Love as rich as chocolate ~TodoBaku~

Chapter 24: is there other masses?

Akio Todoroki

As soon as Kei was out of sight, I stood up and went over to the counter, needing quite urgently to talk to Hiro. I had felt pretty calm, even when we started raising our voices a little, but him walking out on me felt more significant than it probably should. It felt as if he were abandoning me for good. His flimsy excuse about needing to go made it worse, since he'd lied to me...again...

Hiro knew immediately that something was up, and since the shop was going pretty quiet, he hastily taped a "back in 5!" note to the door, before locking it and gesturing me towards the back of the building. He led me into a little staff room, and we sat together on the floor, my head nuzzled into his chest. He gently stroked my hair as we sat there, fiddling with the messy bun I'd tied it into.

"...what did he say?"

"...he was just...making excuses. He obviously doesn't want to talk about it, but he acted like I don't have any right to know! It annoys me that I went into the conversation thinking he doesn't trust me, and I've come out feeling exactly the same!"

"I know...it's hard, but try to think of it from his perspective. He probably wasn't expecting you to know, so it'll have caught him off guard-"

"Hiro, I get that you're trying to help, and I love that about you, but please, I'm not in the mood for rational thought. I'd rather just sit here with you and calm down, ok?"

"...sure, whatever you want"

He seems a little bit sheepish, which means I might've been a little more stern than I'd intended. Truth is, my energy had been completely sapped, and I wanted nothing more than to stay here forever, but at the same time, I felt a negative aura coming from Hiro, and wanted to try and identify that.How I chose to do that...well...

"I mean, I'm...I'm still not completely sure how I feel about him, but-"

I broke off when I heard a large sigh from behind me. Hiro obviously didn't feel comfortable with what I'd said, but...it annoyed me. I was looking to him for support and he was being petty! I wriggled my way out of his grasp quite easily and sat facing him. He looked back at me with worry and confusion, and for a second I thought about just leaving it, but I ended up speaking again.

"...look, I'm sorry, but I don't think it's realistic for me to pretend with you. I honestly don't know how I feel about him at the moment, and I know that isn't what you want to hear, but it's the truth."

"I know...I guess I just sort of thought everything was ok since you said yes to me yesterday, but..."

"And everything still is ok! I still want to go out with you, and I'm still looking forward to tomorrow, I just...have a lot on my mind, and I want to be able to talk to you about that too!"

"I'm sorry...I shouldn't really be feeling jealous after everything you've told me, but...please understand that it's not easy to hear you talking about someone else like that"

That...probably shouldn't have angered me, but it did. I don't know what came over me, and in hindsight I was more angry at the situation than Hiro, but I did an awful job at getting that across.

"Well, I don't exactly think my time is exclusive to you! I mean...what exactly are we? We haven't kissed, we haven't done anything couple-y besides sleep next to each other, and I don't really know what you want to be at the moment"

"Aki, that's not what I meant, I mean-"

"I just don't think I'm exclusively yours right now, since I don't even know if we're in a relationship or not! How can I tell if you don't-"

"DO YOU THINK I'D BE PUTTING SO MUCH EFFORT IN IF I DIDN'T WANT THAT?! Jesus Christ Aki, it's been 24 hours, and we have plans for tomorrow! If I didn't want to be your boyfriend, I wouldn't be doing any of that? Doesn't that make sense?"

He obviously shocked himself with how loud he shouted, because his voice dropped dramatically after that, but he certainly got his point across. He...does make sense. I am acting a bit shitty right now, and I keep whinging about how he's not showing me anything...when I've probably not done the same for him.

"Look, maybe it's best if we forget tomo-"

I cut him off. Not with words, but with lips. I figured it wasn't fair for me to complain about not being kissed if I didn't have the courage to do it myself. Thus, displeased with what he was about to say, I decided to just go for it, and connected my lips with his, a little too eagerly perhaps. He seemed surprised at first, and I thought the hand on my chest was to push me away, but was relieved when it gripped my hoodie and pulled me closer, elongating the kiss as much as possible. We...obviously weren't very good at it, and pulling apart was a little awkward, but we ended up much happier for it. It alleviated all the tension between us, and made it much easier to move forward into tomorrow.

It was unfortunate that just as we were about to talk again, there was some angry knocking from the front of the shop. We peeked out to see a big line of people waiting for the door to open, and Hiro was forced to dash over and apologise to everyone, much to my own quiet amusement.

...what a day...
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I like how this turned out. I was gonna make the argument a bit more ...💥, but I think this works quite well

Fact of the Day: 💥