"Akane-chaaaaaan~ You have a visitor~" Candy sang as she exited the shower the next morning, wiping her face.
Akane raised an eyebrow curiously. Who would visit her at this time of day-
"Ah, I'm looking forward to today, Akane-chan," an all-too-familiar man with white hair greeted her when she opened the door, holding a business card for a coffee shop. "Now about our deal yesterday-"
Quite understandably ( to herself at least) she slammed the door shut.
"I did not see anyone there," she muttered.
Day Two and she already had someone willing to take her on a date.
Day Two and Akane was now very sure that city residents were odd.
"Candy, do you think I'll be able to jump out the window?" she debated aloud.
Her AI stopped its dancing and heart-spouting before beginning on a lengthy lecture about safety.
There was another knock on her door and Akane relented. She had promised that she would go to coffee with him yesterday… With a sigh, she changed her clothes to a peacoat and black shorts with some flats.
"Ah, for a moment I thought that you forgot about our meeting," Makishima greeted pleasantly, a suspicious length of metal retreating back into his sleeve.
She eyed his hand in horror.
"Were you going to pick my lock?" Akane snapped, snatching his arm and attempting to wrangle what had been in his hand from him. Makishima smiled politely and kneed her in the stomach momentarily, causing her to double over, stunned. "H- Hey!" she cried, flailing as she was picked up and slung over his shoulder.
Candy interpreted her movements as a wave of goodbye and closed the door behind them.
As he carried her down the stairs (Akane had yet to notice how close his hand was to a precarious place), she relunctantly gave up thrashing herself off and asked, "Why are you carrying me?"
He hummed tunelessly. "Why, you were about to break your promise."
"I wasn't, Makishima-san," Akane protested.
"You were about to jump out the window," Shogo pointed out amusedly.
"That was a joke! Hey, wait, put me down!"
Akane highly doubted that he would let her off without at least semi-wrecking her sanity. She struggled a little more but Makishima kept her securely over his shoulder. He was surprisingly strong considering how slim he looked to Akane.
He tirelessly made his way down the emergency staircase with almost a bounce to his step, as if Akane weighed nothing at all.
"Wait, why aren't you taking the elevator?" she demanded.
"Would you believe me if I say I'm claustrophobic?"
"No!" she declared, attempting to struggle again. "Okay, I promise not to run away, now please put me down!"
The landlady would most likely be watering the natural potted flowers outside her door, and if Shogo was planning to wear Akane over his shoulder right to the first floor, there was going to be an awkward meeting which she would inevitably have to try explain later.
"Are you too uncomfortable perhaps?" he inquired.
Before Akane could answer him, she let out a short squawk as she was pulled backwards and her head hit his chest.
"How about this?"
When the world stopped spinning she realized that Shogo was still carrying her- but this time she was being held in his arms with her face buried in his shirt. (Seeing, or in this case, feeling the material up close, it was actually very silky and probably expensive, which only made her confused since he was supposedly homeless) She glared up at his wide smile and fought in the growing temptation to punch it.
They moved down on the second floor.
"Makishima-san," she growled in warning. "I'm not injured or incapable of walking. Please let me down."
Her irritating date instead lifted her a little so he could bring his face closer to hers. "If you call me Shogo, I promise I will."
She sighed inwardly. "I've never met anyone as frustrating as you before, Shogo-san," she remarked bitterly.
"Is that so?" For some reason, Makishima looked very pleased with himself.
He gently let her back on her feet and continued smiling brightly. If Akane hadn't already met him already, she would've thought the smile looked innocent, but even when he looked genuinely happy, she noticed that there was a glint of sadness written in his eyes. She didn't know what it meant yet.
They walked side by side onto the ground floor, being spotted by the middle-aged landlady tending to her flowers.
"Oh, Akane-chan?" she raised her eyebrows at the sight of the white-haired man behind her new tenant. "My, my! You told me you didn't have a boyfriend yet here you are, off an a date with a handsome boy!"
Akane quickly pushed Makishima towards the door in case if he confirmed it.
"It's not a date!" she called over her shoulder. "He's just a -er- distant friend of the family!"
"Actually, I'm her future flatma-"
"Friend of the family."
Day Two and Akane was already spinning lies to her landlady.
They took a bus to a shopping centre Akane had never visited before. The journey itself had been awkward since Makishima seemed content to just sit next to her without saying a word, whilst she prayed at every stop that no one she knew will come on board.
The alien environment didn't make things any better but a familiar brandname flashed at at the corner of her eye came as a comfort. She hesitantly leaned closer to Makishima so she could ask "C-Could I go to that store for a moment?"
"So you could plan an escape?" Makishima asked, the corner of his lip curling into a quirky fashion.
A blush threatened to flood her face. "I just want to search for something. You can come along if you like."
They entered the shop and Akane instantly marched towards a holo-display advertising big new game titles. She spun her fingers over them, searching for any which her friends recently talked about.
"You like gaming?"
"It's good fun," Akane chirped, and went back to her browsing.
Whilst doing so, she had completely forgot that there was someone standing next to her.
Makishima watched with amusement as his future partner absorbed herself in the game displays. He had a fairly neutral opinion about the industry in general, but thanked its presence since he had now found something he could use as a bribe for more meetings with his Akane-chan.
It was quite...cute how she went from being so guarded to an excited child picking her favourite sweets in a store. Her eyes twinkled a little in triumph as she found what she was looking for and scanned through the details of the game in front of her.
"This'll definately be fun to play with Sho!" she exclaimed before turning back to Makishima. "I'm just going to buy this, please give me a mo-"
For some reason, Makishima's calm mask was on the verge of shattering.
"Would you please repeat that?" he inquired.
"Excuse me?"
"What you just said."
"Um, I'm going to go-"
"Before that."
Akane blinked. "This'll be fun to play with Sho," she echoed, indicating to the game.
Then realization struck her.
"Oh, oh. Sh-Sho is a friend from training school!" she blabbered, quick to fix Makishima's assumption that she was calling him 'Sho.' "I'm sorry for the confusion, Makishima-san."
She raced for the till, but her white-haired date was quick to follow
"So, Akane-chan," Makishima said with fake brightness, joining her in the queue. "Who is Sho?"
"Well, he's actually called Shoichi but we tend to call eachother shorter nicknames when online. It's more conventional," she replied hastily. "We game a lot you see."
"Full name?"
"Oh, that's Taka-" Akane froze in mid-sentence. "Wh-Why would you want to know his full name?"
Makishima did his best attempt at an innocent smile. It was, unfortunately, a very successful one. "Would you believe me if I said it was out of simple curiosity?"
Akane didn't reply, the queue in front of her had cleared so she went ahead and placed the game on the counter. However, Makishima continued to shadow her and took the opportunity to lean over her and pay for the item himself.
She was about to make a noise of protest but when she saw the cash, her jaw hung open.
"I-I can't accept a homeless man's money!" she spluttered.
Makishima playfully tapped her on the nose. "I never said I was. Now, about this Shoichi-kun-"
"For some reason, I'm fearing for Sho's life and you two have no reason to meet anyway," she said dryly and pushed the money back into Makishima's hand. "I'll pay, it's a game for my own leisure."
"Isn't buying things for your partner considered good manners in a date?" he asked lightly.
"This is not a date. I am not your partner."
The giggling cashier thought otherwise.
Day Two and Akane was contemplating on vandalism via repeatedly banging her head against a shop window.
She managed to convince Makishima to let her buy her own game and allowed him to finally take her to the coffee shop he picked out. It was an old-fashioned cafe whith vintage florescent lights and most likely little to no Holo to change the old, crumbling walls around it.
"Black Order?" Akane read out the English signboard outside.
"Right this way, I reserved seats," Makishima directed to a table for two located in front of a wall decorated with authentic paintings.
He held out her seat for her which she awkwardly took. Makishima sat opposite her. Two cups of tea and a plate of shortbread was soon placed between them.
She nervously took a sip out of her cup.
"So, Makishima-san..." she began to say, but quickly realized she had no idea how to start a conversation with an enigmatic man.
For a start, considering it was Makishima who wanted them to go out for today, she expected him to be very involved with what they were doing. Instead, she found that his willingness to speak would quickly die unless she was doing something. She concluded she'd much rather listen to him talk than do nothing because she was quite sure he had been staring at her a few times in their moments of silence.
"You're not homeless?" she tried to certify.
Makishima's ever-present, vacant smile twitched in amusement.
"I don't have a permanent home," he answered. "I'd very much like to move in with you instead as your flatma-"
"Okay, next question," she interrupted. "Why were you sleeping outside my home yesterday?"
"I took a walk. Saw the complex. Thought it looked peaceful. Accidentally took a nap."
There was a pause.
"But why?"
"I enjoy meeting new people in varied settings."
Before Akane could try to pursue the topic any longer, Makishima threw in his own question instead.
"Do you read books, Akane-chan?"
She blinked owlishly.
"Books? As in for leisure? Other than textbooks or related works, I can't really say I do," she replied after some thought. "They've never been really... fun. Sometimes interesting, but books with unhappy endings are difficult to find joy in."
"Perhaps if you read a book without expecting it to entertain you then you will see it differently," Makishima offered.
She raised her eyebrows at him.
"You don't read for entertainment?"
"I read to adjust my senses."
She waited for him to elaborate but the light shifted a little in his eyes, showing that a new question was suddenly bursting from him.
"May I recommend a few titles?" he asked. Though his tone was kept calm and even, Akane noticed a hint of excitement behind his words, like a child just waiting to share a secret with his best friend or parent.
A part of Akane had wanted to decline. Like she said earlier, she never really enjoyed reading and she wasn't planning to make her coffee dates with the homeless white-haired stranger a part of her daily life. Still, he seemed to be holding back his eagerness quite well so it would only be polite to indulge.
She opened up her holocomm and looked up expectantly at Makishima, so she could browse for the books.
"Lord of the Flies by William Goldberg," he began.
"Eh? Lord of the Flies? I've read that one."
Makishima leaned over the table a little. "Well isn't that a pleasant surprise. I'd love to hear your thoughts on it."
"My thoughts?" Akane echoed. "It was quite horrifying, and very sad... what else should I say?"
"Any underlying themes you've noticed?"
"I think it could've been toying on the concept of original sin. Although, in context, he may have been focusing on the British public school system of the time..." she trailed off.
"You shouldn't sound so unsure, Akane-chan. There is no 'correct' answer since Goldberg was never explicit with the themes," Makishima pointed out. "I wonder if he wrote the book to refute Rousseau's utopian dream of the noble savage, and the idea that that corruption comes from civilization."
He paused to take a bite out a shortbread.
"Let's say for example, you and your classmates were on an uninhabited island," Makishima painted the scenario. "How long until all of you start tearing eachother apart?"
Akane wasn't sure if that was the best question to ask in a date. (No wait, she wasn't on a date.)
"Um, I'm sure there are a lot of varying factors considering that..."
"Yes, for one, all of you had been raised by the Sibyl System, which assures you the most suitable lifestyle," he noted. "With it's presence suddenly gone from your lives, how do you think your classmates would react?"
Akane furrowed her eyebrows. "Probably in a similar fashion to the boys in Goldberg's novel. Those boys had been living in regulated lives as well. The only way to make the events differ is if we acknowledged the System had been a large part of our lives, and that we have to fill in the gap ourselves."
"Oh, what do you mean?"
"Well, book like, um, Animal Farm, 1984, Darkness at Noon, Fahrenheit 451, for example, all of them contained a protagonist under threat of a negative power, but those protagonists just tried to avoid the problem as much as they could. They never tried to oppose that power."
"You think they should of?"
Akane opened her mouth but quickly closed it again. She frowned at her tea, sinking deeper into thought as she compared each dystopia presented by the different authors. However, her thought process broke after hearing a faint chuckle in front of her.
Her eyes widened in shock.
Makishima was laughing?
"I'm sorry, I don't mean to appear rude," he said from behind his teacup. "Please continue."
"I-Is there something on my face?"
Makishima rested his head on an open palm. "You had a nice expression, that is all."
Akane felt her cheeks redden but bowed her head so he couldn't see.
"S-So, about your question! I-I think it's difficult to be the only person who thinks different from everybody else!" she stammered. "It's probably very lonely, which is why they conform, and sometimes, it's better to do so, because trying to force your own very different view onto others can hurt people."
"Then should that one person be allowed to stay lonely forever? Or act like a sheep and pretend nothing's wrong?" His tone was no longer humorous. In mere seconds, Akane felt the light amusement in the air freeze over.
She lifted her head a fraction just so she could see Makishima's expression. Unfortunately, her hair curtained most of his face, but she was able to notice the abrupt grim tightening of his jaw.
"Humans are never alone," she replied. "We're social creatures, so even if a person feels as if he or she is different, that person will eventually meet someone else who is similar or willing to accept those different views."
His jaw slackened.
"Your optimism is quite something, Akane-chan," he said, voice still deadpan.
Akane wasn't entirely ready to check Makishima's expression so she took great interest in her teacup instead.
"Thinking nothing about the negative side of an argument doesn't really get you anywhere," she speculated.
"You think even the people rejected by Sibyl would be able to find acceptance from others?"
Out of all the questions Akane was given, this particular one threw her off.
"I'm sorry?" she spluttered.
"Never mind, perhaps another day."
"Another day?!"
Her head finally snapped up to see Makishima and saw that a new smile took form on his face, it looked less empty than his usual ones. It in fact, in Akane's view, made him look a little younger.
"Well, talking with you has been quite insightful and fascinating," he praised. "I'd very much like us to meet like this again."
Akane responded with a disapproving sigh. "Makishima-san, don't you have better things to do in life?"
"Haven't I already told you, Akane-chan? You're far too interesting for me to leave alone," he reminded her. "In fact, out of all the people I've met you are the most interesting."
"And like I said before, flattery will get you nowhere."
"Your rebellious side is cute, Akane-chan."
Day Two and Akane concluded that verbal communication with men was just infuriating.
Day Two and Akane vowed never to get on public transport with Makishima Shogo ever again. He found being squashed next her in a crowded bus far too hilarious.
Scratch that, Akane vowed never to go anywhere with Makishima Shogo again.
They stumbled out of the bus just a few blocks from her flat. Akane spent a moment composing herself again and smoothing down her hair from the graceless ride. Well, Makishima would beg to differ.
"Today has been... pleasant, and um, thank-you for the tea," she mumbled as she bowed her head.
In amusement, Makishima mirrored her. "Thank-you for being such a delight to be with."
She nodded at him stiffly and was about to turn away when his voice tugged her back.
"In a date, isn't it customary to see your partner off with a kiss?" he asked slyly.
"This wasn't a date."
"Then a hug?"
Akane raised her eyebrows at him. "You can be quite childish at times, Makishima-san."
"I'd prefer to think that I have a young sense of humour."
Considering Makishima had been a gentleman for most of the day, (but she really can't forget how he carried her down three flights of stairs in the most undignified manner) she guessed she could allow one friend-like hug. It just was that Akane had never been very encouraging of physical contact, and much rather share smiles with her friends instead.
Then again, she could just say no and make things easier for herself.
She shyly avoided eye-contact and hid her arms behind her back.
"Th-Thank-you for today," she stuttered and bowed for the second time.
However, just as she planned to take off and sprint to her flat, a pair of strong arms pulled her backwards, and crushed her into a familiar silky fabric. Her protests were muffled into his chest and every time she struggled, his arms only wound tighter around her.
She felt his chin sit on top of her head.
"I've been wanting to do this all day," Makishima confessed. "In fact, since yesterday."
Again, Akane wondered how such a slim-figured man such as Makishima Shogo could be so physically strong (and have such well-developed muscles). She managed to breath again by turning her head to the side, her cheek rubbing against his shirt.
"Why isn't any street scanners picking up this sexual harassment?" she squirmed.
"Hugging is an innocent activity," he replied.
"Not when the other party is opposing it."
"I don't see why you have a problem with it, you're quite lovely to hug," Makishima chuckled, and made a few playful twirls. "Actually, that isn't a particularly reliable statement. I don't hug often so I don't have many people to compare with."
Akane stopped wriggling after her feet lifted off form the ground. She dug her face back into his chest and waited for him to stop spinning.
"Ma-Makishima-san! I'm going to get sick!" she warned.
"Then I'll carry you up the stairs."
"Elevators exist for a reason!"
"Claustrophobic."
"Liar!"
"Akane?!"
The new voice made Makishima stop.
It made Akane freeze up.
Not far off, two bystanders were watching the scene in complete astonishment. Two bystanders who Akane could unfortunately recognize.
"Kaori... Yuki..." she managed to say.
"Hello, you must be friends of Akane-chan?" Makishima greeted with a nod of the head, having still not released Akane in his arms. "I am her new flatmate, Makishi-"
"You're not! He's lying!" Akane protested.
"We came by to celebrate that you moved into a home of your own," Yuki explained, holding up a plastic bag most likely containing ice-cream. "But looks like you're not exactly on your own."
"He's a complete stranger!"
"Didn't we just go on a date, Akane-chan?" Makishima prompted.
"That was not a date!"
Day Two and all the misunderstandings began.
I DID IT. After a couple of mochas and tears of angels, here is the sequel.
Thank-you exile-wrath for writing the opening scene for me and kicking it off.
(And heck yes, reference to 'Handcuffed Together, For Now and Forever' and if you haven't read it yet, why are you still hanging around here for?)
Just wanted to say, the only book I've properly read is Lord of the Flies, literature is not really my thing so feel free to correct me. I just wanted to use it as a starting point for Akane to indirectly tell Makishima DON'T KILL PEOPLE JUST BECAUSE YOU'RE AN ASYMPTOMATIC ASSHAT.
Pie
PS I've only proofread this twice and will probably do it again later after my brain returns to me. But until then, if anyone finds any grammatical errors, please do tell.