regrets.

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"There was a long hard time when I kept far from me the remembrance of what I had thrown away when I was quite ignorant of its worth."
Charles Dickens

If there was one thing Mei loved the most in the world, it was writing when she had time to herself. Fyodor was a close second, and chocolate had somehow risen to the top of the ranks once again.

Nevertheless, writing by herself held a huge lead.

There was nothing quite like escaping the real-life problems in front of her by creating new, fictional problems for her characters to suffer through.

While she enjoyed writing in and of itself, she found it more stressful than relieving when she was forced to write around others– especially when Akaashi would give her suggestions and watch expectantly as she wrote during their meetings.

Luckily, Mei had been devoting more time to herself for the past few weeks. When she didn't want to stay in the apartment, which was riddled with the scent and distant memories of Hyodo, she ventured out of the house by herself as well.

Weirdly, she had become a regular at Akaashi's ex-girlfriend's café, and the more she spoke with her, the more she learned of Akaashi.

It was partly strange, chatting with the woman he had dated for a year and a half of his life, but it was mostly entertaining. For some reason, the woman wholeheartedly believed that Mei was his new girlfriend, so she spent a lot of their conversations attempting to warn her of his faults.

"Does he still do the little thing where he'll be reading something and react to the words aloud? Like he'll laugh a little bit or gasp under his breath." Eiko asked with her chin against the palms of her hands, slouching across the café table as she watched Mei type away on her laptop. "That used to really annoy me. It'd be quiet, then all of a sudden he's gasping."

Mei shook her head with a smile before finishing up the sentence she was on, moving her eyes to the cheerful woman across from her.

"He actually does still do that. He was reading one of my drafts right in front of me once and laughed right out loud. It literally scared me."

"I can imagine." Eiko nodded, stopping to tap at the small stack of papers Mei sat beside her laptop. "That's cool though that he reads your drafts. It's like you guys are a team."

"Well, he is my editor."

"True, but you know what I mean. It's not just a normal editor to author relationship. You two can be in the middle of a date and bring up your books."

Mei stared at the woman in silence, shifting her eyes to the window behind her as she thought to herself.

Sure, what Eiko was saying would be true if she was dating Akaashi, but she wasn't. Although, they had gone on what Akaashi called dates lately. They never ended up discussing her works in progress on their dates either way.

"Or, even better, you two can be in the middle of one of your official editor meetings and completely ditch it and flirt with each other instead." Eiko continued despite Mei's silence, tapping the pads of her fingers together in excitement as she thought of the possibilities.

Mei only laughed at the suggestion, brushing it off before returning her attention to the writing in front of her.

• • •

"That sentence sounds clunky and awkward." Akaashi pointed down at the printed out draft, his face right beside Mei's as she read her own writing over again.

"You say that about every sentence. I'm beginning to think you just hate me."

"Or I just hate your writing," Akaashi joked quickly, placing his palm onto the paper and leaning his weight onto it, effectively bringing his head to Mei's shoulder. "Just admit you can't write conversations."

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