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After Akiko accepts his lunch proposal with her usual honey-sweet smile, Tetsurō excuses himself and heads to the back of the class where his seat is. And no, his hands are definitely not clammy.

With the start of class soon after that, where their homeroom teacher has them stand to address him, Tetsurō can't help how his golden hazel eyes keep flicking to the back of Akiko's head. The next twenty minutes of class time is very much the same and Tetsurō doesn't doubt that he could pick her out of a large crowd using nothing but her back alone.

Not that it isn't hard to get distracted easily by her hair. It's so long and so soft looking that he just wants to run his hands through it-

Nope. He thinks

There is no way that he's going to keep focusing on that - on her - and not focus on his notes. Nope. No way. Really, he can't understand why he is acting like this. Sure, she is pretty. But there are lots of pretty girls that go to his school. And yeah, she is nice. . . really nice, actually; but there are nice people everywhere. Hell, he is very nice!

So then why? Why Chitōse Akiko?

With a shake of his head, he surmises it has to do with feeling guilty about making her uncomfortable that one day.

That's it. . . I just feel guilty.

Tetsurō keeps repeating that in his head when he goes up to Chitōse's desk during lunchtime. It almost feels like déjà vu to him when he turns the chair of the unoccupied table in front of Chitōse's desk to face her while they eat. He is very much reminded of the first day that they interacted and he joined her for lunch. However, this time is a much more anxiety-inducing event.

He pulls out his lunch and places it on her desk. It is his usual bento, and okay, so maybe he lied about the extra pickled vegetables, but Akiko doesn't need to know that. Although, the anpan is there, squished from being forgotten at the bottom of his bag.

Once again, the brunette has a cute and colorful display of her food.

"Chitōse-san?"

"Yes, Kuroo-san?"

"Is. . . is your rice pink?"

She laughs, her hand coming up to cover her mouth. It is a soft laugh that he thinks is a perfect fit for her. "Yeah, it is! I thought it would look pretty cute if I added some pink to contrast all the more neutral colors."

The corner of his lips tug up into an awkward half-smile. "I guess it makes sense."

"It's silly, I know," she blushes, her eyes still full of mirth. "It just seemed like such a good idea at the time."

And because Kuroo Tetsurō is, well, Kuroo Tetsurō, he scoops up some of her rice straight out of her bento and sticks it right into his mouth. All Akiko can do is stare up at the laid-back boy with gleeful astonishment.

He hums, grains still in his mouth. "It still tastes like rice."

It's worth hearing her laugh one more time.

(Edited 09/23/2020)

A big thanks to everyone who has followed, favorited, and reviewed! I genuinely appreciate it and it makes me happy to read what everyone says about the story!

A few changes have been made to this chapter. A big one in terms of scene placement, because I had written the events of lunch then him eyeing her from his desk and back to lunch again. It just didn't fit right when reading so I put it in more chronological order. The tenses, grammar, etc have also been changed. A few sentences have been altered, deleted, and added.