It was a beautiful late November afternoon. The trees were colorful exhibiting a range of saturated hues of red, yellow, and orange. The sun was setting and the rays were going through a window that belonged to a hospital and casted its light on a young couple. There was a teenaged boy with black-rimmed glasses, brown eyes, and medium-length brown hair. Miyuki Kazuya was not only known for being a genius catcher but also for his cheeky personality among other things. But this time around his playful smirk was nowhere to be seen and instead a look of concern graced his handsome features.
Miyuki was sitting down on the hospital bed holding a girl of his same age and whispering sweet-nothings in her ear. Yukimura Ai was one of the top students in her class, was her class representative, and a member of the science club. She was not just generally well-liked by her peers but also considered to be very attractive just like her boyfriend Miyuki. At 5'4 with shoulder length thick midnight black hair, creamy slightly tanned skin, almond shaped blue-grey eyes, and a slim curvy figure, she often caught the attention of Seido High School's male population much to her dismay, since she often had to deal with unwanted confessions on a daily basis.
"Everything is going to be alright Ai-chan" Miyuki said while stroking her long tresses "I'm always going to be by your side no matter what." He placed a kiss on her forehead and then rested his chin on top of her head and held her tighter. He wanted to console her and reassure her no matter what, and hoped that by holding her tighter he could show his support to his beloved girlfriend.
"Do you promise Kazuya? I'm so happy that you are here with me and I don't know what I would've done without you." Ai asked Miyuki with pleading eyes.
"Of course baby I promise, but.. After all of this time do you really have a hard time believing me?" Miyuki asked her back with an incredulous look on his face and feeling somewhat offended.
"It's not that I don't believe you babe... It's just that I thought that you were going to be mad because I lied to you.. And that you were going to leave me." Ai responded lifting her head from Miyuki's chest and looking away embarrassed, with tears forming in her eyes.
"Ai." Miyuki said in a firm tone, lightly but firmly grabbing her chin to make her look at him. "While I'm not happy that you lied to me, specially since we both promised to each other that there weren't going to be any secrets between us, I'm not going to leave you because of that. Specially not in this moment; not right now. This is your life that we are talking about. I love too much for that and I will never leave you. My love for you isn't so weak that I will leave at the first sight of trouble. Do you understand?" Miyuki added boring his golden brown eyes into her blue-grey orbs. His firm tone leaving no room for arguments or doubts.
Ai nodded "I love you so much Kazuya." She said while hugging him and tears of happiness spilling out of her eyes.
"I love you too." Miyuki kissed the top of her head again.
They stayed embraced in silence for a couple of minutes-basking in the love and warmth that they had for each other. They wished that they could stay like this.. Forever.
However, Miyuki broke the silence first "Ne Ai-chan?... Even though I'm not mad, I have to ask.. Why did you lied to me? Why didn't you tell me that you were feeling ill again?" Miyuki asked looking at her. "I thought you trusted me." He said in a dejected tone. Miyuki knew that he didn't have the best personality, and that he was far from being the perfect boyfriend, thus making him insecure about the stability of his relationship.
"No no no no, it doesn't have anything to do with that." Ai quickly reassured her boyfriend knowing how insecure he can get sometimes. "I trust you more than anyone in this world baby, believe me. The truth is that I didn't want to worry you. For the past three weeks I've been feeling fatigued and lightheaded, but at first I thought that I was just stressed out because of school." She began explaining. "But then after the symptoms were still present after the first week, I got kinda scared because I thought that I was getting sick again and scheduled an appointment with my doctor to run some tests. I initially figured that telling you about this would unnecessarily worry you because first you are busy focusing on your recovery following your injury, and second I didn't know what was wrong with me. And that there was a possibility that in the end the doctor could've said that I was fine and was only lacking some vitamins, or anything benign like that." She desperately explained trying to show her boyfriend that she didn't have any bad intentions.
Miyuki loudly sighed "Babe." He began and ran his hand through his brown locks and leaned back on the bed's headrest. He looked at her again. "I understand that you were trying not to worry me and I appreciate it, but we are a couple and couples support each other. I really hate the fact that you were tremendously scared and I didn't even know about it. How do you think I felt when I saw you fainting and you didn't respond to me? How do you think I felt when I was riding the ambulance with you?" Miyuki asked with his voice breaking. "How do you think it makes me feel that you were suffering in silence? While you were supporting me and taking care of me after I got injured. I feel like a dumbass because I literally had no idea that this was going on in your life. It's a two way street you know? You support me and I support you... Okay?" Miyuki said while stroking her cheek and in a tone that sounded like he was mad at himself and sad at the same time.
"I got it." She said while holding his hand that was stroking her cheek and gave him a small smile. "I didn't want to cause you pain and it seems that with my lies I did the thing that I least wanted to do." Ai deeply sighed and closed her eyes with a sad smile.
"I understand that you didn't want to worry me, but why did you said pain?" Miyuki asked confused.
Ai quickly opened her eyes. They widened in shock and quickly averted her gaze away from Miyuki.
"Ai?" Miyuki warned quickly narrowing his eyes in suspicion.
Miyuki's tone startled her and knew that she had to explain what she meant. "Well it's just that.. The main reason why I didn't tell you was because.."
"Because what?" Miyuki pressed.
"Because of your mother." She finally said slowly meeting her boyfriend's eyes. "You told me that she fell ill when you were a child and that your last memories with her weren't so happy due to the fact that she was always in the hospital. I know that you have many bad memories associated with illnesses and hospitals, and I didn't want to cause you to remember anything unpleasant." Ai said softly.
Miyuki's brown orbs widened in shock at her revelation and didn't say anything for a while. Which caused Ai's gaze to fall down a bit making her think that she said something wrong.
Then the sound of a light chuckle fills the room and makes Ai lift her head up in surprise. It was Miyuki. Miyuki was laughing. "Ne.. Kazu-"
"You are amazing Ai-chan." Miyuki said in his usual cheerful tone and with a beautiful smile gracing his features.
"Huh?" Ai asked with a look of confusion on her face.
Miyuki lightly laughed at her expression. "I said that you are amazing." Ai narrowed her eyes at him beckoning Miyuki to explain. "You are amazing because you are facing the possibility that you might be ill again and here you are worried about me and my childhood trauma." Miyuki gave her a sincere smile. "There are no words to describe how grateful I feel because I have you in my life. I don't know what I've done to deserve you, your kindness, and your love but I don't wanna know either. All I want to do is be selfish and keep you all to myself. I love you so fucking much babe."
Miyuki grabbed each side of her face with his large calloused hands and softly pressed his lips against her soft lips. She softly kissed him back as well and smiled into the kiss touching his hands. She loved being touched by him.
Miyuki was the first one to break the kiss "I won't lie to you and tell you that this doesn't bring me back memories." He said sparing a quick glance across the cold hospital room. "But it's not enough to break me or deter me away from you."
Ai just happily smiled at him and hugged him. Miyuki held her as she slightly bent down and rested her head against Miyuki's chest again. They both sighed in contentment as Miyuki started playing with her hair.
They stayed in silence for a while again.
This time around Ai was the one who broke the silence with her soft laughter.
"What's so funny?" Miyuki asked while looking down at her and with a playful smile on his face.
"It's funny that you and I, two emotionally defective people, are having an actual healthy conversation about feelings, trust, and communication. Ai explained with another playful smile on her own. "This might be becoming a healthy normal boyfriend-girlfriend relationship my dear Kazuya." She added in a sarcastic tone. Her mood obviously improving from earlier.
Miyuki loudly laughed. "Now that you are mentioning it, we do sound like that we've made quite the progress." Miyuki said matching her tone.
Ai nodded. "We should be proud of ourselves."
"We should."
They fell silent again. Miyuki glanced down at Ai and saw that she had a concentrated look on her face. "What are you doing?"
"I'm thinking." She deadpanned.
"Now now, that's not a good thing." Miyuki teased. Ai slapped him on his arm causing Miyuki to snicker.
"Why did I fell in love with you again?" Ai asked in an faux annoyed tone.
"Because I'm handsome, I have a great sense of humor, and a nice ass." Miyuki answered her proudly.
"You do have a nice ass." Ai conceded.
"Thanks babe, so do you." Miyuki cheekily complimented.
They both laughed. It felt nice. Being silly and joking around like always.
"But really what were you thinking about?" Miyuki asked really curious now.
"Well, since we were saying that now we are more like a real couple should be, it made me realized that we've been together for a long time, which in consequence made me wonder about for how long we've actually been together." Ai explained.
"Uhhh... That's a good question." Miyuki said while scratching his head. He knows that he has been with Ai for a long time but doesn't really know since when they have been together. He was really bad at dates and remembering these kind of stuff.
"So you don't know either?"
"Nope." Miyuki replied.
Ai rolled her eyes. "So much for beginning to be a normal healthy couple."
Miyuki scoffed and crossed his arms behind his head leaning against the headrest. "Normal relationships are overrated." "But if you really want to know, then wouldn't be around a little over 1.5 year to be exact?" Miyuki offered.
Ai quietly thought about it for a few seconds. "No.. Because that would put us around spring when our first year started, and we didn't start dating around then. I remember that it was fall because it was chilly just like in this season." Ai explained in matter of factly tone.
"You are right, we didn't start dating, but we started... Doing... Other things." Miyuki replied with a slight blush on his face looking away from her.
"That is true." Ai said giggling at her boyfriend's sudden reaction at remembering their previous status. "But can we count that considering that we weren't really official?" Ai asked with a quizzical look on her face.
"We can do whatever we want." Miyuki said. Ai gave him a noncommittal sound.
They both fell silent again and decided to enjoy each other's company instead.
Miyuki broke the silence. "Whether it counts or not, spring will always be my favorite season because I met you." Ai beamed at his revelation.
"It will always be my favorite season too." She said cuddling with him and nuzzling his neck. Inhaling his musky masculine scent that she adored so much.
They both loved that their relationship has just grown stronger against this adversity. Considering how they started their relationship, none of them would've thought that they would have made it this far. But they did despite their imperfect start.
"Remember when we first met?" Ai asked him looking up at him
Miyuki smirked. "I remember very well."
And then they both went down memory lane reminiscing about the beginning of their imperfect love story.