It was late, everyone went to bed. They all slept downstairs in the living room. Ann and Shiho has fallen asleep in the recliner together, with Ann hugging Shiho from behind. Haru and Futaba fell asleep at opposite ends of the couch, leaving Ryuji and Akira to make a bed on the floor. All of the girls were asleep, but the two boys were still awake.
"Got any eights?" Ryuji asked, looking down at the handful of cards he was holding.
"Go fish"
Ryuji let out a quiet groan and picked up a card. He had ten cards while Akira only had two cards. Akira let out a yawn, then asked what cards Ryuji had. However Ryuji didn't answer, instead he set his cards down.
"Man we've been playing this for an hour straight. It's two in the morning. Maybe we should go to bed"
"Your just mad because you're losing"
"Shut up" Ryuji lightly pushed him, causing a laugh to escape Akira.
That laugh.
Ryuji loved it when Akira laughed, he always sounded so happy and carefree. Then again Ryuji loved everything about the boy. The way he covered his mouth when he laughed, his determined look when fighting shadows, and especially how he cared for everyone.
"Maybe you're right, we should sleep" Akira spoke, causing Ryuji to return to the real world. He nodded and put all the cards in a big stack. They both laid down and covered up with the blanket. Akira let out another yawn before mumbling out something.
"Night Ryuji, I love you"
Did he hear that correctly? Was his sleep deprivation finally catching up to him? What should he say? Was it an accident?
"Goodnight Akira"
"Wake up sleepy heads!!!" Ann yelled, opening all of the curtains. Futaba let out a loud hissing sound, covering her face with the blanket. Ryuji let out a groan, sitting up.
"Ann what the hell?" He managed to mumble out before letting out a loud yawn.
"It's eight o'clock!! We need to get up!! Come on me and Shiho made pancakes!" Ann skipped happily into the kitchen while Futaba and Haru trailed after her.
Ryuji tried to stand up only to feel something holding him down. Looking down he saw a sleeping Akira holding onto his waist. However Ryuji's movements caused Akira to stir. After rubbing his eyes Akira looked up at the blonde and gave him a small smile
"Good morning"
The sight killed him. The bed hair, the half opened eyes, that crooked smile. Everything about it made Ryuji's heart melt.
"Morning. Get up Ann and Shiho made pancakes" Ryuji stood up and walked to the kitchen, eventually Akira joined them.
Futaba had her eyes glued to her switch, mumbling out incoherent words. Meanwhile Haru was already eating pancakes, happily talking to Shiho. Ann turned around holding out two plates with pancakes on them.
"Eat up!! You don't want them to get cold!" The two boys thanked Ann for the food and sat down at the table everyone else was at. Eventually Ann joined them, carrying her own plate.
"So you two were up late... and playing go fish. Why go fish of all games?" Ann asked, taking a bite of pancake.
"Look it was two in the morning, we were a little loopy and bored." Ryuji responded, pointing his fork at her, "and how do you know? Did you wake up?"
"Ya just for a second. I even heard Akira say he loves you~"
"I did what...?" Akira asked quietly, looking up. He was half asleep. You could tell. He would occasionally lean forward before jerking backwards, also his eyes were only half open.
"Nothing! Don't worry!" Ann replied cheerfully, and in response Akira nodded slightly.
"Why do you bring that part up? He was barely awake, it meant nothing..." at this point everyone but Akira was listening in on the conversation, and all the girls had the same look on their face.
Someone please help this oblivious boy
"Dude, I don't even know anything about romance and I know that's completely wrong." Futaba commented, setting the switch down, "Akira obviously likes you, trust me. I've gone through his phone"
All the girls started talking at once, all saying different things. Ryuji didn't want them to know he was jealous, not over something so dumb. He didn't want them to know how he was jealous of Makoto and how much time she's been spending with Akira, how he wishes he was as smart as her, even mature. However eventually Ryuji broke, spilling all his thoughts out.
"Geez you guys just don't get it do you? He likes Makoto, and honestly can you blame him? She's beautiful, mature, smart, she's going to have a very successful life, and where do I stand? At the bottom. Bad grades, and going nowhere. I lost the chance of ever getting a scholarship for track so that guarantees it."
Ryuji kept going, saying many thing he didn't expect. Though what broke him out of his ranting was someone touching his shoulder. He looked over and saw Akira looking at him, having a worried expression.
Crap.
I forgot he was sitting there.
All the girls went silent, all having different expressions. Eventually the silence was broken by Akira
"Hey, guys could you leave us alone for a second?"
"Oh ya of course" Ann responded and stood up, walking to the living room while all the other girls followed.
It was just the two of them now. Sitting at the table with a plate of pancakes. Ryuji's chest hurt, his heart was pumping a mile a minute. He couldn't move, he was to scared and shocked. What was he supposed to do now? Accept that Akira was going to hate him forever?
After a few minutes of silence Akira spoke.
"Ryuji..."
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Akira knew he liked Ryuji, he wasn't going to deny it. The feelings had been around for awhile, back when they first defeated Kamoshida. Ryuji, Ann, and him went out to celebrate with the money they got from selling Kamoshida's medal.
They were all talking, telling stories and trying to eat as much as they could since they had grabbed a lot of food. During all of it Akira felt something, like his chest tightened when Ryuji smiled at him or said something. At that moment Akira already knew he was in to deep, he had fallen for Ryuji.
He would have told Ryuji, he really did plan on it. However he backed out once he thought back on everything. Ryuji always talked about how hot certain girls were and when Akira made a flirty comment he'd always say something sounding a little annoyed.
So he carried on as usual, making sure his feelings didn't get in the way of helping others, telling himself he'd never actually tell Ryuji.
Yet
Here he was
Sitting next to Ryuji, hearing how the blonde loved Akira and was jealous of Makoto. He wasn't expecting any of it, even thinking he was still dreaming.
Ryuji liked him?
Why?
None of it made sense to Akira, and he didn't know what to do. Of course he wanted to date Ryuji. He wanted a lot of things from Ryuji, mostly a kiss. However now that he was here, now that he had a chance to confess, Akira wasn't sure if he should.
Ryuji liked him, he knew that now, but what if something happened? If they ever got into a fight this could affect their duties as Phantom Thieves.
Or even the obvious elephant in the room. What about when Akira has to leave? He's only here because he's on probation. What would happen? Would they just split and pretend it never happened? Akira wasn't sure if he could handle that, he's tired of being disappointed and let down.
So now was the time to decide.
What's Akira's next move?
