

'Yusaku!' he chirped, springing forward in an attempt to help pull his partner's bag of his shoulders. 'Welcome home! I waited for you, just like you asked me to!' Ignoring the nasty stare his beloved partner gave him as he successfully manhandled the bag off his shoulder, he eagerly pressed both his palms out, cupping them into the perfect receptacle for what should be a gift that would be worthy of all the pain, blood, sweat and tears Ai had been forced to endure a month beforehand. Well. Metaphorical ones, anyway.

Yusaku eyed him and his expectant face. Then bent down and pointedly undid the straps on his bag, lifting out something that on first glance resembled a small sheep.

'I've got the receipt so you can exchange for something that's darker if you like,' he said, his gaze sweeping over the black and purple clothes that adorned Ai's form. 'But since you seemed to be so taken by this White Day business...'

He dropped the buddle into Ai's hands and his partner watched it drift down, like a veil falling over a bride's face. Soft, the sensors there told him, soft as snow but without the crunch or the powder to crumble away and flake between the warmth of his fingers. No, instead there were firmer lumps, rivets almost, of wool, the very ends of it drifting up like dandelion seeds to be spun into a silvery gloss, fine as the silk that could be sketched out between tree branches from the body of a small spider.

'Yusaku,' Ai said softly, as though there was a lump in his throat; there wasn't of course, but emotions always choked him down, made him at times, feel slow and stupid, the way he thought humans must do when they had to struggle with complex equations without the aid of calculators. 'Oh Yusaku, you brought me actual clothes.'

Yusaku eyed him, as he closed the door behind him. 'It's a scarf, not an outfit.'

Ai giggled. 'Yes, but you hate it when I go clothes shopping. Or tense up whenever I so much as look in a window, or at a webpage! I've given you a phobia!'

Yusaku grimaced, looking oddly embarrassed. 'I wouldn't go that far.'

Ai smiled, artfully winding the scarf round his neck and cooing at the way it settled round his throat like a cocoon, one that made him feel strangely warm and fluttery. Almost as though Yusaku was somehow offering him a talisman of protection. 'I can't imagine how annoyed you must have been waiting in line for something like this! Thank you!' And impulsively, he made a scarf out of himself by wrapping his arms round Yusaku's shoulders.

'You're welcome,' Yusaku said, his face buried in Ai's chest; but Ai still felt the smile in his voice, as it nestled, slightly muffled, against the line of the scarf.

Ai drew back. 'Now,' he saw, with a grin fit to put the sun itself to shame; Yusaku certainly watched it with an expression that suggested that he suspected something in their life was about to catch on fire. 'Let's go on a date!'

An online one of course. Ai liked real-world dates. But he couldn't for instance, control whether it rained outside or not, while here, here, he could direct everything just so.

And so he had tugged Playmaker-sama to a world of white, where frost scattered over trees with flowers that bloomed in the shape of bells, their leaves tinged grey instead of green, and where silver glittered in a racing line through the centre of every stem. Even the branches surrounding them were caked with a thin sheen of glimmering ice.

Ai laughed, tugging Playmaker by the hand down the path he had programmed to spread beneath the arch of the trees, as each glistering branch dropped down around them down in mimicry of a willow's. Their hands and hair brushed past each petal, each leaf, each stem, as though traveling through a secret garden, the sort that sprang out of the fantasy films Ai liked to prod Yusaku into watching.

It felt just as magical as Ai hoped, snow crunching beneath each boot, but to complete the spell, Ai clicked his fingers and then a whirl of white settled above his shoulders, in perfect imitation of the scarf he had left behind in the human world. He snuggled into it happily, bringing a few fingers up to hook into it and feel its softness, something that was a little harder to truly experience in the world Yusaku was born into.

Behind him he heard a very faint grunt, and felt a slight tug on his other hand as one of Playmaker's legs sunk a little deeper into the snow than it should have...oops.

Ai quickly brought up a few screens in front of him and double checked to make sure he hadn't been too lazy and there weren't any more sinkholes lying in wait under the sugary glint of snow ahead. He threw a slightly embarrassed look over his shoulder.

'Ah. Sorry Playmaker-sama.'

Playmaker for his part, just raised a brow at him slightly, and dug his leg out of the snow. 'You really took the 'white' theme to heart, didn't you?' he asked, though his tone made it quite clear that he didn't consider the question worth answering.

Ai laughed again, dropping his hand and twirling round so he could firmly stamp out a set of footprints into the snow with his boots, into a messy heart shape.

'Exactly! You have put some heart-felt passion into festive days like this! Otherwise, what's the point?'

Playmaker glanced down at the cookie-cutter-like marks etched into the snow, looking slightly amused. You're ridiculous, the look seemed to say to Ai, and it was reflected in the small smile he wore as he raised his head to stare his partner down.

Ai's smile in comparison was a lot wider and had some actual teeth to it. 'Come on! There's no one else around so you don't have to worry about being embarrassed!' He wrapped both hands round Playmaker's and before his partner's smile had to shift and fade and his eyes could narrow and turn wary, Ai fell back, dropping into the snow and using his weight to carry his partner down with him.

'TIMBER!' he yelled, grinning the whole time, though the grin faltered slightly as Playmaker landed heavily across his chest, and hit his head against the space of white above Ai's shoulder. Only to immediately rear back and spit out a mouthful of snow. 'Be careful!' Ai scolded him. 'I didn't make this stuff digestible, you know!'

Playmaker glared at him, leaning back on his elbows so he could tower over him slightly, his expression clouding out the view of the trees above. Ai's grin faltered even more at the sight of it, so much so that it became a thin-lipped smile.

'Sorry!' he said hurriedly. 'That was my fault! I just wanted to make snow-angels with you!' He clapped his hands together. 'I just thought, hey, why not take advantage of snow that won't leave your clothes all wet and where you won't have to worry about a bunch of strangers pointing and laughing at a teenager doing something only little kids-'

Looking rather bored, Playmaker scooped up a handful of snow and dumped in Ai's open mouth.

Ai sputtered. Glared. Sent him such a look of betrayal that it should have cowed Playmaker into immediately apologising, or at least offering a make-up kiss of some sort.

Neither of which happened. Instead Playmaker looked him dead in the eye and said: 'be careful. I hear this snow's not digestible.'

Through a mouthful of snowflakes, Ai pouted. Spat out a few more. And gently knocked a curled fist against his partner's chest. 'Move! Let me up! Or are you trying to choke me to death!'

'Oh?' his cruel, cruel Playmaker said. 'But I thought you wanted to make snow-angels down here?'

'Not with someone who's secretly a demon, I don't!'

Playmaker actually smirked at that, the rotter. 'I'm a demon now? Guess you'd better behave then.' And then the same demonic hand that had pushed snow into Ai's mouth, reached up and carefully smoothed away a wet curl of black hair from his cheek. 'Or else...'

Slightly mollified, Ai tilted his head to the side, all so he could snuggle into that hand, much the same way a cat did. 'Or else?' he asked hopefully.

Playmaker's smirk softened into a smile. 'This demon will never let go again.'

A shudder rolled through Ai's program, traveling through the Ignis code all the way down to his metaphorical toes. It made him shiver slightly in reality, beneath the warm island of Yusaku's body still stretched over him.

What was this? Some sort of role-play? No, no, he knew better. Playma-Yusaku wasn't really into that. He liked the thought of the two of them remaining as themselves, despite how life sought to change them in the coming years (and it would, Ai had learnt that the hard way) staying as two distinct beings who wouldn't magically change into other people.

This was a compromise right? Just another mean tease, Playmaker allowing himself to drop to Ai's level, because he knew what Ai liked. And judging by the smile he wore while Ai squirmed and flushed and buried his cheek more firmly into his partner's patient palm, he knew it very well indeed.

'Good!' Ai declared as stoutly as he could manage. 'You have a good eye, Mr Demon sir! I'm an incredibly special and important AI, there'll never be another one like me-'

And then the demon swooped in for a kiss.

Kissing Ai was an experience, in either world. In the real world, it was a moment of sweetness, swift and soft because Ai didn't have a throat he could open up to the probe of Yusaku's tongue, not when he was enmeshed within the cage of the SOLtiS body. It was a second, maybe a few more of comfort and reaffirmation, a puncture in time that reminded them of what they shared. In some way it was no different to kisses other human couples shared. But it had its limits.

In the Vrains or any other digital world however, Ai was not stuck with a skeleton of metal he could barely press a more human skin over and could open his mouth up into a hot, heavy tunnel of heat and moisture. A cave to plunder. Though he always gave as good as he got and was in some way more greedy than Yusaku, slurping him down, hands wound tightly into his shoulders to gain more leverage. He always wanted more than the human world could give him. Or wanted to give him.

Yusaku would have given him his very soul in order to ensure he had all that he wanted and more besides. As Playmaker he had already given Ai all that he had. And yet he still sometimes felt like it wasn't enough.

'There'll never be another one like me,' Ai had said, gazing up with an impish twinkle in his eye and he right, there really wouldn't. There had only ever been six and now...

Yusaku hated the reminder and didn't want to see that twinkle fade, to become doused with pain if Ai's thoughts decided to take on a more depressing twist so now as Playmaker, he bent down and pressed his mouth to his partner's, let his own more human heat slip inside and warm Ai up.

He pulled back after a wet minute to watch Ai's golden gaze melt and glow, the way it always did when he was overcome by affection and the idea of being wanted.

He was so easy, Yusaku thought fondly, feeling slightly warm himself as Ai's arms encircled his neck in parody of scarf, pulling him down into a hug. And instead of tasting snow this time, he could feel the fabric of Ai's new scarf against his face, melting in a soft kiss of well-spun wool.

'What do you think?' Ai asked and Yusaku could hear the genuine softness behind the question. 'I did good right? A lot more fancy than your Valentine date of sitting on a bench!'

Even as Playmaker, hero of the Vrains, he allowed himself to nestle into the scarf slightly. 'You seemed to enjoy yourself back then. And sure. This is fine.'

Ai huffed. 'Fine, he says! And here I am working myself to the bone...'

He worked himself up into a rant and all the while, Playmaker let his fingers stroke the scarf and started to quietly plot his next counter-attack. When would be the opportune time to swoop in with a cutting remark? Or should he interrupt with a kiss instead? He was strangely fond of the endearing fluster that overcame Ai whenever he did so...

'Are you listening to me? Gah! You're a lousy boyfriend!'

...there it was.

'I'm a demon, remember?' Playmaker said, stretching his neck up. And moved forward, ready to either kiss, or let loose with another sentence that would be sure to make Ai squirm and flail and...

Well. It was sure to be a sight to see, either way.