Archive of Our Own ^beta

Oh God. God, shit, fuck.

An lets out another lengthy string of profanities as she races toward the Kamiyama bulletin board, weaving in-between people in a desperate attempt to reach it before a certain someone did. Otherwise she’d end up in a never-ending pile of shit, shit, shit.

Please don’t let her have seen it already, please don’t let her, please, universe, if you have any ounce of mercy for my poor soul, please spare me—

She skids to a stop in front of the board, nearly slamming into said someone as they turn around to stare at her with impossibly big brown eyes.

“An-chan, did you… take this picture of me?”

The universe did not spare An.

—

Rewind.

—

“It’s so beautiful out today, isn’t it An-chan?” Kohane tilted her nose to the gray sky in awe, nearly sending An into palpitations at the sight of the smooth line of her neck and smooth cheeks. She gripped her camera tighter and swallowed, hard.

“Y-yeah, it’s really nice out.”

“Perfect for taking your pictures.” Kohane paused and looked around, hands on her hips, and An had to physically hold herself back from imploding on the spot, because she was just so cute and charming like this. “Is this spot good enough, or should we keep walking?”

To be honest, An had almost forgotten why they were out here in the first place.

Long story short: An was bad at signing up for classes. Exhausted and too tired to read more than three words at a time, she had signed up for the first classes in eyesight. Hence the photography class, hence the photography project, which was worth a considerable amount of her grade. So An had invited Kohane to be her subject, woken up at an ungodly hour, ridden the public transportation out into some random countryside village, and wandered into the forest, still half-asleep, looking for places to take pictures.

At least Kohane was there, An thought, admiring the way her eyelashes stood out against her flushed cheeks. Otherwise, she would have fallen asleep on the way there and died as the train went off into infinity. Or something like that.

“You can just stand right here, and I’ll… figure it out!” An grabbed Kohane’s shoulders and pushed her in front of a few trees, letting her fingers linger slightly too long on her frame, soaking up Kohane’s warmth. An had to strengthen her grip on her camera when Kohane turned back around, eyes crinkled in a soft smile and hair down around her shoulders, red cheeks and mouth slightly parted.

God, she just wanted to… wanted to…

“Okay… um… just try some poses! If you’re stuck on ideas just… um… oh! Recycle the poses VBS uses for album covers, ‘kay?” An bent down and started snapping pictures, still a little unsure of what she was doing.

Oh well. Kohane looked good no matter what, so it was fine.

Snow landed on An’s face, cold and stinging. It melted quickly against the warmth of her cheeks.

“Oh! It’s snowing, how lovely!” Kohane extended her hands to the sky, face raised in joy. She looked so beautiful, and ethereal, stunning, spectacular, gorgeous, and fuck An was running out of words.

Her hands raised the camera. The viewfinder focused on Kohane, head tilted to the sky, snow laced delicately over her eyelashes.

Click.

—

“So…” Kohane sets down her mug of hot chocolate and raises her gaze to An’s, a little hesitant. “You submitted this picture of me to a contest?”

“Not— not really,” An says, wanting to bury herself in the seat and never come out. She can feel her face being set on fire. She wants to die. “Basically, my photography teacher told us that the photos we submitted would be entered into a contest, and the best one would be displayed on the bulletin. But I’m shit at photography, right, so I never thought I would win. I didn’t even know if I was going to finish the assignment, to be honest.”

“But you won,” Kohane reiterates. An can’t see Kohane from where she’s buried her face in the table, but she knows it can’t be good. What kind of creep takes impromptu pictures of the girl she’s crushing on? The girl who already kindly offered to be her model? And then An just had to go ahead and fuck it all up, oh God, Kohane’s never going to want to talk to her again, and then RAD WEEKEND will—

“Yeah… I won…” An mumbles. The table smells like cedar and spilled coffee. If she could die right here and now, she thinks that would be kind of okay. “Listen, I’m really sorry for taking the picture without your permission. I know that you weren’t even modeling at the moment, but you’re just so pretty, and there was the snow and stuff, and I just…”

“You think I’m pretty?”

And there’s something in Kohane’s voice, a little breathless and a little nervous and a lot of hopeful, that makes An pick her head up, prepared to do something, but the sight in front of her wipes her mind clean.

Kohane’s blushing. This isn’t really new, but she’s blushing and staring at An, pretty pink mouth parted in an O and blonde hair falling around her face, stars floating in the wide expanse of her eyes.

She’s so pretty.

“Yes— yes!” An blurts, brain-to-mouth filter failing as usual. “You’re pretty, very pretty.” If An keeps saying the word pretty she thinks she might knock herself out to spare herself the overwhelming embarrassment. “And beautiful, and smart, and incredibly talented at singing, you’re really, really—”

“An-chan… sto—stop,” Kohane says, flushing an even brighter shade of red. “You keep on… you keep on saying these things, and I really don’t know what to think about it.”

“Wh—what?”

“If you keep on saying these things, I’ll start… thinking things that I probably shouldn’t… that aren’t true…” Kohane closes her eyes, as if in pain, but all An can think about is how angelic she looks with her eyelashes fanning out across her soft cheeks.

Oh.

The implications of Kohane’s words hit her, shocking and startling. To think that all this, Kohane really…

“Kohane, let’s get out of here.” An grabs her slender wrist and drags her out of the booth.

“Wait— what? Why?”

“Because I really don’t want to kiss you in front of my dad.”

Kohane makes a series of stuttering noises before An pushes them outside into the biting cold, snow falling around them, still gently clutching Kohane’s arm.

“Wait, wait, does this mean you…?” Kohane looks as if she’s in disbelief, cheeks coloured and bright, worrying her lip between teeth. An is very much out of breath.

“Yes, it means I like you Kohane. I really, really like you,” An smiles, and then draws Kohane closer. Her heart rate is increasing in proportion to how close she is to Kohane. Their fingers are intertwined, palms pressed against each other. She breathes in deeply.

“Can I kiss—”

An is cut off by the soft press of Kohane’s mouth against hers. She’s standing on her tiptoes, just a little bit, to reach An, and An laughs into Kohane’s mouth before wrapping her hand around Kohane’s face, ever so delicately. She’s so warm, and bright and there. Kohane is in front of her, she’s kissing her.

Kohane’s teeth brush over her lip, and An is losing her mind over how good it feels. Both of them have cold faces, but warm hands and warm hearts. It’s a little clumsy and so, so beautiful, An feels so bright inside, she’s so bright as she presses forward into Kohane’s hands—

“Are you going to keep sucking face with your girlfriend or can we actually get inside?”

An breaks away, face flushed, to see Akito with Toya at his side, looking disgruntled and vaguely discomfited. She gives him the finger and grabs Kohane’s hand, looking back at the girl.

Her face is even pinker than it was before, and her mouth is— oh, her mouth is swollen and pink and An’s heart swells at the sight because she did that to Kohane, she was the one who got to kiss Kohane into this state. Kohane looks back up at her with those wide starry eyes and An is so gone for this girl.

Akito rolls his eyes and brushes past them, dragging Toya along, but she doesn’t miss the smirk that crosses his face.

“Can we stay outside just a little longer? The snow is really lovely,” Kohane says, and she lifts her hands up to the sky to catch some stray flakes.

An laughs, bright and loud into the snowing sky.