don't look at me or talk to me

In retrospect, it’s easy to pinpoint when he figured it out.

He was laughing at something you had said. One of his arms was draped across your shoulders so you felt every chuckle that escaped him as his chest shook against you.

“God, you’re so funny! I love that, I love --” he freezes, hand still halfway raised to his face to wipe away a tear.

You looked at him expectantly, the last threads of laughter making your shoulders quake. You remember keenly how your face was sore from smiling, your stomach cramping from laughing. It was one of those nights where everything snowballed, where one throwaway joke got repeated over and over until it was hilarious, until it was unrecognizable from its original incarnation. Anything could have made you laugh at that moment.

His face was pale, you think. Or it was very flushed. You might be projecting onto the memory. But what you remember best is how wide his eyes were, the way his eyebrows arched beneath his bangs and how he searched your face, like you were a problem he figured out the answer to.

“What?” You asked. Every word you said came out half-laugh, the exuberance of earlier making you feel buoyant. You weren’t all there, to be honest. You had felt like a soda, floating to the top and popping, fizzy and ephemeral.

“I love that.” He finished the thought with an unusual deliberation in his voice, like each word was fragile. It put a strange weight on your chest, and in hindsight you realize that you had figured out that he knew something you didn’t, though you weren’t able to parse the feeling at the time.

Your chest squeezed. Just the way he said it, you think, or maybe the way he was staring at your mouth with those dark eyes or how his tongue darted across his lips nervously, his whole body poised with an uncharacteristic anxiety.

“Hey.” His voice had gone hoarse. Osomatsu swallowed thickly before continuing, expression something you could only describe as distant awe. “Can I kiss you?”

You laughed, because he’d never asked before. He’d always kissed you like you were teenagers, like each frantic touch was an opportunity, a novel experience you had to steal behind someone’s back or else you’d never have the chance, no matter how many times it happened. But he had never asked.

“Yeah, of course! What’s with you?” You had said with snicker. You were trying to hang onto the light atmosphere from earlier, still floating from laughing so hard.

There was something so solid in the way he cupped your cheek and kissed you, the way his thumb traced your jaw and his hand slid to your waist. He was warm, he usually was, but he felt warmer this time. More real. Each movement felt purposeful, intentional, without that persistent feeling that he was just doing the right things by accident, by luck.

It was chaste, and quick, but the feeling of his lips on yours lingered

You remember how he looked as he pulled away, nothing but contentment radiating from his dopey smile, eyes squeezed shut over his flushed cheeks as he exhaled through his nose. It left you breathless. You couldn’t understand why until it clicked a few hours later, the realization hitting you long after he had gone home.

You loved him too.