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Akane decides, under the rippling warmth of the setting sun, that maybe, kissing the Minamoto Teru wasn't so bad after all.
He cannot remember who initiated it, who approached who, or who kissed who. He just very barely manages to recall playful banter, some juvenile teasing from the president about his lack of kissing experience, and rage-fuelled collar grabbing. Of faces inches away from each other, and the fading hustle of the school hallways from the post-school bell.
It can only be the fault of an external influence on him that he ends up against the metal cabinet, kissing the last guy he ever expects to kiss.
Akane’s tongue glides over teeth, and he feels the blunt tip of Teru's fangs, the warmth of Teru’s mouth against his. It's a little embarrassing to admit that he doesn’t know what he’s doing, so he can only pray that his desperate mimicking of the president’s actions is enough to make up for his lack of experience.
Teru kisses like fluid, movements like the smoothness of honey. His tongue slides across Akane’s lower lip, like it is the most natural thing in the world to do. Their noses slot neatly against one another at an angle.
It feels great. It feels nice, even. And Akane admits, with considerable reluctance, that the president was a fantastic kisser.
Much to his shame, he enjoys the kiss. The kiss with Teru, the very bane of his existence.
He is the same guy who mocked him for years, pranking him to no end with his wicked sense of humour. The same guy who had, with all venom and viciousness he could muster, spat at Akane and told him that he was a filthy supernatural. A being unintended for the peace that is the school.
Maybe he has a shame kink. Maybe he just has a thing for people who dislike him.
His hands are awkward. His hands are everywhere. He fists the front of Teru’s shirt with one. The other rests on Teru’s hip.
Against the metal cabinet of the council room, the two kiss with the sort of desperation a thirsty, dying man in the desert would possess. The cold, hard material against his back fails to provide Akane with any sort of comfort at all.
Teru's fingers twist in Akane's hair, nails ever so lightly scraping his scalp, and Akane's thoughts abandon him like a robber caught red-handed. All his rationality — and the breath in his lungs, for that matter — flee him. A noise that sounds far too much like a whimper for his liking slips past his lips and right into Teru's mouth. He considers it a victory that the president shudders, like a car engine sputtering to life — or death — in his hold at the sound.
The council room is a vibrant splash of pink and orange, hued by the glow of the evening sun. Soon, there won't be anyone left to witness their act of rebellion (other than, you know, the supernaturals). Akane's mind is an empty thing save for the singular word he knows will haunt him at night, just as he tips the cusp of sleep in his favour. Teru. Teru. Teru.
When they finally pull apart, a thin line of drool stretching into nothingness between them, Akane gasps for air, catching the breath he was denied during the kiss. His eyes flicker to Teru’s face, and he’s caught slightly off guard at the sight. He takes his time to admire the dilation of Teru's pupils, the pink swell of his lower lip, glossed from saliva, and the deep, deep flush in his cheeks.
He wants to take a picture of this moment. The president hardly ever looks dishevelled. Not like this. Not in front of him.
Teru's hand is still in his hair, mindlessly caressing the back of his head. His own fingers are still curled into the president's loose uniform shirt. The faint tick-tock of the grandfather clock is the only sound in the room for the good while. He could freeze time right now and escape. He does not know why he doesn't do so.
He tells himself it’s because he doesn’t use his stopwatch for anything else other than Aoi. (He also tells himself, with the mortification of self-awareness, and the commendable false pride from being delusional for ever thinking otherwise, that he knows deep down this is not the true reason for his unwillingness for cowardice.)
Akane counts 16 faint ticks from the clock before Teru snaps out of whatever trance he is in. He slides his hand down the curve of Akane's spine in a way that sends pleasant tingling the opposite way up, and awkwardly beams down at him, pearly whites gleaming under the cut of light illuminating his face.
It's a look of indifference. Akane knows that look all too well.
But he hears the violent thumping of a heartbeat from the president. Can even see the ricochet of each beat against the sheer shirt the President has on. Akane can’t help but want to think that Teru feels differently in any way possible.
He doesn’t like Teru. He hates the guy, even. So why does his heart ache so much now? It’s so foreign, so raw. A feeling he has never felt, even with Aoi.
It must be the kiss messing with his mind. It must be.
"Aoi-san," Teru begins, after a long, long pause too quiet for him to bear, flicking his gaze to the ground. Akane swears at himself for even letting his heart drop in disappointment at the use of formal language. "I just remembered that I had to babysit Tiara."
Wow. He at least had the decency to look sheepish. Akane be damned.
"Oh." He mindlessly, stupidly says. Because what else can Akane say in a situation like this? It's not like he wants Teru to stay. At least, he doesn’t think so.
Blessedly, Teru takes it as the cue to reestablish distance between the two of them, peeling his fingers off the body of the School Mystery #1.
Akane is cold. He is oh, so cold. His stopwatch sits heavily in his pocket.
"Can you finish up the rest of the reports? There aren’t much left. I have to leave now.” Teru asks, scratching the back of his neck. He stuffs the other hand — the same hand that was in Akane's hair — into his front pocket. "Remember to lock up before you leave, okay?"
"Okay," Akane says. Because he's stupid and emotional and such an idiot.
"See you tomorrow?" Teru offers.
Akane can only nod in response.
Teru picks up his belongings with much haste. Like he was practically scrambling to escape the room. All Akane can do is watch.
He watches the blond sling his bag around his shoulders. Watches with hawkish eyes as Teru slips out of the room, throwing another apology over his shoulder as he steps over the door threshold. When the door shuts with an eventual click, Akane snaps out of his stupor and lets uncalled-for rage bubble under his skin.
His fists curl. Teru is such an asshole.
If he slams the cabinet doors a little harder that evening, or writes with an intensity that rips the paper right through. Or if he allows himself the briefest of moments to touch his lips, recalling the ghost of the earlier kiss, and let himself scrub his face in a silent scream as he sinks further into the chair. No one will know.
And if Minamoto Teru tosses and turns in his bed that night, with the memory of the entire encounter rolling in his head, with a furious blush on his face and his heart in his throat, no one will know either.