Blood Bouquet: Yandere Boys x Female! Reader

(xiv) it's you and me alone but we can never hold hands

Akira's gentle smile and reassuring tone make you feel much more comforted. Rest assured, you wouldn't be getting out of this mess anytime soon, but it was nice to know that someone was willing to help you through it. You curtesy to him and he bows, and you design it appropriate walk back inside, hand in hand.

As you shut your balcony doors and draw the curtains, you feel a shiver run down your spine. Someone is watching you. It's ridiculous, you think, shaking your head. It's night, and you're in a room full of people. Besides, there really wasn't a way for anyone to get in your neighbourhood, and even less so, your house. It was secure as can be.

Though you had been having this feeling more often, nowadays. You had been the subject of scorn and watchful eyes once, but you had hoped those days were behind you...perhaps consulting with Rantaro would help gather more intel into that probable situation.

"Akira," you say, glancing back at the velvet curtains that guarded your balcony. "Do you..."

Akira turned to face you, a gentle arch of an eyebrow conveying more than necessary. He had not felt those eyes. You shook your head dismissively, that would be all, then. Perhaps paranoia had begun to stake its claim upon you once more.

As you sit down for dinner, making menial conversation about thoughtless trivialities, you're somewhat glad that it is at least someone you know who will soon don the title of your betrothed. At least you know Akane trusts him, and Akane's word is gospel to you.

(You wonder why you're so particularly attached to her. You really only properly met her recently...right? But for some reason you were inexplicably drawn to her, polarised to her charm, magnetically attached by some virtue of fate — destiny, if you were so inclined. But surely...that didn't fall in line with you at all...so then why...?)

You cleared your head of troubling thoughts, striking up an attempt at amicable conversation.

"Akira, how prepared would you say you are for the upcoming exams...?" You asked, your tone gentle and mild.

"I don't really think anyone matches your levels of prep when it comes to studies and the like," Akira responds lightly, chuckling. "I mean, you'd probably have a book underneath the table right now if you could, right?"

"..." You sighed, he was right, but it did strike you as rather uncanny that he knew you well. "I do suppose that's right. Pursuing higher education has always been my passion. There is nothing in this world that I do not want to know more about, if I may use a hyperbole."

"What a coincidence," Akira says, fixing his tender gaze on you, his eyes twinkling with mirth. "Who would've thought I felt the same...about you, of course."

You fight the urge to laugh — a ridiculous statement, even more so from Akira, it's far too cheesy — and instead blush demurely in accordance with the role you must play. All in all, dinner proceeds without a hitch...and you suppose that it is good that if it had to be anyone, it would at least be someone that Akane and Rantaro trusted in.