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imperialdramons · 6 years

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Title: Reaching Words: 1,845 Pairing: Keiyu (Keisuke/Yu) Summary: What if their ferris wheel date was never interrupted? Read below or on AO3: Link

“Keisuke… do you think we could hold hands? Just until we reach the bottom.”

He should have known that dragging someone around under false pretenses was going to make them uncomfortable. Still, he pushed his own agenda despite it, and pretended they were actually riding the ferris wheel.

This was no different from when they were kids and went to the haunted house. Yu begged Keisuke to go because he thought he’d get scared and end up leaning on his shoulder for support. When the exact opposite happened, he felt like an idiot for being an inconvenience when all he wanted to do was be useful in some way. Ever since that day, Yu was painfully aware that they belonged on opposite sides of fate. Though, he was also aware that he never quite learned his lesson as a kid.

He still pushed Keisuke to request him during domination battles or side quests, and masked his intentions by submitting today’s quest as a case for Hudie. It was just his familiar cowardice rearing its ugly head- too afraid to ask Keisuke out alone, and ironically relying on Hudie to pull them away from Hudie. Even when he told himself to be honest and express the real reason he wanted to go to date spots, he could not muster the courage to tell Keisuke the full story. The most he managed to do was say that it was all for a friend.

Reliable and trusting Keisuke never bothered to ask the name of his friend, why the friend could not go to those locations alone, or why he couldn't look up information online like a normal person. There was a giant array of questions Keisuke could have asked to worm his way out of the date, but he didn’t. It gave Yu some hope that he wanted this to happen, and that he needed it in a sense. Even if Keisuke deserved a break from Hudie, Yu’s reasons for pulling him away were purely selfish.

But one selfish request was not the end of the world.

“Yu!?” The look on Keisuke’s face, his posture, his tone, and his words made it perfectly clear that this was all pretend. “Are you serious!?”

Yu had to admit that his friend’s shocked expression was one of his personal favorites. While it could never beat his genuine smile, or that dumb pouting face he made in third grade to cheer him up (and hadn’t stopped doing ever since) seeing Keisuke get so worked up over a make-belief scenario was amusing. He wondered what it would have been like if they actually got on a ferris wheel ride and acted out their roles as boyfriend and girlfriend. If he inched closer to Keisuke in a ride where he could not pull away, and if he leaned his head on his shoulder, would he react the same way? If he had an excuse to get closer to Keisuke, would Keisuke let him? Not that he’d ever do it even if the opportunity presented itself. It was too big a risk to take considering what was on the line. If he really pushed Keisuke’s buttons to the breaking point, he might lose him for good.

“Because if you are serious-” Curiously, Yu cocked his head and watched Keisuke take a more determined stance.

“-i’ll hold your hand!” he said it with such gusto and conviction that Yu had to take a moment to ponder the implications.

“Ha…” The laughter that bubbled up in his throat died down when he listened to the pitch in Keisuke’s voice. Absolutely nothing about Keisuke told him he was joking around.

“Huh?” he took a step back to reassess the situation for his own sake- face bright red with embarrassment. Keisuke just agreed to hold hands.

“W-Wait, what!?” he liked to think that Keisuke could read him like an open book, but if that was the case, why play along with something that was supposed to be taken as a joke? On top of it, Keisuke smiled almost knowingly, like he was aware of his hidden feelings.

The little shit.

Keisuke raised his hand to scratch his cheek, and looked off to the side somewhat shyly. There was a foundation of confidence behind Keisuke’s words, confidence that Yu lacked when he wanted to ask the same thing of him, but he could tell that it was something that was not said in jest.

“I’m the girl, so it’s custom for the guy to make the first move, right?” Now he was cheeky, too. Fantastic. Yu had the strangest urge to both shout at him to snap out of it and play along until there was nothing more to act on.

“R-Right, um…” He pulled his hand over his lips to hide his blush, mumbling his words out until they were too difficult to make out. Keisuke had to furrow his brows and cock his head to make Yu get the hint to just grab his hand already without thinking.

If only it were that easy.

When Yu found himself reduced to nothing but a mumbling and flushed mess, he hurried to gather what little courage there was inside his body to sidestep closer to Keisuke and grab his hand. Although, he hardly grasped him firmly. He ended up lingering next to his knuckles for a brief moment, fingers curled up and retracted. Slowly, he relaxed his palm to reach out, but when his pinkie softly brushed against his friend’s hand, he looked away as if he had done something unlawful.

“T-There…” The response he got from Keisuke was a flat “What?” and nothing else. His touch had most definitely been far too faint to even notice. He swallowed thickly, took a deep breath, pulled his other hand a little higher over his lips and finally let his palm curve around Keisuke’s.

“There. How’s… that?” It amazed Yu that he even managed to get a word out with how nervous he was, and when Keisuke closed his hand around his to squeeze him, he felt his warm touch send a shiver through his entire body. It made him tragically aware of the fact that he could not escape his feelings for Keisuke even in cyberspace. With EDEN being so entwined with their psyche to the point their bodies could feel chemical reactions even while hooked up online, there was no limits to what other things Keisuke could do that would make him just as giddy as in real life.

This fake ferris wheel ride felt like a dream since the moment it began. Logically, it should have been comparable to a dream had cyberspace not almost entirely replaced their daily lives. People continuously harped on EDEN and the fact cyberspace could never replace reality, but the reality that they lived in would never allow for something like this to go by unnoticed.

People stared. They grinned and whispered no differently from the bullies that tormented him during his youth.

It was downright frustrating.

Even if he knew the public thought of him as a girl, Keisuke never shared their sentiment. Keisuke was the only person not to tease him about it, even if Yu expected him to do so at least once. No, he never made fun of it, and never showed he took enjoyment when others made the comparison. Even on this date, Keisuke was doing his best to fulfill the role of “girlfriend” as given to him. He took the title with near no argument. Most guys would have been weirded out, or left by now, but Keisuke continued to do these things for him. Why would a person go through this much trouble if they didn’t want this to happen somewhere deep down? Was Keisuke really sacrificing his own comfort just for a case? Yu was too caught up in the moment to turn his head and establish whether this was fake or whether it was genuine.

You invited him through Hudie… so it’s not a date. It’s a case. A case for a reward.

He fixed his eyes on the turning of the wheel, and focused on the rhythmic sound of gears turning in an almost dead-silent Kowloon. The clanking echoed hypnotically, and the more thought he gave it, the more aware he was of how lonely the atmosphere felt. No hackers usually lurked near the entrance, which helped Yu curl his fingers around Keisuke’s palm a little tighter.

This is all just uncomfortable for you, isn’t it, Keisuke?

I always make you feel so uncomfortable. Ever since we were little, you’ve always been there for me. Yet I...

Absolute silence, and absolute calm. He did not dare move an inch in case he triggered a change of heart. One step too far and this comfortable charade was in for a quick close, and the “case” that Keisuke knew it as would be over. To Yu, this was far more real than what they were doing in the aquarium, but he assumed that it must be all the same for Keisuke.

For someone Yu had known his whole life, Keisuke was unpredictable at times. He went from paying him compliments like it was no big deal to leaving him at EDEN’s entrance area to pursue a case. Even when he was an afterthought, he could not help but feel happy when he got a moment of Keisuke’s time. It hurt to be forgotten, or to be straight up abandoned whenever something more important came up, or someone more important, but it did not matter in the end. Yu tried his best to convey how important Keisuke was to him, but there was always something that made him back down every time. Something that was even more clear with their fingers intertwined.

I just make you tense up… your hand is warm, but you’re trembling.

I suppose it’s my own fault for dragging you here and insisting on it without taking your feelings into account.

If you knew what i’ve been up to while you’ve been working, I guess you’d be slapping my hand right now instead of holding it.

“...Hey, Yu.” Yu ran his thumb over Keisuke’s knuckles shyly, and moved his palm to cover his lips a little better. Flushed with embarrassment and filled with a heat that was strong enough to color his cheeks a darker shade of red, he ran his fingers over soft and familiar skin to remind himself they were actually holding hands. He barely mustered the courage with his heart hammering in his chest, but he pulled himself together and side-glanced in Keisuke’s direction.

“Yes?”

“...How do we know when we’ve reached the bottom?”

He let go.

He just straight up let go so he could manually push Keisuke off the platform down to Under Kowloon.

God, you’re so stupid, Keisuke!

I can’t believe I almost thought you’d tell me you- you’re just so stupid.

But you’re still my hero.

And even if I’m no good as I am now, I’d do anything to be yours one day.

Anything.

#digimon #keiyu #yu nogi #keisuke amazawa #digimon story hackers memory

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