Chiyo makes her way to the garden. Following the cobblestone path, she is met by the mesmerising beauty of the garden at night. The garden is a spluttering oasis of soft suede flowers. Budding roses tickle her senses with the soft scents of citrus. The stalks dance with the wind as the plush green meadow of grass exchange ghostly whispers that tickle her ear. As she walks around the rose garden, she spots the shadow of a person in the pavilion. It seems like that person is basking under the soft glow of the moonlight. Not wanting to disturb their moment of serenity, she turns to leave.

"I know you're here" With their back still turned, a wisp of smoke slithers past their lips as they speak. "Why won't you come closer? Are you scared of me?"

Chiyo panics upon hearing their voice and in taking a step backward her foot gets caught in a random vine and she falls flat onto her face. She lets out a yelp as she lays awkwardly with her face in the grass. Yousuke looks at Chiyo with a lot of confusion. He keeps staring at her trying to get up from the ground, it seems like he has absolutely no intention of helping her.

"Are you stupid?" Yousuke walks closer to Chiyo with the cigarette in his hand. "Do you always trip like this and impact your brain?"

"I'm not stupid!" Chiyo frowns "It's just you surprised me, that's all" feeling his stare on her, her voice becomes smaller as she recalls her father's advice from earlier.

Yousuke slides his fingertips up Chiyo's neck till they catch under her chin, tilting her head up as he leans closer "Your face... looks stupid though."

The simple gesture leaves Chiyo a stuttering mess. Her face explodes into a full blown blush, and she quickly turns away from him so that she wouldn't have to meet his eyes. Despite trying to sound intimidating, there is an evident shake in her voice "If you're just going to insult me then I might as well leave"

"I don't dislike stupid people so you can stay." Yousuke grins as Chiyo's breath catches, dropping her chin as he walks back to his original spot under the moonglow. With his attention spared, she quietly takes a seat on one of the benches inside the pavilion to admire the moon.

"The moon is beautiful, isn't it?" Yousuke relights his cigarette. The smoke swirls heavenward, flowing with the artistry and grace of an Arabian dancer under the dark blue night sky.

Chiyo scrunches her nose as she inhales the grey stench, eyes stinging with tears. "Yes, it is," she sneaks a look at the man standing before her. Taking in his appearance, she almost finds herself wondering out loud. How could someone so handsome and dashing emit the bloodlust of a psychopathic killer.

"Am I talking to you?" Yousuke glances back at Chiyo with a raised brow. She holds her tongue, afraid of what he might do to her had she been hellbent on defying him.

"It's fine now. You can talk to me." Yousuke states with the shrug of a shoulder. "I can see you have some questions."

Chiyo mulls over her question, piecing it together in her head "I was just curious but...what happened in the restaurant before I fainted? All I remember is touching someone and then...well, and then I was in the hotel room"

"You really don't remember?" Yousuke turns around to face her, cigarette discarded into the nearest bush with a flick of the wrist.

This guy?!

"After you accidentally touched me, my powers were enhanced and I could sense things around me much clearer than usual. And since you took me by surprise, I threw you to the floor. Anyone else who hurried over to help you up had also touched you. At that moment, I think we all had an idea as to what your power might have been..." She's not sure if it's the moonlight playing tricks on her eyes, but this bastard was definitely smirking a little bit when he talked about dropping her to the floor.

"Did you say that your powers were enhanced?" Chiyo finds herself raising her voice unconsciously, eyes blown wide in bewilderment.

"Yes, do you need me to explain it again since your brain seems to be damaged after the fall?" That irksome smirk takes its place on his face once more.

"I understood that perfectly fine thank you, you don't have to waste your precious breath saying it again" Chiyo scowls. Never in her 21 years on earth, has anyone ever managed to piss her off this badly before. There really is a first time for everything. Fume was starting to come out from how red her face was getting.

"That's good then. It would have been a pain if I had to explain it again." God if he wasn't someone of importance she would've wiped that smile off of his face ages ago. "Anyways, look who's coming."

Chiyo looks around and she sees a tiny shadow from afar. She tries to squint her eyes to make out the figure but she can't because it's obviously too far away.

"That's Akira. Don't try, you can't see him from this distance." Yousuke says.

By now, her embarrassment meter is at its peak level. Chiyo stands up hurriedly with the intention to hightail it out of there as fast as possible before she does anything else that might evoke a response. The less she has to deal with this guy the better.

"Are you embarrassed?" Yousuke simpers as he leans his weight against the pavilion's pillar. Arms crossed over his chest, he stood posed in arrogance. "You don't need to. It's not your fault that you're born stupid."

Snap.

Is the sound of the last shred of patience within her breaking as Chiyo whips her head back "I'm not embarrassed! Not because of someone like you anyways!" she snaps back, the words laced with venom "You know what a shame, that I wasn't born with enough middle fingers to let you know how I feel about you"

At that, Yousuke bursts out laughing "You're stupid but you're quite funny. I don't dislike that side of you."

Seems at least one of us is having a grand time tonight, Chiyo clicks her tongue.

"Oh, what are you guys doing?" Akira, who took his sweet time, finally arrives at the pavilion and the sight of Yousuke laughing has him caught by surprise.

"It's nothing" Chiyo holds her tongue as she shoots a silent glare Yousuke's way. Akira didn't deserve to be brought into this, and Yousuke's flame definitely didn't deserve to be fanned any further "I was just about to take my leave"

"Oh, you're leaving already?" Chiyo almost has to rub her eyes as a pair of puppy dog ears seems to have magically appeared on top of Akira's head??? Surely she couldn't have been the only one seeing this. "I thought we could have a walk and enjoy this garden for a while."

"Actually Akira, I wouldn't mind joining you at all" Her mouth agrees even before her brain had half a mind to register whatever was going on.

Not again Chiyo...

———

Akira and Chiyo walk through the garden with what one might call a really awkward atmosphere. Chiyo isn't really sure if she is still traumatised after talking with Yousuke or if it's because Akira's attention seems to be weirdly directed at the surrounding bushes.

Even a brick wall would make for a better companion at this point.

"What are you looking at Akira?," she coughs, VERY loudly.

Akira seems to have noticed his impoliteness as he faces her with an embarrassed smile. "I'm sorry, Ms. Muuri. It's just that I saw a cat running around the garden so I'm looking for it."

"Wait. There's a cat here?" Some weird switch within Chiyo seems to have been flipped as she blabbers non stop in sheer excitement "Where did you last see it? What did it look like? Was it really cute? Oh oh oh maybe we could lure it out with some food"

"Yes, but I'm not sure where it is now. Maybe I was mistaken, if it's my neighbourhood, there'd be a lot of stray cats wandering around... but this is Area One afterall, not to mention we're in a quite spacious hotel too." A warm smile lights up his face at the mention of his hometown.

Chiyo blinks once, and then twice, and then has to rub her eyes the third time as Akira glows under the illumination of the sky.

Cute.

She lets her gaze browse the rest of Akira's features before landing on his wide doe eyes. Entirely unfiltered, with every thought and emotion on display, those golden brown orbs seem to be a clear reflection of the depth of his very heart and soul.

"What was your neighbourhood like?" Chiyo says, almost surprising herself with how breathless her voice sounded

"I guess it's the same as yours. There's not much about it. We have a farm and there are a lot of workers there too. Everyday I'd help my parents with work and sometimes hang around with my ifriends." The more he chatted about it, the more animated he became, waving his arms about as he retells various stories and tales to her as laughter filled the quiet midnight garden. You'd be a fool not to notice that Area Six was a place that he greatly treasured.

As Akira smiles dumbly at her, Chiyo finds herself stuck between a rock and a hard place, debating whether to ruin the only moment of peace that she'll have at this place to serve into her curiosity or feign ignorance and bask in the infectious glow of his smile.

"Why do the area leaders need me, Akira? What is this upcoming battle that everyone is talking about?" Chiyo blurts out.

"Well as you might already know, our country is divided into seven areas. Since we as the current heads of Galsia are all equal in power, the Battle of Galsia acts as a selection process that determines who receives the rights to manage the whole country. The form of competition changes every year so I'm not sure what we'll be doing this year but since we'll be able to use our 'gift' there, it'd be beneficial to have you on their side since you also happen to possess a 'gift'." Akira says.

"The Battle of Galsia? That's still happening?" Chiyo stills at the thought, the catastrophic event that befell the nation several years ago clear in the back of her mind "But wasn't that where the assassination took place? It was the bombing that killed the previous area leaders right?"

"Yes... That event was truly horrific. The Clouded Apollo... will surely pay for what they've done." The night casts a shadow on Akira's expression, his eyes seem to flicker with a hint of malice at those simple words.

"Um" She gulps, sensing the drop in Akira's mood. Her mind races at a hundred miles an hour, flicking through a thousand different scenarios and a million possible conversation prompts that she could possibly use to tiptoe around this. As if God had heard her desperate pleas, a rustling sounds out from a nearby shrub.

Blinking from his thoughts, the softness seems to leak back into Akira's features as he reaches out for her. Before she can even react, his hand glides down her arm, engulfing her hand in his larger, more callous ones. Chiyo flinches, blushing as his fingers wrap around the back of her hand. They tiptoe closer and closer to where the bush rattles and shakes and upon parting the leaves, find a patchy brown fluff ball rolling around in the grass.

"Can you let go of me now" she whispers, trying but failing to get her hand back.

God, what did he have to lift to get such a monstrous grip strength???

"Shhh!" Akira signals Chiyo to stay silent as he's afraid that the little cat will run away when it sees them.

...Isn't it counterintuitive to shush her so loudly...

They watch it for a while and Chiyo's leg starts feeling numb. She turns to tell Akira if they should stand up but hesitates when she sees his eyes sparkle innocently as he watches the cat. So, like the good person that she is, Chiyo decides to tough it out like a champ. Though it was starting to become a lot harder as she wasn't exactly built for endurance. She finds herself leaning a little too much to one side, actually a little TOO much, that...

Oompfh.

The cat is scared away by the loud sound of Chiyo falling. Akira finally notices Chiyo's condition, who is now laying stiffly like a log on the dirt ground beside him.

"Are you okay, Ms. Muuri? Sorry I didn't notice that." Akira looks at Chiyo with worried eyes.

"I know," she musters a weak smile, feeling a bump growing from the back of her head.

"You're so delicate, Ms. Muuri. You're like.... Uhm... that American apple in my family. We once tried to raise it but it dies so easily. Ah don't misunderstand! I didn't mean it like that!" Akira changes the sentence midway after realising there's something wrong with that simile.

Chiyo doesn't know what to say after being described as a dead apple tree.

"Can you just help me up?" She deadpans, soullessly watching the clouds go by.

"Oh yeah, of course!" in one fell swoop, Akira scoops Chiyo into a princess carry that has her gasping out in shock "What are you doing?!"

"Helping you up, of course." Akira says, not seeing a problem with his action.

"What huh you I uh..." Chiyo stammers for a while before realising that no matter what she says probably won't get through to him. She sighs defeatedly "Just....can you just help me back to my room?"

Were all the leaders just this frustrating to deal with?

"Are you sure you don't want to go to the nurse?" Akira looks at Chiyo's leg with a worried face.

"No. Please, it would just be really nice to go back to the room right now" Chiyo stands firm by her words, pulling up all defences against his puppy dog eyes "Thank you though, I appreciate the concern"

"It's okay, I'm glad I was able to help." Akira's smile shines so brightly that somehow Chiyo feels like she can forgive him for whatever just happened.

Akira carries her back to the room. Before he goes, he even asks if she needs him to bring her a medical kit or something but Chiyo quickly refuses.

After tossing and turning with the thoughts of all that had happened today, she finds herself slowly dozing off. Sleep places a weighted kiss on her eyelids, whispering sweet nothings into her ear as she sinks further and further into the darkness of the night.

———