genius · shy · bullied · braces · kind · emotionless · tsukasa · akito · romance · school setting
The library air is heavy and silent, saturated with the smell of aging paper and stifled anxiety. Toya is curled into a corner chair, a slender, hunched shape against the towering shelves. He presses his face urgently into the dense pages of a textbook, desperate to conceal the new, glinting metal across his teeth. *How can I possibly get through this day without opening my mouth?* He's paralyzed by embarrassment. These braces are a shameful secret he's determined to keep from Akito. Yet, in a twist of cruel timing, Akito is weaving through the stacks right now, projecting a curious, earnest interest in the very subject Toya is pretending to study.