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The winter festival had so much to look at that Kohane and Akito had been there for hours already, but still she couldn’t take her eyes off of Akito. Or, more specifically, she couldn’t take her eyes off of his scarf.
It was a comfortable-looking scarf, a soft orange-brown with softer stripes almost making a plaid pattern.
It was matching hers.
There were only so many reasons he could’ve been wearing it. Obviously it was cold, so that was reason number one, and given the amount of layers he wore even on warmer days, Kohane had a feeling he got cold easily, which then became reason one-and-a-half, since it wasn’t quite a separate reason from the first. The second reason was that it went with the rest of his outfit, which was made of mostly earthy tones from his coat and shirt that she could kind of see under it. Neither of them had worn gloves, but she at least had a hat on—it had become a running joke among the four of them that she became somewhat addicted to hats now that she had a taste of them. She couldn’t confirm or deny.
Anyway. Mental breath.
Kohane felt the cool metal of Akito’s rings against her hand as their fingers intertwined, colder than usual thanks to the air around them. She always thought that with their height difference, holding hands would be awkward on one of them or the other, but it was almost like they were made for each other in the kind of sappy way she’d always read about in her favorite manga. She liked the feeling of his hand in hers, with his slightly-rough skin but steady, just-tight-enough grip.
They’d been through the majority of the festival throughout the day, including some of the rides that reminded Kohane of how much she loved Phoenix Wonderland. Not that the rides the festival had weren’t good, she especially liked the ferris wheel, but Phoenix Wonderland just held that special place in her heart. In the hand that wasn’t holding Akito’s, she had a steaming hot cocoa. Akito had burned his tongue on his first sip about five minutes ago, right after buying the drinks, so Kohane hadn’t tried hers yet. There were so many amazing sights to see, ones that made her wish she’d brought her camera, and she and Akito had so much fun just talking and laughing all day, but she could not for the life of her get his scarf out of her head.
“Hey, Hane.” Akito nudged their joined hands into Kohane’s side, the already soft blow softened further by her coat. “Thinking about something?”
“Oh, um.” Kohane chewed her lip for a moment, trying to think of an answer that didn’t make her seem weirdly obsessive. But then, even if she did come off like that, he loved her anyway, or he always said that, and she believed him. “I was just lost in thought.”
“Yeah, I got that much.” Something Kohane really, really liked about Akito was that he always made his tone clear with her. Whenever she was prone to overthinking, which was often, he made sure that even when he was being sarcastic, he kept his tone light and soft. It helped prevent her from thinking too hard about whether he actually meant something else. “I meant, what are you thinking about? Anything interesting?”
She shrugged, taking the time to have her first sip of hot cocoa. It was at the perfect temperature, and was perfectly sweet and creamy. She wanted to melt into it. “It’s silly.”
“Can’t be that silly.” He slowed his pace, looking down at her. “Seriously, something bothering you?”
“No, it’s not anything like that!” She took another sip of her hot cocoa, just to stall, but also it was just really good. “I was … just wondering why you were wearing that scarf.”
“My scarf? That’s all?” He looked at it as best he could, almost crossing his eyes in doing so. Kohane giggled a bit at his expression. “I wore it because it matches yours and it’s cold out, that’s all.”
Of all the possible answers she ever could’ve gotten, that was not the one she expected. “Really?”
“Yeah, really.” He tugged at it as much as he could with his hot cocoa in his hand, unwilling, apparently, to move their joined ones. “I thought it’d be nice. Lots of couples do that, y’know?”
Part of Kohane wanted to laugh at herself for being so silly as to occupy herself over a scarf of all things, but the other half wanted to laugh at Akito—nicely, of course. “But I thought you said before that you’d never be caught dead matching with anyone?”
Akito looked away with a small grunt. “That was mostly because An was trying to get us to have those corny t-shirts as a group or something like that. This is just a scarf. And it’s just with you.”
Kohane felt her cheeks burn bright pink as she grinned, mentally breathing a sigh of relief. She nuzzled her chin into her own scarf, tied slightly differently than Akito’s, which maybe was why she hadn’t immediately noticed that he matched her on purpose.
Akito removed his hand from hers, putting it instead on top of her head. She felt some of her hair squish down under it. “You can be a little troublemaker sometimes, you know that? Maybe that should be your new nickname.”
“A troublemaker?” No matter how many times Kohane tried, she couldn’t imagine herself causing trouble of any sort.
“I mean, it’s mostly you causing yourself trouble with overthinking, but you’d make a cute menace if you wanted to be one.” The way he smiled at her, with slight mischief, Kohane again felt like she wanted to melt. This time, though, not into her hot cocoa, and instead right into him. So she buried her face in his chest, hugging him close to her as careful as she could so neither of them spilled their drinks. It only took a second for Akito to adjust himself to return the hug. “Did you at least enjoy today?”
“Mhm,” she said into his chest. She hoped he could hear her from how muffled her response was. “A lot.”