christmas came and went in a blur, with all the recent events that had had happened over the past few weeks, you weren't in a festive or holly jolly mood. there wasn't a specific christmas present you wanted, you were fine with any presents your parents would have decided to give you. this year, they had given you and your siblings a shopping spree on their black cards. they had told you three during your annual christmas dinner at an attempt to lighten the mood at the table.
the texts from akaashi seemed to have stopped. maybe he finally got tired of chasing someone who was ignoring every attempt he made to try to reconcile. you'd be lying if you said you didn't feel a pang of hurt when you realized he had stopped texting you. 'god f/n, you need to stop. you never answered him anyway. maybe he's moving on.'
only, you didn't want him to move on. a selfish request, but it was one of your biggest requests. you wanted to be the one to be there with him when he's happy or be there for him when he needs comfort. you wanted to be the only one who was able to hold his hands that were bigger than yours yet they always fit so nicely with yours, like you two were puzzle pieces that were supposed to be connected. you wanted to be the only one who could kiss those soft lips of his.
oh how selfish you could be.
as of right now, you were putting your christmas present to use and also waiting for alisa outside the yankee candle store in the starfield coex mall. alisa had recently gotten into a candle obsession and she made you wait outside the store so she wouldn't have to hear your complaints about her wanting to smell everything or how all the scents of the candles mixed together had bothered your nose. it was a good decision of her, now you could scroll through your phone in peace.
while you were scrolling through your twitter, you got a text from lev and one from momo. you decided to read lev's first.
levlev:
yo n/n
where are you and alisa?
i just finished my shopping for the day and i'm hungry😕
you:
we're at the yankee candle store
once you had texted lev back, you texted momo back —who had left a spam of messages in the short amount of time you had answered lev.
moguri🍑:
f/n
f/n
f/n
f/n
f/n
f/n haiba, answer your phone right now
F/NNNNNN
you:
oh my god im here hi, hello
what's up
moguri🍑:
are you at your hotel right now?
you:
nope, im at the mall spending my christmas present
and yes, i did get you something :)
moguri🍑:
not what i was going to ask, but thank you
just call me when you're at your hotel pleaseeee
you put your phone back in your pocket and looked around to see if lev was coming. it didn't take long for you to find a 6'3 almost 6'4 tall gray-haired man walking up to you.
"hey n/n! where's alisa?" lev asked, setting his bags down and handing your father's card back to you. placing the card in your wallet, you pointed to the yankee candle store and that seemed to answer lev's question.
after what seemed like hours (but what was really only five minutes) alisa walked out the store with a medium sized bag in hand and a smile on her face. "all right my loves, what are you thinking for dinner?" you saw the smirk on her face while she was spinning your mother's card between her fingers. you and lev returned the smirk.
"expensive steak restaurant? it's not like they'll notice how much we spend." lev suggested. you and alisa nodded, collected all your bags and walked out the mall.
♡ ♡ ♡ ♡ ♡
you had arrived back at your hotel two hours later. after dinner, you and your siblings decided to go out and explore to look for some dessert. you decided to take advantage of your winnings from your bet with lev and have him buy you your taiyaki and hot chocolate. by the time you face planted on your bed, you were tired and your tummy was full. then you remembered you had to call momo, you thanked god there wasn't a time difference from tokyo to seoul.
you facetimed momo from your laptop and waited for her to pick up the phone. then her face appeared on your screen, well more her bangs showed up on your screen.
"urm...i'm making an effort to show my face. the least you can do is show yours." you told her. momo grumbled before adjusting her phone to showcase her face.
"loving the hime cut moguri, it suits you." you told her, taking notice of her new haircut.
"we're not here to talk about my hair n/n, i have to talk to you about something. but you have to promise to hear me out and not immediately shut me down. especially since i didn't even expect to be advocating for this person, yet here i am." you nodded and decided to hear momo out.
"okay look, when you told me akaashi-san would try to talk to me, i didn't believe you until he came up to me the day you left for seoul so he could talk to me. which was weird but whatever. and he just looked terrible. like his whole demeanor was just sad and heartbroken. and i know that you broke up with him because he didn't trust you fully and automatically assumed you had a thing with kenma but i believe you should at least speak to him."
"i'm confused, a while ago you were literally telling me to not even look in akaashi's direction. now you're telling me to speak to him?" your eyebrow arched in confusion.
"i know, i know, it's weird but you're just so different now. i'm not saying your happiness relied solely on akaashi-san, that's the last thing i'm saying. what i'm saying is, you were just so much lighter and cheerful with him. i've never seen you that in love before, and don't even try to deny that you're in love with him cause i know you are. i've already told you this but, you practically had hearts floating around you when you were around him. your eyes sparkled when you spoke about him. you always had a smile on your face, and it wasn't one of your fake smiles. it was your real one, the closed-eye one." you took a moment to take in all this new information.
how did momo catch that you were in love with keiji quicker than you did? sure you had your suspicions but you immediately shut them down in fear of being heartbroken. you didn't even notice that you loved him.
"how did you find out that i love him before i did?"
"because you're dense. look back to the main topic, i'm merely suggesting you speak to him, in person. i'm not saying you should forgive him or get back together with him, that's up to you, i am saying that if you don't talk to him...i think you'll regret it in the long run." she had a point, especially with all your temptations to talk him that were only getting harder to ignore. they had only lessened since you hadn't gotten a text from akaashi since the day before you left for seoul.
you looked to your window to see the snow was falling yet again. the sight was still as beautiful as it was when you first saw it but you still hated the snow. it's like it was just mocking you by saying 'haha i can fall whenever i want and you can't do anything about it.' you sneered at the snow and momo looked at you like you were crazy. she cleared her throat and you looked back to her.
"okay...i see your point. fine, i'll talk to him but only after i come back from seoul. it's something i'd rather do in person." you reluctantly told her. seeing momo's small smile on her face made you feel like you made the right decision.
"all right, do you wanna see a shopping haul of what i bought on my parents's card?"
"yes please."
"okay, do you wanna see your present now or do you want it to be surprise?" momo thought for a second and then shook her head 'no'.
"surprise me. but everything else show me."
♡ ♡ ♡ ♡ ♡
you and momo had spent two hours on the phone before you fell asleep on call while momo was talking about some new show she was watching. she saw you doze off and then inevitably fall asleep. momo hung up the phone after whispering a soft good night to you. you showing her the things you bought took a while, you clearly took advantage of your christmas present from your parents.
before momo fell asleep she sent a quick text to akaashi.
momo:
okay, i talked to her...
i'll let her tell you what she decided
akaashi:
okay, thank you so much hirai-chan
you woke up an hour later, it was now one in the morning. how would you even tell akaashi that you were willing to hear him out? you didn't want to call him, it'd be too awkward. but if you texted him, it would seem just impersonal.
you spent half an hour trying to figure out what to do and it just didn't come to mind. and then it was like some sort of miracle happened...a text from akaashi came to you.
kaashi:
look...i know i haven't texted in a while. that's my fault, i'm sorry about that. i just didn't know what i wanted to say to you, by now you probably know i talked to hirai-san...im not rushing you or anything but i'd like to know what you were thinking of doing. that's all, merry late christmas to you n/n <33
your heart started racing out of nervousness when akaashi's text came in. you wondered why akaashi was up so late, the latest he went to sleep was at eleven with the exception of the time when he practically kidnapped you and took out to look at the stars. you smiled at the memory of that night.
the comforting energy that he radiated that night that just made you want to tell him everything about your childhood, the feeling of love you had brewing in your stomach when akaashi started twirling your hair in between his fingers. what you wouldn't do to go back to that night. to feel that feeling of comfort and falling in love again.
it was that this point you realized you hadn't responded to his text even though you had already read it. with shaking fingers, you texted back a response.
you:
hey...a late merry christmas to you too...
i know you talked to momo, she talked to me about it today. and yes, i'll hear you out
i'd rather do it when i'm back in tokyo though so just wait until then :)
even you could feel the awkwardness radiating from your text. you sighed and cuddled back into the covers, the cold outside somehow finding its way into your room despite the heating. you put your airpods in and put on some random lo-if playlist that helped you sleep sometimes.
you ended up waking up at 1pm. it's not like you were doing anything important. the only other important thing would be new year's eve, which you'd be spending with your family. but that wasn't for another three days and it's not like you had family to visit. just a cousin you couldn't visit, all you knew was that he was a trainee for some entertainment company so he was always busy with practice.
you didn't check your phone first thing, you opened your computer and decided to rewatch some show you found on netflix. fortunately, your computer receives notifications from your phone and you saw akaashi had responded to your text.
kaashi:
sounds great, just let it be before nationals please. you deserve my full attention. let me know n/n :) <3
"god, he never forgets to sign off with a heart." a small smile forming on your face at akaashi's cute habit while texting you.
now if only the days until you were back in tokyo could somehow go by faster.
a/n im finally done with finals and almost done with school, my last days tomorrow. but i have a shit ton of ib homework for the summer since i'll be a junior next year 😐 anyway, thank you for 11k reads my lovelies. i love you all :( 💘💓💞💕💗