I was confused about the exchange, and resolved that I would be confused about many interactions that I witnessed between the boys, spending as much time with them all together as I was about to over the break. Aki walked me to the hallway holding my hand, then picked up to carry me the rest of the way to bed room, and laid me on the bed. He looked at me with hunger, but it was a different sort of hunger from the other looks I recognized in his eyes. He pulled his shirt off over his head and unbuttoned his jeans, then crawled over me on the bed. I let him untie the drawstring of my sweatpants and pull them off of me, expecting, anticipating, but he stopped.
"Natsu." He said. He relaxed himself between my thighs, propping himself up on his elbows as he often did.
"Aki." I replied, reaching to flatten my palms atop his shoulders.
"I am really conflicted, here." He said.
I tried to read what was on his mind through his eyes, but I couldn't. "Are you? Can I help unconflict you?"
"Yes in fact. But I'm not sure it's fair to you." He smiled playfully, placing his hand over my mouth gently but firmly. I felt his body shift to one side for a moment, like he was retrieving something from the pocket of his jeans. "So, I want my ring back. And I promised you that if I ever took it back, I'd replace it with something." He held up what he taken out of his pocket so I could see it, a small navy blue felt box just like the one he had given me his ring in. With his thumb, he flipped the box open. Inside was a dainty silver coloured band ring, with a row of dusty dark pink stones down the centre. I felt my eyes widen as I looked from the ring in the box to Aki's eyes. His hand remained covering my mouth.
"Don't scream." He continued, still smiling like he was taking great joy from his plan unfolding slowly. "I really, really want to ask you to marry me. But at the same time, you're only eighteen, and you're working really hard to finish university, so I don't think it's fair of me to ask you and distract you from all that."
I tried my best to scream one short syllable even though Aki's hand was still over my mouth. His playful smile became larger.
"Listen." He laughed. "Sugimori Natsuko, I am absolutely entirely in love with you. You gave my life meaning again, and you continue to prove to me every day that the work I do is valuable. I don't want any of this to change. I've never felt about anyone like I feel about you. So, after you graduate university, will you marry me?"
He took his hand away from my mouth, and I instantly began to cry. I was overwhelmed with emotion, with happiness, with relief, with excitement, and I wrapped my arms around his neck to pull him closer to me. I heard him laugh through my sobs, and felt his arms work their way under me. He lifted me to sit, swinging his legs over the side of the bed so I could sit on his thighs. I didn't break the hold I had on him, and cried into his shoulder for a moment longer.
I caught my breath and lifted myself from the hold I had on him. He leaned over slightly to retrieve the shirt he had stripped from himself, holding it up to me to dry my eyes with. He was still smiling. "Well, will you?"
"Aki, yes, yes, I will." I suddenly understood all of the strange bits of conversation I had over heard, and all the things the rest of Guardian had said to me about Aki. It may not have been the perfect proposal that he had been hoping for, but it felt perfectly suited to us, to how we lived together, and for the moment we were in.
I reached for his face to kiss him frantically, both of us smiling into it, and I began to laugh. "But I don't want you to think about it now until after you graduate, yes?" Aki said. "I don't want you to feel like this makes you have to grow up quickly, and I don't want you to get distracted from university. Just live like normal now, enjoy as much as you can, and know that your future is set, so you don't have to wonder."
I nodded, feeling more tears well in my eyes out of relief and pure joy. He was right in what he said, that with my future set up for me, I felt even more at ease in the life that he and I were building together. "Thank you, Aki. I love you so much." I was thankful for a great many things in that moment, mostly that he didn't stop me from telling him that I loved him.
He slipped his arm under my knees and stood up, repositioning me back on the bed, crawling between my thighs again, but he stayed kneeling. He grabbed my hand, taking his ring from my finger and placing it back on his own, then slid the silver studded band on my finger in its place. "Do you like it?"
I nodded, holding up my hand to admire it on my finger. It was only a little thinner than Aki's band, and the light hit the stones in different ways, making them sparkle with slightly different colours. "How long have you had it wanting to do this?"
"Actually I found it the day after I gave you my ring. I was walking down a side street on lunch break to get coffee and I walked by a shop. It caught my eye in the window, and I couldn't stop thinking about it. I went to buy it after work, and I had to rush to do it and get back to the studio before you arrived from school." He took my hand from where I had it outstretched and placed a gentle but serious kiss on my knuckles. "Natsu, I've been thinking about wanting to marry you since our first night together." He reached over and turned the light in the bedroom off, leaving only the soft warm glow of one beside table lamp. "I'll be right back."
He exited the room, buttoning his jeans and pulling his shirt back on over his head. His shirt was wet in patches from where it had been used to dry my tears, but he didn't seem to care much. "Guys, she said yes!" I heard him shout as he walked down the hallway, and an eruption of shouts from others followed. For a few moments I heard chatter and loud laughter, then one final "Kanpai!" before the noise died down. "Natsuko, congratulations!" I heard called down the hallway, paired with Aki's laugh as he turned the corner back into the bedroom, sliding the door closed behind him.
"Did they all know you were going to ask me right now?" I asked him as he stripped himself fully and climbed into the bed next to me. Instantly, he brought the warmth of his body and I moved close to touch him without thinking.
"Yes, we've been talking in code all day to each other. Were you not confused?"
"I was, but I didn't really think anything of it. You guys are together all the time, and I rarely get to interact with you all together."
He sighed deeply, his eyes closed lightly as he draped an arm over me and used his fingers to turn my face toward him. He kissed me deeply, breathing me in as he did, and I reached to hold him as tightly as his kiss was deep. He opened his eyes halfway, a small smile on his lips. "I've had too much sake tonight." He said, biting his lip. "That last shot did me in."
I kissed his lips quickly. "Let's get some sleep. We'll have some fun tomorrow."
I woke in the darkness, the heaviness of Aki's body still beside and around me. I looked at his face a moment, so relaxed in sleep. His hair was a mess, strands falling here and there around his features. His lips were slightly parted, and though his breathing was deep, he didn't snore. I smiled to myself and rolled carefully out of bed. I checked the time on my phone, and it was two in the morning. I had been accustomed to waking at that time because I usually heard Aki talking on the phone to Kota. I pulled on my sweat pants, realizing I was still wearing Aki's shirt that I had been wearing during the day, and tread quietly to the kitchen.
Though we had planned for Fuji to sleep on the couch in the main room, he was nowhere to be found, and I thought he must have decided to take up space in the room with Kota and Hiro. There was plenty of space for a third futon, but I had expected them to want to be spread out from each other. I turned one light on in the kitchen, just enough to dimly illuminate one side of the room, but not enough for the light to be noticed. Yawning, I pressed the button on the hot water dispenser to fill a mug, and tossed in a metal steeping ball with green tea leaves. As I leaned against the counter, I couldn't help staring at the ring on my finger, though I didn't have any thoughts in that moment as to what it represented.
"Natsuko?" I heard a low voice say my name, and looked up, caught off guard because the voice wasn't Aki's. Kota had made his way to the kitchen, carrying a mostly empty water glass. "Are you Aki's fill in for tonight's 2am conversation?" He reached to hug me quickly. "Congratulations, also."
"Thank you. Do you and Aki plan your 2am conversations?" I cautiously tested my tea for heat and strength.
Kota smiled groggily. "No, we both don't really sleep well. I wake up a lot during the night, and Aki, well, you know."
I nodded, confirming that I did indeed know Aki's poor sleeping habits. "He was a little drunk when he came back to bed. I think he'll sleep the night." I explained.
"Now that everything is out in the open, I have a confession to make." Kota said, seeming embarrassed. I could tell he simply didn't want to keep secrets.
I stopped him, knowing what he was going to say. "I already know." I said. His eyes grew wider. "I accidentally overheard you talking on the phone to Aki about it. He had the phone on speaker, and he didn't know I was awake." I changed the story slightly to spare Aki from blame, as I knew Kota had asked him not to tell me.
"It was just a stupid crush, like Aki said. I'm completely over it, you don't have anything to worry about."
I held up my hand, shaking my head to dismiss his explanation. "Kota, it's fine. I knew the whole time and it didn't change anything. You don't have to explain yourself."
We both looked toward the hallway as we heard shuffling feet, and Aki appeared around the corner, leaning against the wall as he walked, rubbing one palm over his eye. He stopped at the corner and opened his eyes, taking a moment to look at us before continuing toward us. He pressed himself against my back, reaching around me to take the tea mug from my hands and took a sip. He pressed a kiss to the side of my face as he gave the mug back to me, and turned to fetch one for himself from the cupboard.
"Good morning, Princess." Kota said to him.
"My head really hurts." Aki replied, leaning against the counter, holding the tea mug to his face with both hands. I took a moment to steal a look at him. His hair was standing up in every direction, some falling over one side of his face, and though he had just woken from what seemed like a deep sleep, his features were neat and handsome. It looked as though he had pulled on his grey track pants without much thought, and they sat low on his hips, and I could tell he didn't bother to put on underwear.
"Aki doesn't really drink, so he's a lightweight." Kota said to me, but it was mostly a statement to tease Aki. "Go back to bed, Fuji is going to wake us all up at seven to go for breakfast before the Winter Festival."
I lead Aki by the hand back to the bedroom and held his tea mug for him as he crawled into bed. As I leaned over to give the mug back to him, he placed a kiss on my lips before I could retract, and he laid heavily onto his pillow, letting out a sigh from the depths of his lungs.
"Are you going to be okay to go to the festival tomorrow?" I asked, settling beside him.
"I'll be fine, don't worry. My head hurts is all, nothing a few more hours of sleep and some good coffee can't fix." His voice sounded more alive. "This tea is actually helping. I hate drinking, it feels like poison in my veins."
I laughed slightly, somehow surprised at the person he turned out to be, thinking back to the first time I saw him on stage. In my mind, rockstars were supposed to be bad boys, smoking and drinking, playing girls, and Aki was none of that. He looked outwardly like he was a menace; his long hair and his tattoos, his punk clothes and guttural animalistic scream. The reality of him was that he worked hard and took his career seriously, and took who he loved seriously as well. He knew clearly what he enjoyed and what he didn't, and he knew exactly how he was supposed to act in every situation. He was entirely transparent, loyal, dependable.
"Aki, can I ask you something, or do you just need to go back to sleep now?"
He repositioned himself on his side to face me, hugging his pillow to cradle his head. "Ask me anything, my love." He said, his voice soft, reserved for night time.
"You have never once mentioned your parents or your family." I looked at him to gauge a reaction, but he looked back and seemed unmoved.
"That was not a question."
I laughed, but I was unsure whether to pry further or if that was his way of shutting down the conversation. "Where are your parents now? Why don't you ever talk about them?"
He stayed quiet for a moment longer, but I could see on his face that he was simply gathering information and organizing it to tell me, not holding back. "I am actually from Chiba originally, not Kamakura like the rest of Guardian." The answer in itself was enough for me, but he pressed forward in his explanation. "My dad was a terrible person. I actually don't remember a lot of it, and I was too young to really understand. My mom sent me to live in Kamakura with my grandparents when I was five. This house was theirs. My grandma explained to me when I was older that my mom had to run away from my dad, and she couldn't take care of me anymore because me being with her was putting me in danger. She didn't want my dad to kidnap me if he found her on the run or something like that. My grandparents passed when I was fourteen, and they left me this house paid off, and enough money to put myself into high school. I disappointed them by dropping out, but at least I made something of myself."
I was shocked by his story as I listened, but parts of his personality began to make sense. He was completely self sufficient because he had been left alone with a house and responsibility at fourteen. He had been raised with old fashioned beliefs from his grandparents, and by the sound of it, the desire to be a better man than his father was. "Aki, I'm sorry, I did not expect you to say something like that. I wouldn't have asked." I reached to run my fingers through his hair, and brushed it out of his face.
He closed his eyes to my touch. "No, it's okay. That's probably something I should have told you long ago. I know it doesn't seem like I had such a poor upbringing. That's also why I admired you when you told me you lived alone and you were putting yourself through school. I tried to do that, and I failed big time."
"You have experienced a lot of loss in your life." I said quietly. I didn't want to say it out loud in case it upset him, but I wanted to take advantage of the information he was sharing.
He smiled passively, unable to disagree but not wanting to agree either. "There are a lot of things about me you half know." He said. "That's not really fair, especially since you just agreed to marry me. But I promise I am the person you think I am."
I laughed just once with my breath. "I know."
"I don't always think that these things are important, so I don't talk about them, but if you want to know anything just ask me. I'll always tell you the truth."
"I will."