ADMIRE ME |Brothers Conflict

04

We played the silly game until I refused to pick up the controller again. When Ema discovered that pouting wouldn't be enough to make me play another round, she finally let me go. Slowly, I worked my way to the porch, feeling a little uncomfortable with the noise I was making in the otherwise quiet house. The gravel churned when I hopped to the iron gates, my crutches finding little traction on the moving pebbles under me. Huffing and sighing with every step, I had already managed to make it halfway when I heard Ema yell my name.

Startled, I turned my head to look over my shoulder, twisting my shoulders when I failed to spot where she was.

"[Y/N]!" she called, hanging over the windowsill of a window on the fifth floor.

"Don't fall!" I shouted back, hoping that Ema would heed my warning. Honestly, one fractured ankle was already more than enough in our friendship.

"Fuuto said that he would walk you home. Can you wait a second so he can catch up with you?"

If my ankle hadn't hindered me, this would have been a sign to start running. Unfortunately, I had only managed to twist my body back when Fuuto came storming out of the house, his coat in one hand and shoelaces still untied. Ema had tucked her head inside the living room again, so I couldn't tell her to call him back either.

"Are you an idiot?" I asked him when he stopped in front of me, leaning on his knees with his elbow and struggling for air.

"That's rich coming from you," he managed through his laboured breathing, "but an accurate description nonetheless."

He had his head tipped up to look at me, grinning through strawberry-blonde locks that were so entangled, that I couldn't suppress the urge to rake a hand through his hair.

Recklessly, I reached for him, watched his eyes go wide when my hand hovered over his head. When my fingers ran through the soft locks, he dipped his chin to give me better access to the hair at the back of his head.

"You could have tripped over your shoelaces," I huffed, giving the laces a pointed look which he didn't notice from his position. What would a stranger have seen? Would they think we were a couple? It was easy to mistake the position we were in...

For me, this position was surreal more than anything and I didn't want to move, regardless of what passers-by would think.

After an endless moment of stillness, Fuuto craned his head, my hand lifting under the movement, to meet my gaze.

"I'm too fabulous to do dorky stuff like that, unlike another person I know."

"That was an insult, wasn't it?" I guessed earnestly, but once Fuuto crouched to tie his shoelaces and my hand fell limply back to my side, I smiled.

"So, tell me, [Y/N]," Fuuto addressed me, lifting to his feet again to shrug his coat on. "What colour panties did Ema wear today?"

My crutches gave out under me, a combination of the gravel and my flabbergasted spasm to that question. With a startled cry, I fell with nothing to catch my weight before I would make contact with the gravel.

"Not fabulous at all," Fuuto huffed, doing nothing to help me before I fell, face first, into the gravel.

"I hate you," I scoffed, the words muffled by pebbles and sand.

"On a more important note; what colour was it? Black? Red? Flesh-coloured?"

"Don't so say such lewd things!" I had lifted my head from the ground to voice my protest. I blinked against the blinding sunlight, wishing that I could see what kind of expression Fuuto was sporting, expecting mockery and amusement. Fuuto's shadow fell over me as he approached me and crouched in front of me with a broad grin on his face. Now that the sunlight was no longer shining right in my eyes, I could focus on my surroundings, which hadn't changed, though my perspective had. The number plates of the three cars on the porch were higher than me and even the bushes towered over me. From so close, I could see that that under the gravel laid a net.