Silver's Effect

Koyuki

I relished in the surprised expression clearly written on my teacher's face as I handed in a few of the completed pages.

a satisfied smile plastered on my face as I walked with Ryoma to the lunchroom, relaying how she had told me she was proud of what I accomplished last night.

despite him not saying anything, I knew he was listening as his gaze wandered around the nearly empty hallway before landing on me again.

he let a small smile onto his face before asking "so are you coming over again tonight?"

 I smiled back at him as a light pink dusted my cheeks at the thought of sleeping cuddled up with him once again.

I shrugged though as I averted my gaze to the hallway in front of us while saying in an offhanded tone "I'm not sure yet, my parents should be back soon if I'm not mistaken and if I'm not home things could get really crazy really fast."

he hummed in acknowledgment as his hand slid into mine.

my face immediately turned a brighter red as I looked down to see my fingers already interlocking with his as if they had a mind of their own.

making it into the cafeteria I almost expected him to let my hand go.

instead, he pulled me towards the lunch line with a smirk on his face as he caught the surprised expressions of his friends sitting at the same table we had eaten at last time.

my eyes widened as I noticed Sakuno's eyes were glued to our interlocked hands before she looked away and down to her lunch tray, hiding her expression with her bangs.

Ryoma either didnt notice or didnt care as he leads me through the buffet-style line and stacked our trays with food for the both of us, only letting my hand go to carry both of them with only the occasional raise of his eyebrow as his way of asking what I wanted.

 once we got to the end of the line he passed me my tray and paid for both of our lunches seeing as he lost our race this morning, making me smirk at him.

he rolled his eyes at me before his free hand wrapped around mine once again and I was pulled to the table with his friends.

silence seemed to fill the air as we sat down beside each other once again, not making eye contact with anyone as we began to eat our respective lunches.

"Are we not going to talk about this?" Tomoka loudly asked as she glared at me, making me finally look up from my tray of delicacies that Ryoma had gotten me.

"talk about what?" I asked confused as I placed a spoonful of chocolate pudding in my mouth and savored the flavor.

Ryoma smiled at me before sliding his own chocolate pudding over to me and taking my portion of crackers as if trading his desert for my crackers had now become our normal routine when we ate school lunches.

"This!" Tomoka yelled as she stood and angrily pointed between the two of us, her eyes almost bulging out of their sockets when she saw Ryoma roll his eyes and gently lay his head on my shoulder while sucking the remainder of his juice from the small juice box he had.

I glanced down at him, noticing the small tinge of pink on his cheeks as well as the slight pout at being out of juice.

slowly I passed him my juice before looking up at Tomoka as I said: "I'm not sure I understand."

she messed her hair up in agitation as she muttered unintelligible comments under her breath before sitting back down and leaning forward over the table to glare menacingly at me she asked: "are you dating Ryoma or something?"

my eyes widened at the question.

Dating?

where did that come from?

slowly my face started to get hot and I knew without a doubt that it was slowly heating up at the thought alone of dating the cat-like man who was nonchalantly sipping my juice while resting his head on my shoulder without a care in the world.

it was as if he didnt hear what she had asked, or like he didnt care about the implications of it.

slowly I opened my mouth to say something, anything really, only for my mind to race too fast for anything to even have time to tumble from my lips.

instead, Ryoma decided to answer.

"Yes," he said calmly.

shock shot through me.

we were dating?

Since when?

my shock and question seemed to be mirrored by his friends as well as they began to ask a million questions too quickly for me to even process as I slightly leaned away from them.

"that's enough," Ryoma said as he glared at his friends, shocking everyone yet again.

"you're suffocating her," he said as he stood up and helped me to my feet before leading me out of the cafeteria with a second glare over his shoulder at his friends still sitting shell shocked at their table.

he huffed in annoyance, his grip tightening on my hand before his hazel eyes finally met mine and he said in a low voice "sorry about them."

 I nodded briefly before looking down at my feet and asking in a small voice "what did you mean when you said yes?"

his cheeks turned a cute strawberry color before he awkwardly brushed his bangs around on his forehead while looking at the wall beside us.

 "Just what I said," he mumbled finally.

happiness bubbled up in me and I felt a small smirk light up my face as I leaned forward.

his minty breath washed over my own blushing face as I said in a teasing tone "you have to ask me directly Ryo or I won't understand."

he huffed slightly before making direct eye contact and with a determined glint I had only ever seen in his eyes on the court as he asked "Yuki, will you be my girlfriend?"