Pink and Gold and Blue • Yatoyota

Part 2

Planning everything out was absolutely useless. Every single idea Yotasuke could've had automatically evaporated at the sight of Yatora waiting for him with a warm smile and a hot cup of amazake.

"Hey! Don't mind me, I got here a bit early and got us some amazake to share. You know... like last time." said Yaguchi with a subtle blush and a soft look on his eyes.

"Thanks..." answered the shorter boy, looking down in a frown that expressed the weird mix of emotions he was feeling.

The blonde delicately handed him the still hot cup just to start walking slowly in the direction of the shrine. The warm lights lit the place up like fireworks, giving life to the freezing cold streets. If Yatora wasn't completely occupied by looking at Yotasuke's face, he probably would've even considered painting the view, but he couldn't take his eyes and thoughts out of Takahashi. He liked to observe how the blue eyed boy delicately placed his lips at the very edge of the cup, carefully sipping the liquid, trying not to get burnt. It seemed weird to observe such a mundane scene with that amount of detail, but if there was one thing he learned with art is that even the most simple scenes can have an incredible amount of meaning in the eyes of the right audience, so Yaguchi couldn't shame himself for paying such close attention. He decided to label it as the instinct of an artist, the instinct to visually analyze the things others didn't pay attention to, or rather the instinct of looking closely to the things he was interested in. And when it came to interests, Yotasuke must've been at the top of his list.

The blue eyed boy noticed the soft but persistent stare the blonde was giving him, but he couldn't do anything more than stare at the ground and hide his blushing cheeks. The boys kept walking, following the smell of food that attracted them like a magnet.

"You know Yota, I didn't expect you to text me." said Yatora, breaking the silence. He blushed a little when he realized the nickname he accidentally used, expecting the other boy to get annoyed.

"To be honest, I am surprised myself, but my mom was pretty happy about it." answered Takahashi, secretly liking to be called "Yota" when it was Yaguchi saying it.

"She seems exited to see you having friends. She also seems a bit... intense sometimes though." he knew Yotasuke's relationship with his mom was complicated, but he was hoping the shorter boy could get some feelings out of his chest.

"Yeah... I guess you could describe her like that." Yotasuke usually would've answered with something around the lines of "it's none of your business", but, to be completely honest, he was a bit happy that Yaguchi wasn't scared to say those kinds of things. Usually he was too careful about saying the right thing at the right time, it must've been exhausting.

" Did something happen? You seem a bit nicer today." laughed Yatora, looking at him with a warm smile.

Takahashi thought about what he was going to answer more than once. His natural instinct was telling him to insult the blonde, but the words Hashida had said to him the other day moved his brain a little and slowly the impulse of saying what he truly felt came through, even if the outcome wouldn't sound like himself at all.

"Maybe I'm happy to be here with you today... I guess." answered the blue eyed boy in a low voice, looking down to hide his blushing face.

Yatora clearly wasn't expecting that answer at all. He looked away, changing the pink tone his cheeks previously had with an intense red. "Since when are you this sweet with me? Are you sick?" asked the blonde with a smile on his face.

"Maybe. Probably. It's not the kind of sickness you probably have in mind though."

Yaguchi got more confused by the second, but he couldn't deny that he liked this "nicer" Yotasuke. The shorter boy didn't seem to have a filter for anything, he wasn't shy to be rude and speak his mind, but positive comments or deeper feelings were almost impossible to get out of him, hence the surprise of hearing the blue eyed boy say such sweet words, even if they were accompanied by an "I guess" at the end.