Akihiko just patiently waits for the clock to run out at this point, suspended in an emotional paradox ever since he calmed down. Part of him feels like a bottled explosion bursting at the seams with his recent discovery, smothered and held back by another, as if to bid its time. There's simply nothing he can really do until she recovers except train, think, and daydream. A romantic streak at the back of his skull keeps hinting he just needs to wait for the proper moment, and she did ask him to be available next Tuesday.

Hopefully she's feeling better by then…

Because it's already Sunday night and the twins are still bedridden because of their waterlogged adventure. Minato is so immobile he could be in a coma and Aigis keeps breaking in his room to stare and monitor his vitals, while his sister can barely handle a few minutes of wakeful delirium here and there. Apparently, what she mumbles at times isn't always very coherent since Iori, who barged in her room at some point, looks a little bewildered as he heats up his instant ramen in the kitchen.

"Sanada, do you know someone named Theodore?"

Looking up from the fridge, Akihiko quickly swallows a sip of his shake before answering.

"I don't, why?"

Junpei shrugs as he goes fishing for chopsticks in the cabinet.

"Mina-tan keeps raving that this guy forgot how to use a payphone and apparently it gives her a headache. It was so random... maybe she's dreaming about a movie or something."

That's certainly different from everything she shared when I visited her.

Just thinking about that makes his ears flush, and he mumbles an excuse to retreat to his room, haunted by visions of mischievous red eyes afire.

He spends that evening entertaining myriad thoughts of her when his mind strays from his homework, listening to the pattering of the rain in his window. At least it promises to be the last night of gloom; the tatters of the typhoon's passage inland should disperse by morning and the twins' fevers are slowly dropping.

The sky is devoid of overcast and the light burns bright white the next day. As if the sun brings a cleansing, their sickness abates as quickly as it struck them down, leaving both teens miraculously refreshed and hale. That's not to say that the rest of the dorm population takes their sworn word of good health as gospel, even when Aigis confirms they are well and truly recovered.

Mitsuru refuses to entertain the mere idea of going to Tartarus that night despite Minako's stubborn pleas, and Akihiko vehemently agrees with her; a few days of extra rest won't hurt anything. Even Shinji forces the twins to sit at the bar so he can cater to them personally, because apparently nothing else will do.

"I don't want you to touch any of the microwavable crap in that pantry; you both spent three days sleeping that chill off and I'm not going to watch you gorge on garbage."

With their appetite, it's a wonder they lasted this long without sustenance.

Junpei raises his head from his usual disposable cup, mouth crammed full of noodles.

"Hey senpai, what's wrong with instant ramen?"

His senior's grumble is a little vicious and the stare hard as nails.

"Everything! Eat up now, before it gets cold!"

Minako rolls her eyes, laughing at his concern, but she and Minato wolf down two huge helpings of the homemade zosui he slides in front of them before he stops glaring ominously. Akihiko just ate copiously but the smells coming from their meal make him stare in envy, hungry all over again, and Shinji eyes him with an amused smirk that makes him clench his fists.

Rub it in a little more, why don't you?

The twins slip out of the dorm together afterward to run some mystery errand, and it becomes evident that their memory is a little spotty when Takeba inquires about the status of their composition homework after they come back in the dorm.

"What paper?"

Yukari blinks, bewildered.

"The assignment Ms. Toriumi gave us Friday afternoon before she sent us home. You might want to get started on it now, if you want to have it done on time."

The siblings' looks of confusion speak volumes, and even Akihiko jumps in the conversation at this point, a lot happened that day after all.

"How much do you both remember, exactly?"

Their inner pondering lasts a full minute, and there's a moment when Minako bites her lip and blinks through a slight blush, briefly glancing at him.

Yeah… we're going to have to talk about that. And then I really want to talk about the rest.

"Well, I'd say everything before… early afternoon is crystal clear? After that it's a little sketchy. I know we got ambushed by Takaya, but I can't recall much afterward except the avalanche of rain."

The robotic maiden sitting nearby interjects.

"Short term memory loss and lapses are natural side effects of a high fever. It is nothing to be concerned about and usually temporary when it concerns the hours preceding the onset of high temperature."

So, she might never remember what she said during her fever… But I can work with that.

"Thanks, Aigis… I wish I could use that excuse to get out of that four-page essay… Ugh, there goes the rest of the day I guess."

Minato just pats her on the head like she's a small child he needs to console, earning an hair ruffling in reply, and the dining table quickly becomes an impromptu group study session. Somehow, the twins rope the others into joining them simply by having their schoolbooks open, Akihiko included.

I think we all missed you both. It's not the same without you around.

It's not the privacy he was hoping for with her today, but it's a moment in her company nonetheless and she did ask if they could go for a run tomorrow; they can talk then.

She certainly wasn't lying when she said she felt refreshed, because Minako is as fast and energetic as ever next morning. It's like her sickness was a simple three-day nap to pass the time.

Akihiko can't help staring at her when she pulls herself inward in silence, remembering all the times they shared little tidbits of vulnerability standing on this horizontal bar. It started as being a bystander to her daily ritual and gradually extended to also laying some of himself bare when they sit here. Not to mention the eloquent conversations he never gets enough of.

I'll never tire of this, though.

The subtleties of these moments are full of beauty; the way her lashes string shadows on her cheek, how her breath flutters when it breezes on her parted lips, the abandon in her relaxed posture... Her fingers move just as her eyelids lift on red embers, lacing themselves with his own and she smiles serenely, radiant with inner light.

When you're just you, like now…

Suddenly, the urge to tell her how he feels is overwhelming and he bites his tongue in anguish, there's something Akihiko needs to handle before he gets to that because he refuses to be dishonest with her.

He's been dreading this conversation since last Friday and now that it's finally time to get on with it, it won't come out. The dismay is clearly all over his face since she gently whispers to him before he manages to power through his unease.

"You have something on your mind."

You always know.

Licking his lips as a nervous reflex, he takes a deep breath before speaking.

"I wanted to apologize to you for... last week."

Now she looks thoroughly confused, raising an eyebrow his way.

"What for?"

The sparks traveling up his spine are not making this any easier and he tries to rephrase his thoughts to be as direct as he can, she deserves honesty.

"For… ambushing you like that in the student council room."

The way she adorably bites her lip and lowers her eyes at the memories echo the mischievous tone of her next statement.

"I certainly wouldn't mind surprises like that every lunch period, it was… pretty amazing."

That's what makes this so hard to admit.

Akihiko can't look at her right now and frowns toward the trees instead, tumbling out words as best he can while dancing around the irrational jealousy at the root of it all.

"Yes, but... It doesn't excuse what I did. It wasn't coming from a… good place to begin with. It was incredibly selfish of me to even entertain some of the thoughts I had back there and… I'm sorry."

It takes her a while to answer and when she does, it comes out laced with warmth but very assertively.

"Akihiko, I won't be shy in telling you to stop if I'm not okay with something, I trust you. There's nothing to apologize about."

He lets the words sink in slowly; she certainly sees things a little differently since she's missing the trigger component of his insanity, but he realizes now that it's not as relevant as he thought. She's pretty much asking him to walk the talk about his trust in her and believe in her trust in him.

That's… fair. Maybe I haven't been-

Her nails brush up delicately against his wrist to catch his attention and he turns his gaze back her way, thought process broken. Minako's eyes are churning with hesitation and she's pressing her lips together as if she's loath to speak.

"Are you crushing yourself in a vice because of your own boundaries, or because of your perception of mine?"

Wow! That's…

As brutal as the question is, Akihiko admires how she cuts straight to the bone, because that's exactly what this comes down to. His mind keeps going back to that picture of a cage of glass that he built, and how realizing his true feelings made it finally visible to him. All that dread comes from there in the end; his perceived uncertainty of where their relationship starts and ends, and how it stands against the forces gravitating around them.

"In all honesty… It's both."

It's only with you that I can admit something like this with so much sincerity. I don't think I've ever been so close to anyone before.

He has no experience dealing with any of this, after all it's much simpler when it's with comrades or friends. And they're much more than just friends at this point.

Minako eventually interrupts his introspection by tenderly caressing his cheek.

"I can't speak about you, but if it helps... the line with me is not where you think it is."

Since you want me to show I trust you, maybe we should talk about that, too…

They'll have to go back before he's late for his club obligations, meaning he can't follow this conversation with the words he really wants to say, but…

"You didn't really explain what you wanted to show me tonight..."

Akihiko can hear the ghost of excitement he badly masks in his own voice, a sharp contrast with the serious exchange before, he really wants her plans to involve a long tête-a-tête. If his mood shift surprises her, it doesn't show in her smile.

"At what time do you expect your event to end?"

He blinks and ponders for a moment, trying to remember the schedule.

"Around 5? I need to supervise the equipment cleanup before I leave."

Her rubies gleam with a delighted spark and she grins.

"That's great, just don't ruin your appetite and come straight back at the dorm, it's all I can say! But afterward… I was hoping to spend a long moment just the two of us, if you want."

Are we eating together somewhere new?

"I do, there's something I want to share with you."

He might not be able to say it now, one does not drop those three little words and run off right after, but perhaps he can show it instead. It's with much more confidence than usual that he suddenly cups her face and kisses her with intent, making her breath hitch in surprise at his sudden display of affection. He pours as much tenderness as he can in the languid joining of their lips, watching the flames in her eyes melt shut the same way she does against the palm on her cheek.

At least the day passes by quickly, and his club performs admirably under his watchful eye, winning most of the matches. Akihiko finds Minato and Koromaru on the dorm steps when he walks back, sitting in the stairs as if they were waiting for him. His junior looks at his cellphone and murmurs.

"You're right on time, Sanada."

"On time for what?"

Smirking, Minato gets up, opens the door and drags him inside without another word. As soon as he enters the seemingly empty lobby, Akihiko is assaulted by tantalizing wafts of cooking that make his stomach grumble painfully, it smells amazing. Even the dog's nose won't stop twitching in excitement and he yips like a puppy.

The knife-like pangs of hunger have been making themselves known since he took a shower at school, and now he's approaching his limits to find sustenance before he crumbles into a heap of acid-pitted disfunction.

This is absolute sensory torture.

Minato knocks on the reception bell a little loudly before speaking to the emptiness.

"The special delivery just arrived."

Shinji pokes his head through the kitchen doorway to stare at them, shouting with exasperation. Surprisingly, he's wearing a cooking apron and removed his coat, which is thrown on the sofa like a discarded cloak.

"Finally, the dumbass appears. Drop your shit somewhere and go sit at the table already."

Dumbfounded, Akihiko just blinks.

"What's going on?"

But his question gets completely ignored.

"Arisato, can you go fetch the others? And don't forget the broody pipsqueak, he's skin and bones. It's not a party unless we're all there."

Aragaki nudges his chin in Minato's direction until he gets moving toward the stairs, then turns around to the kitchen proper and growls.

"And you! I told you to butt out, several times already! You're so stubborn."

This just keeps getting weirder every minute.

He gets back in the cooking space with a few hard steps and literally pushes a giggling Minako out by the shoulders as if she weights nothing.

"Awww come on, I just wanted to look!"

Shinji sighs loudly in utter annoyance, pointing toward the lobby vaguely with a wooden spoon, but his lips are slightly upturned like he's only pretending to be mad at her.

"If you don't get your little hands out of here now, I'll cram you in a chair myself. Just keep Aki busy before he starts to rummage around for a protein bar. The musclebrain looks starved to death."

Chuckling, she shakes her ponytail and excitedly makes her way toward Akihiko while the resident cook-in-chief dives back into his den, grumbling about girly fingers mistreating his noodle sauté.

"I'm supposed to entertain you until the rest of SEES comes downstairs to partake in the most fabulous of delicacies, so I guess you should drop your bag somewhere and sit with me."

You're certainly entertaining right now.

She's wearing that frilly white skirt he's so fond of and the striped tank top and orange blouse she often pairs with it. Minako voiced her comment loudly, and now she bites her lip, throwing him a wink. Akihiko finds himself grinning in reply; she's impishly adorable right now. Three seconds later, Shinji gruffly shouts from the kitchen in reply.

"Stop it with your insane expectations already! Fuuka, watch it, a piece of eggshell just fell in there."

She clearly knows how to tease him.

For once, he's not bothered by their closeness and that surprises him, it would normally make him twitch at the very least. Yamagishi's small voice echoes from behind the kitchen partition.

"Huh? Oh, you're right! It's amazing that you noticed that senpai. How can you keep track of so many bowls and pans at once?"

"Just take your time. I'm not doing anything special; anyone can do this."

You can downplay it all you want but it's a lie. You have a gift.

Minako rolls her eyes and smiles knowingly, probably coming to the same conclusion. He barely has time to drop his bag near the sofa when she grabs his free glove and drags him to the dinner table to sit with her.

Clearly, they're being treated to a group meal of some kind, and Akihiko is feeling a little light-headed just thinking about what could come out of the kitchen.

Whatever this is, it's going to be marvelous, I can tell just by smell.

It might be hunger possessing him; he could eat anything at this point, but he knows Aragaki's talent. And she was clearly in on all this, stringing him along into stepping here on an empty stomach. Curious, he can't help whispering her way.

"Is this what I think it is…?"

Her own voice is very low to escape the sharp ears working the stove on the other side of the wall.

"Shinji has been thinking about cooking enough for everyone, pretending he didn't want to but... deep down, he's happy he decided to do this. I just gave him a few pointed nudges, and Min was involved too, so… here we are!"

All those meetings and hushed conversations in private... that was for this?

The fact that she called him Shinji, and not Aragaki or senpai, flies completely over his head at this point.

"Why the secrecy though?"

Minako winks at him with a beaming smile.

"Because he chose the date on purpose."

You're kidding me, it's September 22nd. It's…

The shock is probably written on his features, and she leans closer.

"You don't have to share what today is at large if you don't want to, most people only involve their closest family. But I think that deep down... he did this specifically for your birthday, yes."

Shinji...

"Why? I mean, we grabbed ramen once or twice on that day before, but…"

I think the last time he cooked for me was pancakes when we moved at the dorm, in memory of the orphanage.

"He talks about you all the time, and you two are practically brothers… He's been looking at a cookbook for more than a week now, and Min and I helped with the shopping. He won't let us in the kitchen though, only Fuuka is allowed. He's a stern teacher, but he's patient and he knows his stuff. She adores him."

I can't believe this...

As she murmurs the last sentence, her hands dive discreetly under the tablecloth so she can run her burning little fingers on his wrist and whatever thought he had in mind floats off like a stray bubble.

"This is all him you know… That's what I wanted to show you."

You played a bigger part in this than you'll ever know. He's been so distant, I…

But Akihiko can't elaborate further when the rest of SEES starts scrambling down the stairs to sit down as well, escorted by an amused Minato who watches them all ponder the delicious aromas of the lobby with a grin. His sister nods his way, gets up and loudly speaks.

"So, who's hungry!?"

Shinji just yells from the kitchen.

"Just shut up, all of you!"

The deliveries from the kitchen start soon after, and Yukari eyes the dishes quickly filling the table with wide eyes.

"Is… all of this for us? It's all made from scratch, too…"

Just trying to take stock of the meals is making Akihiko dizzy. There's tomato pasta, sweet-and-sour pork, fried chicken, paella, omelette with fried rice, various veggies in sauce, dumplings and two types of pan-tossed noodles, everything just teasing him at this point.

This is… Oh my god!

Junpei tries desperately to catch his senior's when he comes around his chair to drop a pot of rice.

"Dude, there's so many different plates! What's the occasion?"

His adoptive brother shrugs dismissively.

"This was just an excuse to show Yamagishi a few things…"

But his hazel eyes turn to Akihiko in passing and he barely smiles, nonchalantly downplaying the fantastic feast he just conjured out of the dorm kitchen with Fuuka's help.

You're such a fucking liar. But you clearly don't want people to know, so I won't tell.

It's when the food is all set that Shinji finally sits down as well, and Mitsuru speaks in a soft voice, seemingly bemused.

"Aragaki… did you ever consider a calling as a chef? I could help you find employment if you're so intent on not graduating, this is a spread fit for royalty."

He just shakes his head like the suggestion is an insult but throws her a quick glance that's warmer than his words before addressing the whole table.

"Tch, don't be ridiculous... Now, stop babbling, pick up your chopsticks… and dig in already!"

It's, without any shadow of a doubt, the best meal Akihiko ever had in his life, and he honors it in earnest. It's just impossible not to take a bite out of every dish that adorns the table, and every single one of them tastes like heaven.

Koromaru is having a good time eating his own custom catering in his bowl, eventually settling under the large table to beg from scraps. Not forgetting what he's owed for keeping his silence the other morning, Akihiko slips him some choice bits of chicken on the downlow to Minako's amused smiles. The conversation and banter around the table is merry, he can't help smiling in between mouthfuls of food and it's not just because they keep accidently bumping their ankles together.

The only outlier is Ken, who looks a little too somber at the table, picking apart small bites in silence while the juniors excitedly discuss their favorites. Shinji eventually addresses Amada directly in a soft voice.

"How is it…?"

The kid's reply takes a few seconds to come out and he won't look at his senior.

"…It's good."

The twins both try to engage him further into conversation, even convincing Ken to try new dishes when they pack their third bowl. Aragaki eyes them in surprise before commenting.

"You two are so scrawny I don't know where you pack it. It's a wonder the typhoon didn't carry you off."

Junpei laughs, grinning at Shinji.

"You know what would have been awesome? If the typhoon had blown a ramen stand into a shadow and killed it in one hit!"

Everyone at the table instantly fall silent, cringing hard at him until his face crumbles in disarray.

"I uh… I'm gonna go to the bathroom, I think…"

The food coma symptoms are clearly catching and the lobby fills with groans of contented drowsiness once the feast is picked clean much later that night. Shinji might not want any help whatsoever, but the girls overpower his objections to tackle the dishes, and the others clean up the table mess.

Aragaki keeps mumbling about nobody minding their stupid business, his eyes taking in the group camaraderie with a wistful expression, and Minako eventually takes him aside on the back porch for a bit of private conversation.

She's going to hammer you with it until you admit how amazing this was. I can't believe it myself.

Mitsuru's manicured hand eventually settles on Akihiko's shoulder, and he glances back at her.

"Expect a package later this week, the typhoon caused some delays but… I thought you might appreciate some quality material to prepare for your entrance exams."

He blinks, the criminal science books he was considering are expensive and knowing her, she probably bought the whole collection.

"You didn't have to go through all that trouble, Mitsuru…"

Her smile is warm and proud as she murmurs discreetly.

"Keep working hard, it's all the thanks I need. And… you should scrub that before it stains."

Her nails flick on his red vest where there's a smear of sauce and he laughs; her mothering sometimes knows no end.

"Yes, ma'am."

His little pause of laundry intervention to ensure he doesn't ruin his apparel reminds him that he forgot his bag downstairs, and by the time he comes back down to pick it up, the lobby is empty. There's an irritated growl that rumbles out of Aragaki when he walks out of the kitchen with a little display of handmade daifuku in various colors and Mitsuru's tea set on a platter.

Would you look at that, it's her favorite dessert, too…

"Idiot, what are you doing downstairs? And wipe that stupid smirk off your face!"

They state at each other for a bit before Akihiko's expression softens.

"Shinji, I just-"

"If anything else comes out of your mouth, I'll punch you good!"

His friend's scowl won't relent, and he closes his mouth. Apparently, he wants no thanks, despite the corner of his lips twitching upward in self-satisfaction.

"Fine… Enjoy your little tea party, I guess."

"Someone must handle surveillance and we're both going to have a splendid time discussing how a certain dumbass managed to make it to 18 in one piece despite all his stupid stunts. You better go back upstairs before your girl drops by, she's on the prowl for the birthday boy."

The shoulder shove Akihiko earns in passing comes with a knowing smirk and he grins like an idiot.