Work Text
“I can’t believe I have to do this with you.” Airi whined from her position on the bed. Tako smiled at her, ignoring the furious glare she shot him. It only lit a fire in the glimmering deep sea pools of her eyes.“Maybe if you complained less it’d be more fun.” He said through a smirk, wondering what she’d say to that. She looked so cute when she was mad.“Maybe if you shut up we’d be done faster.” She deadpanned, flicking her long blonde pigtails over her shoulders. Tako’s smile never faltered. Instead, he shuffled closer to her, “What are you doing?” Airi immediately protested with a blush creeping onto her face, shuffling away from him quickly.“Just trying to see the work more clearly.” He lied, proud of his ingenious. Their school project was the perfect excuse to grow closer...She shoved him.Hard.“Get away from me, pervert!” The blonde yelled from the bed. Tako grimaced and rubbed his head from his new position on the floor, looking up at her through deep green eyes with a frown.“Hey! I’m not a pervert!” He responded in a whine, despite knowing that Airi didn’t really mean it. He had learnt over knowing her for so long that she usually said the opposite of what she meant. “Yes you are.” She mumbled, pouting. Tako calmly returned to the bed and sat beside her, taking a more gentle approach this time. Once they had gone back to work, he put his new plan into action. Slowly he moved closer to Airi, letting each tiny movement sink in before initiating another one. It was all too tempting to just grab her, but he didn’t want to come across as a pervert yet again, so he didn’t, instead making sure that she was totally comfortable. They worked hard on the project, with Airi writing notes and Tako doing research on the Internet. And all the time, he kept his plan on motion, waiting for the moment they’d stop working so he could finally confess...And then she completely shocked him by saying one simple sentence:“Please don’t Tako.” Her voice was soft, pleading, sorrowful. And it made Tako realise that he was somehow the cause of it. Could Airi have been... afraid of him? The thought chilled him to his core.“Airi...” He couldn’t think of anything to say other than the quiet incantation of the girl he’d had feelings for for so long’s name. Fortunately, she took the hint and explained in an almost tearful manner.“I-I know this is kinda sudden... but... um... I...” Pausing, a blush covered Airi’s face yet again. Tako waited patiently. He had tried for many years to get closer to Airi- asking her out on dates, half confessing to her, trying to hold her hand... He had thought she reciprocated those feelings. Or at least, that was the reason why she stayed beside him, the reason why she agreed to do the project with him. Maybe he had had it all wrong about her from the start, and it made him feel so awful that he instantly hated himself for it.“I don’t want you to touch me!” Again, Airi sounded afraid. It made Tako almost want to cry. He moved away from her quickly, then asked the question he never should have asked.“May I ask why?”A pause. Airi frowned and buried her face into her hands briefly, then removed them, took a deep breath and said,“I like you.” Time seemed to stop with the utterance of those words. Tako just stared at her, eyes wide and mouth hanging open. She glared at him for a second before her expression returned to anxious.“I-I like you, and, um, that’s why I’d really appreciate it if you didn’t just touch me like everyone else does.”
Huh?
“You... like me?” Again, that was all Tako could think to say at the time. Airi simply nodded. “I’m so sorry Airi,” Tako started, then saw the crestfallen expression on her face and hurriedly clarified, “Ah, n-not about you liking me, but about the touching thing. I-it’s just, um, whenever I’m around you I really wanna hug you because you’re so cute and I like you too and I didn’t realise you didn’t like being touched-““Quit rambling, idiot. It’s not that I don’t like being touched; it’s that it feels weird when it’s with someone I like. And that’s because... I’m ace.” Airi’s voice lowered to a mumble by the end of her blunt comment, but that was all it took for Tako to finally realise what she meant. Of course... If Airi was ace, then she didn’t want to be touched by him in an attempt at flirting because he was assuming her sexuality... Something like that. He flushed, mortified that he had made such a stupid mistake.“Oh God, Airi, I didn’t know, seriously! I really am an idiot, huh?” The brunet laughed self deprecatingly, but then to his shock Airi moved closer to him.Slowly, she wrapped her arms around him and pulled him close. It was a platonic embrace- nothing intimate, nothing sexual, nothing flirtatious. But at the same time, their unexpected declaration of feelings and Airi coming out to him revealed so many new things about the two, and all of a sudden Tako just wanted to stay there with her.“Airi...” he muttered for the second time that day.“Tako?”“Will you... maybe go on a date with me?” She gasped, but muffled it with a cough and then looked back at him with yet another blush.“Of course...” She tried to huff, but then gave up on being tsundere and smiled instead. Tako smiled back, and considered his plan to be an unexpected success.