I'm not writing the disclaimer again because you've already had 4 chances to read it and we all know I did not create these characters.
~Chapter 5~
Time passes quickly after I confess to Makishima. My mind spends more time drifting back to him than it used to, probably owing to my knowledge that his might be drifting to me. I'm fine with it.
School ends before I even realize it's ending. The last few weeks blur together behind a curtain of beautiful green hair and then I blink and I'm walking across the stage to grab my diploma. I can sense Makishima watching me from the crowd below, and I know he's going to rub in later how he graduated first. The alphabet can be cruel that way.
"I graduated first," Makishima teases, very expectedly, when I meet him outside the venue to start our walk home; we're pulling an all-nighter at his place tonight to celebrate our first night being high school graduates. I pretend to laugh at his corny joke for a few seconds, but it turns genuine when I see the look of mock offense on his face. As we walk, I can't help but notice the way the moonlight hits his face and softens his features. His two moles stand out like twin stars in a negative night sky and I want to kiss him. I sigh.
I haven't kissed him since we started dating, that night we confessed. It's not that I don't want to. I do. More than ever. It's just, now that I know I'm allowed, now that it's a real possibility, it is incredibly scary. It's scary to think that I could just lean in and kiss him and he probably wouldn't get mad at me. Too much power rests in my careless hands; or in this case, my lips.
The night is warm and the walk is long. Despite intermittent cool breezes, sweat causes our gowns to cling to us. I feel my fingers brush the back of his hand a few too many times and linger too long, and that's how I know we're too close to one another, but I don't move away and neither does he. We walk on silently in this strange state of almost holding hands until we arrive at his front door. His parents arrived home long before us and greet us from the couch as we hurry upstairs. I have a fleeting recollection of the fall I took the last time I climbed up these stairs and carefully tiptoe up the last ffew, leaving Makishima out of sight already by the time I reach the top.
I head into his room where he's already begun setting up blankets for us to sit on while we watch TV. I take a quick look around and see that he has not spared any detail. A stack of movies sits beside an equally tall stack of games sits beside a console sits beside a plethora of snacks and soda, and I'm glad I've been eating even healthier than usual these past few weeks because I'm about to ruin my stomach. By the looks of things, we'll be awake for four entire days, not just until tomorrow. After we've both changed into clothes more comfortable for not sleeping, I plop down onto the mound of blankets and Makishima plops right beside me.
"So," he says with a smirk and a sideways glance, "what do you wanna do first?" I realize that this is the first time I've heard his voice since we began our walk and feel my face grow slightly warm. I hope he doesn't notice.
"I don't know," I say lamely. "A video game...?"
"Oh, yes. Great idea." His eyes are already twinkling over the joke he's about to have at my expense. "I guess it doesn't matter which game? Do you want to watch me play Nintendogs? We can take turns. The dogs are very needy." I groan.
"This one, this one," I say, pulling from the stack a very generic-looking first person shooter that I can't believe he owns. "I can't believe you own this."
"Oh, 'This One'? It's my favorite, produced by Some Company, which is coincidentally also my favorite." The chuckle fades from his words and his eyes as he wraps up his sentence. "But, you know. I figured I might as well. Since that might be something we see every day in a few months. Right?" He tries to grin weakly and we both grow quiet. After a few seconds I save the day with my incredible wit.
"Well, let's play."
The game is almost too generic. The controls are astoundingly simple and the enemies are impossibly easy to beat. We become almost mechanical in our button jabbing and continue only to rack up more and more points while shooting pretend enemies in our wartorn fantasy land. I am beyond bored with the dullness and monotony of the game, but when I look over at Makishima to see if he's expressing a similar sentiment, I gather a completely different emotion from the set of his features. He isn't bored by the game; he hates it. Every enemy that falls to our righteous bullets stiffend his frown, but he doesn't say anything. He just keeps shooting. We just keep shooting. Shooting, shooting, shooting until I finally pause it. He looks over at me, thd hard line of his mouth relaxing.
"That game wasn't very fun," I say, trying not to make it seem like I stopped just for him. He would never let me if he thought I was having a good time. "Why don't we do something else?"
"Good idea," he says, seeming a little dazed. We only played for 45 minutes, but it felt like years. "Well, since you picked the last thing, I'll pick the next thing. We're watching a movie."
"Ooh, what movie?" I say, grabbing two grape sodas and leaning back on the blanket pile. "Don't tell me- it's 'That Movie,' your favorite movie, produced by your favorite, A Studio."
"Very funny." He pops the DVD in and turns the lights off, rejoining me only after grabbing about four bags of miscellaneous snacks. I hand him his soda. "It is one of my favorites, though. I think you'll like it." Don't say that. Now I'll love it even if it's garbage.
The pre-title credits start to roll and I'm confident I have never seen this movie before. I turn to ask Makishima for the title and suddenly become acutely aware of his face mere inches from mine and his arm against mine and his fingers brushing my legs. I feel my pulse pick up and decide to distract myself with a little stress eating. I grab the closest bag to me and tear it open as smoothly as I can manage, which is probably not smoothly at all, and pull out some of whatever's in there, sticking it into my mouth and hoping it's not something I hate.
Marshmallows. I sigh in relief. I love marshmallows. Marshmallows are the one unhealthy snack I regularly allow myself, and Makishima must have bought them just for me considering he thinks eating marshmallows on their own is absolutely the most heinous act on the earth. I turn to thank him for being the sweetest of all and remember why I'm trying to distract myself in the first place. His eyes are fixed on the screen and I can almost make out what's happening if I just look into th-
"Jinpachi, aren't you going to watch the movie?" His sharp whisper draws me immediately from my reverie. I can feel myself blushing. I have never been more thankful for the dark.
"Of course," I mumble, stuffing several more marshmallows into my mouth. I turn my eyes toward the screenjust in time to see the title flash across in curling font. It seems familiar, but I can't quite place it until the next scene happens. A woman sprints out into a torrential downpour and I know I've heard of this movie. It's one of the most watched romance movies of the past twenty years. I try to look at Makishima's face without being too obvious, but I can't read his expression from this angle, and now that I'm blushing so furiously he can probably feel the warmth from where he is, I definitely don't want him to look at me.
The pressure of his hand leaves my leg without warning and I nearly jump out of my skin when I feel it settle on my opposite shoulder. Makishima's whole arm is warm against my back and I take the quietest deep breaths I can manage to stop myself from shaking vigorously. Why am I so nervous? We're dating, aren't we? Isn't it normal to be affectionate with your lover? My mind starts to melt. I involuntarily consume more marshmallows. Probably almost half the bag is gone now, but I can't stop.
Maybe it's because we never do anything like this that I'm so on edge. I wouldn't be lying if I said I like the feel of his arm ariund me. It feels good to have him so close; in fact, I want him closer. I want him to wrap both arms around me and kiss me. But I'm afraid that he won't enjoy it as much as I do and maybe he'll decide he doesn't love me in the first place and I don't want to be tossed aside so soon. So I try to calm my racing heart and pop another marshmallow onto my tongue, attempting to pay attention to the movie for once. But before I can start paying attention, I notice something peculiar that I hadn't noticed before.
I roll my tongue slowly over the marshmallow in my mouth. It isn't round. Well, it isn't perfectly round. It's almost round, but it had something of an edge on one side, and when I get around to the other side, it dents in a little more sharply than chance would allow. I swallow it and eat another one just to make sure it isn't unique; it's not. I fish one out of the bag and try to be as inconspicuous as possible whdn I look at it in the dim light. I had my suspicions already, but it still doesn't stop my near-gasp when thry are confirmed. Hearts. The marshmallows are shaped like hearts.
I eat it as quickly as I can and refuse to take any more out of the bag, which I now have in a death grip. I try to watch thd movie, but I'm too overwhelmed. A romance movie, Makishima's arm around me, and now heart-shaped marshmallows? It's too much. And on top of it all, my heartrate refuses to slow. Why can't I calm down? He is my boyfriend, after all. This is not unreasonable. But it's so unbelievably cheesy I think I'm going to pass out. I stare as intently at the screen as possible. After several minutes of watching, I have become extremely invested in the relationship being played out before me. I hear Makishima's voice right beside my ear.
"Aren't you going to eat your marshmallows?" His smirk is audible. "I got them just for you."
"Oh," I mumble, "yeah. I'm going to. I just..."
"You're not going to say anything?" He almost sounds hurt.
"Like what? They taste good."
"No, I mean..." He sighs. "The shape. There is no way you were too dense to notice."
"Oh, yeah. They sure are very nicely shaped." He doesn't say anything for a while.
"I can't believe this."
"What?"
"I go out of my way to make everything so cheesy. I get the most romantic movie I can think of, I get heart-shaped marshmallows, and this is the recognition I get. Do you have any idea how hard it was to find heart-shaped marshmallows at this timd of year?" He pauses. I am almost about to speak when he answers his own question. "So hard! I went to eight different specialty stores."
"Are you upset?" He ignores me.
"My grand romantic surprise was a total flop. You didn't say anything about the movie or the marshmallows," he says, exhaling heavily. "I'm not upset. I was just hoping you would say something."
"Well, I did think it was really cheesy," I admit, "but I didn't wanna say anything because I thought it might not have been intentional." Suddenly, a wave of green hair flashes before my eyes and I can't see the movie anymore.
"Everything I do is intentional."
He tastes like grape soda. His lips are softer than I remember and I can't get enough. I run my hands through his silky hair and revel in the feeling that I've been craving so badly but too afraid to get for myself. I have missed this. Now that I'm actually kissing him, I don't know why I was so scared all this time. The power to kiss the one you love is a gift, and I have been far too ungrateful. He loops his arms around my neck and we just stay there for a long time, our lips hardly breaking contact.
After a good long stretch of kissing, he flops backover beside me and wraps his arm around me once more. "I've been wanting to do that for a while," he says, and I feel my body flooding with relief. I almost ask him why he didn't do it sooner before I realize the same thing could be asked of me. I have a different question on my mind, though, so I ask him that instead.
"Why did you want to surprise me with a cheesy date? Why didn't you just ask me to go on a cheesy date with you?" But even as I ask, I know I would never agree to something so corny.
"Please, Jinpachi. You and I both know you would never agree to something so corny." He knows me too well. "This is just one of those things I had to trick you into."
I can't help but break into a huge grin. I love Makishima so much more than I ever thought it was possible to love someone. He truly is the light of my life, and as I think so, I lean over to kiss him again. A soft yet strong hand stops me in my tracks.
"Our romantic date isn't over yet," he chides, smiling. "Watch the movie. The ending is really good."
I sigh, but I'm content to keep watching. After ten more minutes, I've eaten all my marshmallows in an attempt to drown out my emotional turmoil. After twenty minutes, sparse tears are starting to squeeze from my eyes. By the time the movie is over, I am bawling and ruined, and Makishima is sniffling and passing me tissues. I lay my head down and close my eyes, thinking that I might be able to sleep off the pain, but Makishima turns the lights back on and brutally hits me with a pillow.
"What do you think you're doing?" he cries, his smile too dazzling for my aching eyes to look at right now. "The night is still young!" I groan, but on the inside, I smile. I don't want to sleep on the time we still have to be together like this.
~~~~author's note~~~~
Yooo, I'm so sorry this update took literally an entire half a year to be created. Thanks for sticking with me and I will do my best ti hurry with future updates!