AN: Last de-anon from the DC_Yaoi kinkmeme: Aoko/Akako/Kaito? Anything with them would be good

Some day I feel like I have to write an actual fic for this relationship with plot and dialogue not just introspective snippets. But this year is not that time.

I want, Akako thinks watching the smooth flow of muscles in Kuroba's arms. There are a dozen boys around her—boys, not men, their eyes and hearts clouded by hormones and desperate false love—but they are not who draws her eye. Kuroba with his false magic and quick wit. Kuroba with his Cheshire smile, silver tongue, and talented fingers. I want, Akako thinks, and what Akako wants, Akako gets.

o0O0o

They are beautiful in Aoko's eyes, dazzling. Kaito is like fireworks; bright, dazzling, loud and impossible to ignore. Akako is equally bright, but more like a lamp in the dark that draws you in, seductive and potentially misleading. Kaito draws attention to himself. Akako draws attention by existing. She wants to bottle up Kaito's spark, tuck it away and let those memories captivate and awe her for hours. She wants to follow Akako's light and find out what is on the other side of the glass wall keeping the moths from the flame. Would Akako be warm or more like the proverbial fire that burned the fool who got too close?

Aoko doesn't know, but she wants to.

But they're beautiful and she is just Aoko, the backdrop for them to shine against in comparison.

o0O0o

When Aoko smiles, Kaito can feel his heart beat faster and his body feel lighter. He feels like he could do anything to see that smile and hear that laugh, and he pulls it from her again and again with sleight of hand and teasing words.

When Aoko cries, it feels like the guilt of breaking something important, the crash of a plate against the floor or the tearing of a photograph.

Kaito balances a fine line these days where he can make Aoko smile and cry by which mask he wears at any given time. It's too much to hold sometimes, wondering whether he will fly away with her smiles or drown from the weight of her tears.

She is everything, he thinks once, and realizes that it is a lie or he wouldn't be halfway up an elevator shaft with an emerald in one hand. Aoko is not everything even if her presence keeps tilting toward guilt these days to the point where he wonders how his glider can stay in the sky with the weight of it all. She is not everything, but she is still precious.

o0O0o

Akako watches. She watches, so she knows that Kuroba watches Aoko watches Kuroba. But Aoko watches her as well. And she has to wonder what it is about Aoko that can catch the attention of someone like Kuroba.

She compliments Aoko offhand one day and Aoko smiles like the shine of one of Kuroba's gemstones, and perhaps Akako can see something of what Kuroba sees in her.

Unlike Akako and Kuroba, Aoko doesn't hide under layers of secrets and masks. She is open and expressive and emotive. Akako would call her simple—no complexities of undertones and shadows, but that isn't quite true. So Akako watches Kuroba watching Aoko watching Kuroba, and Akako watches Aoko watching her.

o0O0o

She is another moth caught in Akako's flame, and like the rest of them, fluttering about for her attention, Aoko can't bring herself to mind much. She offers friendship—can't imagine receiving anything more—and is surprised that Akako reaches back.

Akako isn't who she thought she was. The Akako Aoko grows to know is sharp and calculating, but has trouble laughing and meaning it. She's as vibrant as Aoko had believed, but is surprisingly lonely for someone that always has people around her.

Akako jokes with Aoko when Aoko teases her and shows Aoko how to stand out if she wants to.

With Akako, Aoko thinks maybe she reflects some of that brightness back.

o0O0o

The balance tips and when he falls, Kaito isn't sure where he lands.

Aoko has changed. Maybe Akako has changed too because when she smiles at him, holding Aoko's hand in hers, it doesn't feel like a threat or a seduction. That's probably why that smile, of all the smiles she's sent his way, touches him at all.

Aoko blushes, clumsy with shored up confidence as she pulls him down for a kiss. And when she draws back, Akako is there kissing his cheek, hand still in Aoko's.

It's a strange reality he has fallen into, but he thinks it isn't a bad one.

o0O0o

Akako thinks I want, and what Akako wants, she gets. It is a bonus that everyone wants the same thing.