Chapter Text
It’s been one month since Aki officially asked Angel to be his boyfriend, and the pint-sized sophomore hasn’t stopped staring at him since. They’re sitting on the greens—the large lawn mowed to perfection and cultivated with robust patches of flowers in the center of campus. Angel lazes in the grass, his head pillowed on Aki’s lap, while the older man leans against a stout ginkgo tree. Thin clouds filter across the clear blue sky, and the air smells like the warmth that comes with spring.
Angel twists a straw wrapper around his fingers, listening to the junior spout off fact after fact from the study guide their teacher’s assistant gave them before their lecture ended earlier. Midterms are coming up, and Aki has been adamant about studying the content. He looks beautiful with his hair up in its typical topknot with nails painted a color that matches his eyes. He could only look prettier than he does now if one of his signature menthol cigarettes was balanced between his teeth. Angel grins without meaning to as he soaks in the sight of the man above him.
“Angel baby,” Aki says, stopping his reading mid-sentence, “you’re doing it again.”
Angel scoffs, ripping his eyes away from their persistent focus on Aki’s face. He drops the straw wrapper, now rolled into a slowly unfurling ball, and plucks one of the pages from the small stack in Aki’s hand.
“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” Angel says dryly. He scans over the remainder of the content Aki hasn’t read aloud yet and drops the sheet onto his chest with a sigh. “Does this actually help you? Reading repetitive, boring bullshit, I mean.”
Aki chuckles, replacing the paper with his hand on Angel’s chest as he slides the study guide back into his school bag. He reaches into the small front pocket and plucks out a cigarette, looking around for a moment before lighting it under the cover of the fruitful tree branches around them. He snaps the lid closed on his pretty metallic lighter, fancier than any college kid needs, and puts it back into his bag.
It's a special lighter, though; Angel loves seeing him use it.
“Our coursework is not boring, Angel. It’s essential,” Aki says seriously, mumbling around the cigarette. “Maybe if you studied more, you’d see how useful it is to actually review the content before taking the test instead of just winging it. Imagine how much better your test scores would be. I know you’re smart—really fucking smart—but why not shoot for more?”
Angel rolls his eyes with a smile, stretching like a cat to relax his joints before settling against Aki’s lap again. “I’m fine where I am, Aki. I managed to make it into a senior-level research lab just fine—with Makima’s recommendation, at that—and I’m on track to graduate early. I appreciate your concern, though, baby,” he says, mimicking Aki’s tone when he says the word. “I know you only bug me about it because you care.”
“Yeah, yeah,” Aki says, putting his cigarette in front of Angel’s face to let him take a slow drag. “I’m not concerned, really. I just—I know you could be even better than you already are. You have so much potential, Angel. It feels like a bit of a waste, you know? You could easily replace Kobeni as Professor Kishibe’s TA next semester if you apply yourself a little bit more.”
Despite knowing Aki’s intentions are good, Angel scoffs, and the older man speaks before Angel can express his feelings any which way about that.
“I guess I’ll just have to outrank you—again—and get that TA spot,” Aki smirks. “Show you how much hard work pays off.”
“Oh?” Angel says, looking up at Aki with an impish glint in his eyes. “Someone’s jumping the gun a bit. How about we start with midterms first, hm? That alone will prove whose study methods…”
“Or lack thereof.”
“...work better,” Angel says, taking the cigarette from Aki completely.
Aki chuckles, lowering his arm to drape it across Angel’s slim waist. It moves with Angel’s inhales as he smokes, and Aki traces the joints of Angel’s empty hand with lithe fingers. Aki fiddles with the small angel-wing charm on Angel’s keychain, right next to the bedazzled devil horns, and Angel finds it distracting. He feels the sudden urge to kiss Aki despite his mouth and lungs being occupied by smoke.
The charms are two of many that dangle from the clamp attached to a belt loop on his loose-fitting cargo pants, and it feels so intimate. The wing charm is Aki’s favorite, and he plays with it any chance that he gets. Aki’s palm grazes the soft skin on the inner side of Angel’s wrist as he does it, and it sends shivers down Angel’s spine. It all feels symbolic, in a way—a promise, maybe—and it makes Angel’s blood burn.
Aki’s touch is a physical reminder of their journey together. How they’d gone from begrudging partners in their research labs—initially not getting along due to the extreme discrepancies in their work ethic—to somewhat friends due to their time together in their shared extracurricular clubs, to boyfriends, eventually, after spending so much time getting to know each other. Now, they touch freely, though not as often as Angel is sure Aki might like. They’ve done very little, and part of Angel wants to fix that—to explore and try to do more—but kisses are the only thing they regularly exchange, and Aki seems okay with that. He’s never complained, at least.
Aki knows how Angel feels about touching. The first time Angel met Denji—almost a year ago at their weekly Public Safety Association club meeting—he nearly bit the boy’s head off. Denji sauntered in, uninvited and unannounced, because he smelled the free food and tried to hug Angel. It was the first (very much not the last) time Aki had seen Angel visibly angry. They hadn’t known each other long at the time, only a few months, but Angel’s dislike for physical touch was something very apparent from the get-go.
Angel feels frustrated, though, as he lets Aki touch him over his clothing in the pleasantness of the springtime afternoon. Angel has never enjoyed being touched—ever, by anyone, for as long as he can remember, with no reason in mind—but when he looks up into Aki’s deep blue eyes, hears the baritone of his voice in his ears, and digests all of the intellect and passion he laces into each and every one of his words, Angel desires so badly. For the first time in his life, he wants to be taken apart, cherished, caressed, and kissed until all of the air dissipates from his lungs. He doesn’t know what to do with it all or how to tell his boyfriend what he wants.
He just needs an opening, and of course, Aki gives it to him.
“Hey. I have an idea,” Aki says, leaning his body forward to loom over Angel. He’s eyeing the half-smoked cigarette in Angel’s hand and tries to pluck it from the younger man’s fingers. Angel shakes his head, popping the cigarette between his lips and extending his arm to push Aki away. They grapple for it, laughing earnestly as Angel makes a valiant effort to keep the too-tall man’s long limbs away from him. He relents when Aki ducks his head down and kisses Angel’s cheek.
Angel is aware now of how close—too close— his boyfriend is, and he feels his mouth run dry. Aki’s eyes flick back and forth between Angel’s eyes, thinking out loud with no words before moving away to give his boyfriend some space. Angel feels breathless when Aki leans against the tree again, and his hand returns to its place on Angel’s belly. He’s so close—only shielded from Angel’s tepid skin by a well-worn Aerosmith t-shirt. Aki takes a deep drag of his reacquired cigarette and clears his throat after he exhales the smoke.
“So,” Angel drawls, fingers fidgeting as he fights the blush he knows is surfacing on his cheeks. “What was your idea?”
Aki startles, confusion clear on his face before clarity takes its place. “Oh, I, uh. I was going to ask if you want to make a bet out of this whole thing. You know, midterms.”
Angel’s eyes narrow, and he tries not to swoon as he watches Aki take another drag from the cigarette. "What are the conditions?”
“No conditions,” Aki says. “Whoever scores the highest on the midterms gets an I.O.U. So whatever that person wants, the other person gives. What do you think?”
Anything that he wants from Aki? He thinks, yes. Angel knows what he wants. He wants Aki so badly it hurts. In the deepest darkest hour of the night, when he’s alone in bed inside his dingy student housing, or when he’s in the shower, hot and bothered after a night out with his boyfriend in the city square. After Aki’s spoiled him with barely-there touches of skin against skin and kisses so fleeting that Angel sometimes thinks he’s imagined them.
He wants him.
He wants Aki to hold and kiss him until he can’t breathe. He truthfully, most of all, really wants Aki to… god, he wants Aki to…
“There it is again. That look,” Aki smirks, trailing his long fingers against the hem of Angel’s shirt. “What are you thinking about?”
Aki grazes the sliver of skin exposed where Angel’s top has risen up a little too far, and Angel springs out of his lap. It takes him by surprise how fast the shiver of heat flows from the nape of his neck down to the base of his spine, but the feeling is unmistakable. He wants more, now, but it’s not the right time. It's so fucking random.
Horniness is so fucking random.
Embarrassment creeps into his bones as thoughts he should not be having in public flood into his mind, and he knows that his ears are bright red beneath the cover of his hair.
“Studying,” Angel says, a little frantic as he picks up his thoroughly worn, pin-covered backpack. “You should go study. I’m going to get ice cream.”
Aki nods, and there’s something in his eyes Angel isn’t in the right mind to decipher when he starts to back away. Angel isn’t paying attention, and Aki catches him by the sleeve of his t-shirt before he goes.
"I'll see you later?" Aki leans in and kisses him gently, soft and warm, then Angel feels the gentlest push of his tongue, and he runs.
Angel has never walked away from someone so fast in his life.