pairing: albedo/reader
rating: general
summary: Klee stares at you for the longest time, her bright eyes wide with curiosity. “Don’t you two love each other?” she asks, and the question is so unexpected that all you could do is stare at her in silence, shocked and embarrassed.
But what are you supposed to say when you know the answer all along? And what are you supposed to do when you’re too afraid to say it?
notes: the summary is quite a mess, and so is the whole thing. i think i got all their characterizations all wonky too, so that’s another thing to apologize for. sorry!
Today has been quite exhausting. Planning for Klee’s birthday adventures is never an easy job, especially with all the things she likes; and now that you’ve given her a free pass to do everything she wants for a day, she’s tried to enjoy it to the fullest, skipping from one place to another as an idea begins to form in her head, leaving you and your companion to follow after her. She’s led you to all kinds of places, each one stranger than the last and each one more dangerous than before.
She has led you to a nearby park, empty of people but full of her buried treasure, showing every single one to you as though it’s her most precious secret; has led you inside an abandoned church, hiding behind dark rooms and empty closets as she asks you to find her; and has led you to her favorite places: ponds and rivers, showing you all the things she loves to do whenever she’s bored and looking to pass the time—searching for fishes (and blowing them up, though you’ll happily keep her secret.)
It’s quite a strange adventure, though you have to admit that it’s the most fun you’ve had in a while, despite all the dangers you’ve encountered along the way. But now, it’s finally all over, and there is nothing else left to do except to go home and rest. Klee looks especially tired, all her energy drained out of her; even your companion seems a bit exhausted, though you’d never be able to tell at a simple glance. And as for you—you want nothing more than to go home and spend the rest of tomorrow in your bed, comfortable asleep.
It’s a quick trip back to your apartment, and by the time the three of you arrive, Klee seems almost ready to pass out on the floor. You feel entirely the same, and yet somehow, you muster the energy long enough to carry her back to her room, your companion tagging along all the while.
It’s almost a routine at this point: the two of you tucking her in every night, just because she always refuses to sleep without seeing the two of your first. It’s quick and easy work, and you do your duties in comfortable silence: laying her down on her bed and fixing the pillows, making sure she’s comfortable.
The two of you are halfway out of the door when Klee finally calls your name, her voice soft and sleepy, and you stop in your tracks, turning around to look at her. You watch as she slowly sits up on her bed, staring at you and your companion with a sleepy expression.
“What is it?” you ask, your eyebrows creasing in concern. She is quiet for a moment, staring at you for the longest time, and then her gaze suddenly flits over to your companion, blinking a few times as though she’s only noticed him just now.
“Albedo,” she calls quietly, and at the sound of his name, your companion turns to look at her, humming under his breath as he waits. For a moment, she still doesn’t speak, her gaze flitting between the two of you as she tilts her head, looking a little confused. You’re about to open your mouth to ask her if there’s anything else she needs when the question suddenly comes, unexpected.
“Don’t you two love each other?” she asks, blinking at you a few times like she’s still trying to find the answer. You stop, surprised at her question, and for a moment, it feels as though time has stopped. You stare at her for the longest time, your body still and your expression frozen into one of shock: your eyes wide and your mouth agape, uncertain how to respond.
But she only stares at you innocently, not realizing the gravity of her question, and then waits. It takes a moment to snap yourself back into reality, and when you do, you are careful to avoid your companion’s gaze, turning away from him as though you could hide.
You couldn’t, of course, not when you could feel your gaze burning against you, intensely curious, but it’s the next best thing you could do. You cough uncomfortably, trying to ignore your companion, pretending you couldn’t feel the weight of his stare pressing against you. “Why are you asking that all of a sudden?”
Klee doesn’t miss a beat. “Why aren’t you giving him a good night kiss?”
You nearly choke on your words, not quite expecting the words to come out of her mouth, feeling your cheeks heating up in embarrassment. “What?”
“My mom loves me,” she explains, smiling as she recalls a memory from a past. She shakes her head a moment later as if to snap herself out of her memory, and then continues, her voice quiet and her tone slightly sheepish. “So she always gives me a good night kiss.”
You are quiet for a moment, still uncertain how to respond, but Klee only stares at you as she waits for a reply, and you stammer a few times, struggling to find the right words. “I… we…” you begin and then instantly trail off, leaving the rest of your words hanging in the air between you. You try again a moment later, your mouth opening and closing like a fish out of water, but the words still wouldn’t come.
How are you supposed to reply? And what are you even supposed to say? Truth be told, you’ve never even told him anything about your feelings, always backing out at the last minute, terrified of seeing how he’ll react, afraid of hearing what he’ll say. You don’t want to ruin anything between you, whatever it might be, but you also couldn’t bring yourself to deny Klee’s questions, especially when it’s partly true.
You do love him, even if he could never love you back.
And so you try again, keeping your eyes turned away from him, ignoring the weight of his stare and the knot forming in your stomach as you mumble out a response, gentle in the silence. “We aren’t used to doing things like that.”
“Why not?” she asks, and there’s a crease in her eyebrows now, a genuine confusion in her voice. “Don’t you love each other?”
“I… we…” you begin, stammering over your words, your mind completely blank as you try to formulate a response. Helpless, you finally turn to glance at your companion, desperate for assistance, but he remains quiet, staring at you with intense eyes, his expression impassive, unreadable.
Klee calls your name once more, prompting for another response, but you balk, still uncertain what to say. She frowns at your silence, and then turns her attention back to your companion, staring at him with the same kind of curiosity she’s shown you. “Albedo?”
The sound of her voice is enough to bring him back to the present, and he blinks a few times, turning to look at her with a distracted smile on his lips. “Hm?”
“I said,” she begins, her gaze sliding between the two of you once more before finally landing at your companion. She frowns, desperate for some kind of an answer. “Why aren’t you giving them a kiss?”
For a moment, there is only silence, heavy and uncomfortable as it presses against you. The question is obviously about you, and there’s a part of you that knows you should look away, that you should leave, afraid to discover his response, but you couldn’t help but want to stay, anyway, your breath hitching in your throat, half-terrified and half-hopeful about his response.
You watch him quietly, curiously, your heart hammering against your chest, loud and fast against your ears that it’s enough to drown out every sound. Still, you don’t dare look away, watching as the corners of his lips tug up into a tiny smirk.
Even after knowing him for a while, it’s still hard to figure out what he’s thinking, and you only stare at him in silence, watching and waiting. He turns to look at you then, and you catch the twinkle in his eyes, bright and unmistakable as he finally gives a response. “You never asked.”
It’s clear that the words are directed at you, and you stop, feeling your cheeks heating up in shame. You try to stammer out a response, but each word dies down on your tongue just as quickly as you think, and all you could do is simply stare at him, all your emotions threatening to swallow you whole.
“Is that true?” Klee asks, her voice gently cutting through the silence. You aren’t sure if you’re grateful for her interruption, but you turn to look at her, anyway, finding her already staring at you, her eyebrows furrowed in confusion and her lips twisted into a frown. “I thought you loved him.”
“I do!” you exclaim, blurting the words out all of a sudden. You aren’t sure where you’ve found the courage to expose your secret, especially when you’ve tried so hard to hide it from him, but now that it’s out of your lips, you want nothing more than to take it all back. How silly of you, how foolish.
But there’s no going back now, and all that’s left for you to do is to try and ignore that anything ever happened. It’s a difficult thing to ignore your companion, but you manage anyway, refusing to look at him once even when you could feel his eyes on you, watching your every move. Instead, you keep your gaze focused entirely on Klee, who stares at you happily, her eyes bright and her lips pulled back into a grin, wide enough to split her face into two.
“So why don’t you give him a good night kiss?” she asks, her gaze flitting between the two of you once more, her tone completely innocent.
“Uh,” you begin, your mind blanking out as you try to think of an excuse. You tear your eyes away from her, opting to look at your surroundings instead, desperate to find an escape, for a way out. And then it finally comes a moment later, in the form of a clock, the numbers bright red as it blinks at you.
“It’s already late, Klee,” you say, and it’s hard to keep your voice steady when you could feel their eyes on you, the weight of their stares pressing against you like another burden you have to bear. You shift your weight from one foot to another, still refusing to look at any of them. You never know that the moonlight could be this bright until it surrounds you like a spotlight. “You should go and get some sleep. We can talk about this tomorrow.”
Klee opens her mouth to protest, wanting to push the conversation further, but you only shake your head at her in response. And before she could even utter another word of protest, the two of you are already out of her room, leaving her once more in the silence.
You make your way through the narrow hallway in relative silence, trying to ignore the way his stare burns at your back. A moment later and you finally find yourselves standing in front of your room, and you stop, turning to face him, feeling as though you should say something.
“That… that was awkward,” you say, keeping your head low and your gaze on the ground. He hums in acknowledgment, and for a moment, it is quiet once more, heavy and awkward, growing longer and longer with each second that passes. You don’t think you could face him after everything that’s happened, and so you don’t, refusing to look at him even once, shifting your weight from one foot to another, hoping that he’d say something, anything to break the silence.
But he doesn’t. He keeps his eyes on you the whole time, waiting patiently, as though he is expecting you to say something, to finally break the silence. And so you do, clearing your throat a moment later as you whisper his name, feeling the queasiness forming at the pit of your stomach. Would it be too late to pray that the ground would just swallow you whole?
“About earlier…” you begin, coughing awkwardly as you let the words hang unfinished between you, refusing to elaborate. He hums under his breath and waits, and you suck in a deep breath, keeping your head ducked and your gaze down as you murmur an apology. “Sorry about all that.”
It’s hard to keep your voice casual and indifferent when he’s still staring at you, his gaze intense and his expression completely unreadable. Seconds pass, one after another, and still, there is only silence between you, broken only by the sound of your heart pounding against your chest.
You frown, your eyebrows creasing in confusion, wondering if he’s heard you at all, wondering if you’ve said anything wrong, or if he’s finally decided to leave you all alone. Curious, you raise your head and look up, finding him already staring at you. Your gaze immediately locks with his, and your breath hitches in your throat, feeling your heart hammering against your chest and your stomach twisting into knots.
There’s a tiny smile playing at the corners of his lips, his eyes glinting brightly with amusement, and you feel yourself balk, wanting to shrink in on yourself. You want to look away, to avoid his gaze, but you can’t. Now you are here, standing right in front of him, trapped under the weight of his gaze with no way to escape.
You stare at him for the longest time, watching him quietly, waiting to see what he’d do. And then the answer comes, and you don’t think you’ll ever be prepared for this. Slowly, you watch him leaning in, his eyes still locked on yours as he moves to close the distance between you, just enough until your face is inches away from his, his breath fanning against your cheek, warm as it tickles your skin.
Very briefly, your gaze flits toward his lips, and when you look up to meet his eyes once more, you find the amusement dancing in his eyes, brighter now than before. Damn it.
“Close your eyes,” he murmurs, his voice gentle and soothing in the silence. You do as he asks, closing your eyes as you wait for his next move, feeling your heart fluttering against your chest, ready to jump out of you any minute.
For a moment, nothing happens. There is only the silence between you, tense and oppressive, the weight of it pressing against you, sharp as a knife, but then you feel it a moment later: his lips pressing against your cheek, soft and quick and chaste, grazing gently against your skin like the flutter of a butterfly’s wing. His mouth lingers for another second, as though he is trying to savor the moment for a little while longer, and then he is finally pulling away from you, leaving you breathless and aching for more.
When your eyes flutter open, you find him right where he is, standing in front of you, his arms still against his sides. His face has returned to its usual expression: blank and impassive—a perfect facade you could never get through no matter how much you try.
“There,” he says a moment later, his voice gently breaking through the quiet. The corners of his lips twitch into a smile, teasing and playful, his eyes twinkling once more in barely concealed mischief. “At least you’ll have an answer for Klee if she asks you again.”
For a moment, you are quiet, blinking a few times as you try to process his words. And then it finally sinks in, and all you could do is stare at him in surprise, your cheeks heating up once more as you open your mouth and try to form a response.
But he only smiles at you, clearly amused by your failure. “I’ll see you tomorrow,” he says, not even bothering to wait for you to find the right words. He gives you another smile, and then before you could even say anything more, he’s already walking away from you, not once turning back, leaving you still standing there, completely alone with your thoughts.