*:･ﾟYou Bet I Stare ･ﾟ:*

CHAPTER 14 - in my head till im dead

SOUSUKE
—❁—

I stood at the mirror behind my door, trying to decide if the outfit I threw together was good enough for my outing with Kou. Even though I knew that he would be underdressed anyway, I still wanted to look decent enough since I was always claiming to have a good sense for fashion. I eventually just settled on a random t-shirt I found, along with some shorts. The socks were just above my ankles, but eventually bunched together as I slipped some shoes on. I had a feeling that there was going to end up being a slight breeze, so I put a zip up on and zipped it up to the middle of my torso. I put my hair up as I always do, making sure the loose ends in the back were secured with some clips—then I made sure my camera had enough film to survive the day, and I headed out. I still wasn't quite sure where I was meant to meet up with Kou at, but I don't think he knew either. We eventually agreed on the pastry shop—since it was right in the middle of where our opposite directions met. I found myself situated on a bench as I waited for Kou to come and meet me here, snapping random photos of the birds that would land on the ground around me to pick up peoples pastry scraps.

Sure enough, Kou came barreling down the sidewalk. "Mitsu! I finally made it!" He panted as he sat down beside me, his hands on his face to shield his worn out expressions from me as he caught his breath. "What the hell did you just do? Run a marathon or something?" I smiled as I set my camera in my lap. "Ah well.." His words were interrupted by pants every couple seconds. "I.. man—I woke up late.. and—" He uncovered his face as he exhaled, his breath finally catching up with him. "I knew you were probably already waiting here for me here, and I felt bad for it so I ran all the way from my house to get here." Kou then gets up, quickly digging in his pocket. "I got you something that I found on my way here.. hopefully it isn't all ruined." He then holds out what looks like a weed, but he clearly thought it was some beautiful flower that he won the jackpot with. "It was the prettiest one I could find in such a rush, but I hope you like it." He hands me the weed as he stands up, and I smile as I take it. "I love it, thank you lame-o.." I tuck the weed behind my ear, and Kou smiles widely. I could tell he was proud of the find he scored.

"So—do you have any idea what you want to do first?" Kou looks at me as we begin walking down the street, but I honestly didn't know of that many places around here that could be considered fun places to hang out at. "Well.. no, not exactly. I've never really relied on this place for fun since I'm usually always hiding out in my house over the weekend." He nods as he listens to me, "No need to worry! I have a whole bunch of cool things we can do stashed up in my brain—and I think you'll like them!" He presses the button to signal the crosswalk, then he looks at me. "I really like your outfit, Mitsu! It looks good on you." I look up at him, "Hm?" I then look down at myself. "This outfit? It's just something I threw together last minute, but thanks." He holds a thumbs up as I look at his outfit. He was wearing a white t-shirt with a light blue zip up jacket over it, and they were paired with some dark green baggy pants. His socks weren't even matching, but his shoes covered them up; so it didn't really matter. I also couldn't help but notice that instead of the ticket earring in one ear, he was wearing two matching black studs in both lobes. A smile grew as I look at the signal across the road, waiting for it to show the white walk signal. "Your outfit isn't all that bad either, Minamoto." He looks at me with a wide smile. "You really think so? I'm surprised you didn't harshly point out the fact that my socks aren't even matching." As the signal turned, Kou tapped my shoulder. "Last one to the other side of the street is a big fat loser!" He then bolts across the street, "Wha- HEY!" I run and try to catch up with him, making sure my camera is secure in my hands as I ran. "That's not fair! You had a head start!" I could feel myself giggling as I tried to beat Kou to the curb—but he still won.

"Hah! Take that, camera boy!" He points at me before doing some sort of silly victory dance. I felt a smile grow across my face as I heard him say that nickname. "Camera boy? Really." He continues to awkwardly dance around, "I win! You lose! Now you get a big fat bruise!" I use my hand to nudge his shoulder, making him stop his little joyous emote. "Hey! You disrupted my totally awesome victory dance! You sore loser.." He catches up with me, a big smile on both of our faces. "I'm not a sore loser, I simply just let you win." I look up at him, lying to try and help my case. "You liar, I won fair and square!" Kou crosses his arms as he walks beside me, getting snarky about it with a smile. "Believe all you want, but I would've won if I didn't have my camera in my hands." I respond to his snarky comment with my own. Our bond was finally growing as we walked down the street to wherever Kou was taking me.

So far I've found out that Kou enjoys turning things into a competition, even if it's something as silly as crossing the street. I could also tell that we were both good at giving and receiving snarky and sarcastic comments—and could joke about almost anything and everything.

As I spent more of my day with the blond boy, I could feel myself falling deeper and deeper for him, and my emotions were just all over the place. I was still scared of rushing into things, so I just focused on treating this as an outing with a best friend rather than a date before the first date.

Part of me hoped that the day would eventually end in us finally starting things, but another part of me still had myself convinced that we should take things slow. It was like my brain was having the ultimate 1v1 battle with my heart and my feelings and that I was having a hard time regulating which one I should stay true and loyal to.

Either way, I wasn't going to let this interrupt my time with Kou—I mean, we haven't even been hanging out for 10 minutes and I was already having the time of my life. And I already didn't want this day to be over .