"What are you doing, child?"
Your ears perked up at the sound of your grandmother's voice calling out from the entryway to the kitchen, sparing her a toothy grin. "Good morning, oba-san. You have any requests for breakfast?"
She stared at you pensively, as if not quite believing her eyes as you stood before the stove, a golden omelette sizzling on the pan with an aromatic flourish. Well, you did make use of a few spices to encourage more flavor. Hmm, will he think it's too much? He didn't seem like the type to particularly mind—
"There's still some leftover miso and karaage in the fridge. I'll have that instead," she decided, toeing the short distance to the refrigerator as she glanced at your work over your shoulder. "It has been a while since you've prepared a bento. Did Itsumi miss your cooking?"
"Ah," you began, heat flushing your face as you trapped your foot in between the opening just before your grandmother could close the fridge. "No. It's for someone else."
Her lips twitched into a knowing smile while you retrieved a few hotdogs from the freezer. "Is it a boy?"
The suggestiveness in her tone does nothing to ease the redness that coated your face, and you have to avert your eyes just to quell the embarrassment blooming in your chest like sakura leaves in the spring. But...so what if it was a boy? It was only Akaashi, the true owner of the heart that's beating inside your chest. Frankly, making a bento was hardly a fair exchange for him letting you live so normally like this for so long...
As your grandmother heated up her leftovers, you quietly sliced the hotdogs so that they could somewhat resemble an octopus—just like the most generic bento any high school girl could think of giving to their crushes. Wait, no. You didn't have a crush on Akaashi. Yeah, it was the sense of indebtedness that's driving you to make sure the omelette is extra fluffy, the rice soft and sticky, and—oh, he could use some fried fish, too. You did spot a bag of mackerel in the freezer when you checked earlier. Hmm, did you have enough time to make some onigiri?
So engrossed in your own handiwork, you were completely oblivious with the way your grandmother watched you from the corner of her eye. You took the truth surprisingly well after that fateful evening after the lunar festival. She'd initially assumed your well-being would only go further downhill once the eclipse had passed, but the unusually chirpy mood you were in gave her quite the surprise.
"Oba-san, do we still have soy sauce?" you wondered aloud as you inspected the cupboards with a pout.
"Second cabinet to the left, child." The elder pulled her lips into a warm grin, wondering why she was ever worried about someone as independent as her granddaughter in the first place.
———༺♥༻———
Akaashi's mouth hung slightly agape as navy blue eyes traced every refined detail on the bento on his lap. You grinned cheekily as you occupied the spot next to him on the rooftop. While you could have just invited him over to your usual lunch table, it felt...inappropriate to let others see the food you'd made for him specifically.
"This is looks even better than my human mother's bento," he breathed, snapping the chopsticks you've brought in two as he poked each side dish with careful curiosity.
"Calling her your human mother is weird," you pointed out, munching on one of the onigiris you managed to put together without running late. "I can't vouch for the taste though. A mother's cooking is in an entirely different realm, and I am yet to achieve it."
"That so?" he humored you, lips spreading into a sly smile.
He tore off a piece of omelette with the chopsticks, stuffing it into his mouth without much preamble. At first, his face harbored no evident reaction you could draw conclusions from but when he began scarfing down some rice and taking a bite from the fried fish, you felt a swell of childlike pride pulsating in your chest. However, as Akaashi continued to slurp and eat like he hasn't had a decent meal for days, the sight triggered a memory in the back of your head without meaning to.
"Akaashi," you began, swallowing the lump in your throat. "Remember the night of the full moon? You asked me to go if I wanted to see your true form, and I did, but..."
Unwittingly, your words snapped him out of his momentary feeding frenzy as he brandished you with a look akin to that of a kicked puppy. A shadow of guilt hovered over his beautiful face and for a moment, you'd wanted nothing more than to sputter out that it's alright and that you definitely weren't scared out of your wits when you saw him feasting on an animal carcass.
The setter heaved a long sigh, setting down the bento on the ground along with the chopsticks. He spared a thousand-yard gaze at the view of the schoolyard below, and the manner in which his face was angled with enabled you to spot the single speck of rice sticking to the corner of his mouth. Out of habit than anything else, you leaned closer to swipe your thumb across his face so you could flick off the single grain. At the same time, Akaashi turned his head back to say something, but was ultimately silenced by the close proximity.
You had no idea whose breath it was that hitches, but the strange intimacy that permeated the air was too stifling to ignore.
"You have a little...something right there," you murmured, fingers gently removing the stupid little grain. For an insignificant moment, your skin brushed against the curve of his lips by accident—causing you spring away immediately as you spouted off with rushed apologies. Your face burned with the heat of sheer embarrassment while Akaashi let out a soft chuckle.
"Well," he began, straightening out his long legs as he stared up at the glaring sun, "for starters, I was turned into a yokai on a night of the full moon."
The next moment, you forced yourself into regaining your composure. Akaashi was kind enough not to ridicule your little scene earlier, so the least you could do is to listen to what he had to say.
"Think of it as something similar to a lycanthropy curse. I lose control over the demonic entity I've kept under reins for so long every time there's a full moon." There was a somber ring in his tone that was fairly difficult to overlook, and you found your grin from earlier regressing into a tight-lipped frown. "As the legends say, yokai devour humans primarily, but I've always been adamant with satiating my hunger through those means; having fed on animals all this time instead. But during those nights, it's much more difficult to ignore the beast's desires."
Akaashi then reached out to grab ahold of your wrist—the one that held the warding bracelet—and before you could even ask him what he was doing, he pressed a soft, chaste kiss on top of the bell-shaped charm.
If you were embarrassed a while ago, Akaashi might as well had dug your grave and pushed you into a pit of humiliation altogether. But you couldn't quite permit yourself to lose face once more—not when he's nuzzling your forearm like an animal that's begging for his mate's forgiveness. The unruly tresses of his ebony hair brushed across your skin, and you had to fight the urge to card your fingers through the tufts.
His eyes were closed the whole time, but when he'd fluttered them open once again, he gazed at you with such doting that, for a fleeting moment, you thought Akaashi knew what love even was.
"I purposely lured you to the cemetery that night so I could devour you," he confessed. "I-I hadn't been thinking clearly. My sense of reason was warped and... I know that no amount of explaining can justify what I did but—"
"Akaashi," you chuckled. Despite him outright admitting to attempted murder, you felt no resentment at all. Just a sense of responsibility that told you to understand him in ways any other person could never even begin to do so.
Wordlessly, you pulled him close to your chest, making him go rigid in your grasp. You didn't know what specifically spurred you on with your actions, but... Akaashi felt strangely snug in the curve of your arms. You thought that embracing him wasn't just a show of affection. Hell, you've never been proficient in communicating your feelings with others, but with Akaashi—with Tsukuyomi's son, Keiji—all it took was the thrum of your heartbeat; constant, steady, and unwavering as you conveyed a message that was better felt than heard.
I trust you. Completely. Unconditionally. Without a shred of doubt.
When he buried his fingers into your tangled hair, you let yourself melt into his cold, cold arms. The fact that he wasn't human was so strikingly obvious when you held him like this. But the chill wasn't menacing. If anything, it was as if he was inviting you to spread your warmth in every part, every crevice of his artificial body.
"The food you made's getting cold," he mouthed the words against the crown of your head with a soft laugh. "I'd rather not let your hard work go to waste."
As you (hesitantly) peeled yourself away from his embrace, you felt the buzz of vertigo ringing in your ears. That was only one measly little hug, but...you've never felt more refreshed in your whole life.
"Alright, alright," you relented, letting yourself lean against his slender frame as the two of you spent the rest of your lunch break undisturbed in Fukurodani's rooftop.