The fact that half of the current chapters have been finished in September when this fic started all the way back in January makes me laugh. Sorry, I'm just really good at procrastinating things when they're not something like homework lol.

Hope this quicker than normal update is to your expectations! :V

[So… is that An-chan?]

Panicked green eyes darted in his direction. The stare the two of them shared in that moment only affirmed to him that he was right.

"An-chan," Onodera started warily. "I told my mother last night that I had plans, I'm sorry if she didn't tell you that, I thought that she would."

"Ricchan, you could've given me a call, too. If anything, when your mother called last night she was even more insistent that I come here tonight." She trailed off, eyes falling to the hallway floor.

"An-chan," He sighed now, hands fumbling now. "I'm sorry, I think she was meddling again. I was spending tonight with him." He motioned the Takano, who was leaning against the frame of the open door.

Deep brown eyes glanced between the two of them, taking note of the light blush that began to appear on her childhood friend's face. She held back a laugh that threatened to rip from her throat, recognizing the behavior.

"Are you two... dating?" She asked the question after a few moments of silence, earning mixed reactions.

Takano looked back into the apartment, the slightest tug taking his lips. Onodera on the other hand looked down at his hands as he began to fumble with them.

"We're… connected." He huffed out quietly, glancing up to look at her face.

"O-oh…" They couldn't be sure of what to make of the reaction, until she took a few steps forward, grabbing those shaking hands. "Why didn't you tell me earlier?!"

"H-huh?" He barely was able to question things before she continued.

"Just how long have you two been together then? And just when were you planning on telling me and your parents for that matter?"

"An-chan, I-"

"And I don't want you thinking that I'm upset about this, sure I'll need some time to really take it all in, but I'm happy for you! You really always did take to those sappy romance novels, so it wouldn't surprise me that you would want to only be with someone that you're connected to- uh, what's his name?"

"Takano Masamune." He slided into the conversation effortlessly, arms crossed over his chest. "And you are?"

"Oh, I'm sorry, it's so rude of me to interrupt you two on Valentine's of all days." Her brows drew in slightly, embarrassed by the whole situation. "I'm Kohinata An, nice to meet you, Takano-san."

"Likewise." He allowed for his arms to fall to his side, offering her one of his work smiled. "It's always nice to meet someone who knows Onodera."

"Come now, you've only really met one other person that knew me before you." The brunet huffed out.

"Wouldn't hurt to meet more, and we've really only known each other for five weeks or so at this point, so it's not like I'd know everything already."

"Five weeks?" The woman's eyes widened a margin. "That means that you two met almost directly after the last time you met up with your parents then, right?"

"Ah, it was a little under a week after I visited them for New Years."

"So I'm assuming that you really have been avoiding telling them about it?"

"You know how my mother can be…and I have no clue how my father would react to this." His eyes fell once more, not wanting to think about just what would go down when she did find out.

"Well it's not exactly like she can just disown you for something you have zero control over like this, even if she isn't a big fan of homosexual relationships. You were literally meant to be!" She gave his hands a supportive squeeze, smiling up at him.

"I sure hope so." He sighed, glancing back at Takano, who was still staring silently from the door.

"Well, sorry for interrupting your first Valentine's together like this." She pulled back her hands only to dive in for a tight hug. "Enjoy the rest of your night Ricchan!"

As she walked away towards the elevator, she stopped in her tracks and sent a look over her shoulder at the two of them.

"Oh, and if your mother calls me asking how things went later, I'll tell her to shoot you a call. She deserves to know, ok?"

"You're right…" He trailed off, moving back towards his connections apartment. "Well, goodnight, An-chan. See you soon."

"Bye, Ricchan!" She waved as he disappeared back into the apartment, Takano closing the door behind the two of them. Once steps faded into silence, she sighed, pressing the button for the elevator to come up.

"Connected, huh…"

When the two of them settled back into their spots in the living room, the younger couldn't help but to let out a sigh.

"Sorry about that," He apologized. "I didn't think my mother was actually going to send her over after I told her that I had plans."

"Don't worry about it." He waved it off. "I can't exactly say I understand with how my family is, but I can guess that she's stubborn, right?"

"Well, I can see where she's coming from, I guess." He leaned back, looking up towards the ceiling. "I'm the only child of the family and she wants me to settle down and take over the company."

"Well, are you going to?"

"Are you referring to settling down or taking over the company?" He laughed despite his mood and looked over to Takano.

"Well," The older chuckled a bit himself. "I was referring to taking over the company, but I'd love to talk about your plans on settling down as well."

"I've been brooding over the whole thing for ages, you know?" He smiled sadly. "I don't think it's a matter of yes I want to, or no I don't. It honestly feels like much more of a matter of when it will happen."

Amber eyes urged him on silently, and they were acknowledged without the brunet even looking back to his side.

"I love literature and all to bits, but I'm terrified of it becoming an obligation over something that I've enjoyed since I could read my first few words. I've been being told before I could even understand the weight of my position just how lucky I am, how I need to take over the company one day, how I need to have kids so one of my own can take things over. And I never wanted to take things for granted or abuse my ties to others, but ever since I started to rebel against my family's plans for me, it feels like what was already strained got so much worse.

But now I have you. You go against the ideals my mother tried, and obviously failed I must add, to instill in me from birth. Everything just feels like it sucks, you know?"

The following moments of silence left Onodera wondering if he had shared a little too much, and he looked over to Takano.

Upon catching those panicked green eyes on him again, the chief editor scooted over to the brunet's spot on the couch, putting one of his hands on top of Onodera's.

"Does talking about all of this make you feel better?"

"Honestly, I feel it's best to get stuff like this out of your system if possible, but a lot of the time I don't want to trouble anybody. In the end I just end up not doing anything and letting things pile up more and more. So, yeah."

'That's a way of looking at things, I guess." He looked to the floor, focusing on one particular pattern on the wooden flooring. "I had some shit going on when I was younger too, I wouldn't say it's as stressful as being brought up to become something like a CEO, but…"

"Let's not talk about this intending to see who had it worse, just talk, okay?" It earned a breathy laugh from the older.

"Yeah, yeah." He took a moment before going on. "I don't even know where to start. My mother's a lawyer and my father a surgeon- well he acted as my father. My real father, he was my mother's connection, they had rushed things and she got pregnant with me before she married the father I grew up knowing about."

"O-Oh, I had no idea. I didn't mean to bring up something if it's too touchy a topic."

"No, it's fine, you had no real way of knowing. Really, things were shit once I got into middle school and those two stopped caring about hiding their fights from me. Probably thought that since they basically left me alone at home most of the time that I was mature and could take it. Really all that time alone ended up making me indifferent to a lot of things, and I found it easiest to throw myself into reading book after book. I would stay at my school's library until they kicked me out most days."

"Funny, I heard things about a guy like that at my school when I was younger. One day a girl from my class forgot her stuff in the library and made her way back in pretty late and it was a bit dark and she thought the guy was a ghost or something."

"Huh, something like that happened while I was a third year in school. I was sitting there and this girl screamed when I pushed in my chair. I was only getting up cause I thought it was going to be a teacher coming to kick me out."

"It happened during my first year…"

"What did your school look like?"

"It had four floors, and the library was a few floors up. You could see a courtyard from up there, it had really pretty cherry blossom trees around the perimeter of it… and if you got there at the right time, you could hear the band practicing below."

"Did the library have huge white curtains by the window overlooking everything?"

"Yeah!"

"Did the student volunteer at the counter have short black hair and wear glasses?"

"Himura-chan! She was in my class!"

"Oh, god." He leaned back now, eyes shutting. "What are the chances…"

"I'm surprised we wouldn't have met back then considering how often we were both in the library then."

"Well I always had my nose in a book until I got kicked out, so it's not like we would've made eye contact or anything."

"I guess… still, this is so weird!" He laughed, stress having been forgotten. "I wonder how things would be if we had met back then!"

"I do, too." He faced forward now, noticing the screen still paused on the full moon. "Hey, wanna finish this movie, or what?"

"Oh, totally forgot about it." He got more comfortable again. "Yeah, I can't imagine that there's much left."

After the screen faded back into black, a new scene began with dark heels making their way across tiled flooring.

'I needed to talk to him about that sales data, nobody bothered giving it to us yet. That's all I'm doing here.' Tiffany thought to herself and she walked to her connection's department.

When she stopped at the entrance of the department, she was met with the sight of three women surrounds him and found herself fuming.

'Hell, it's Valentine's and they're flirting with a taken man. Are we even doing anything today?' She pondered over things as she stomped back to her own department's offices. 'Should I have made chocolates or something?'

Her phone jingled quietly, muffled by her jacket pocket. Pulling it out, she was met with a message from Haley, the daughter of her connection.

It asked her to get back to the apartment as soon as she could, and all through the day, Tiffany had the request in mind.

The scene then cut to the apartment, Haley holding a recipe in her hands.

"My friend is making them with her mom, and I can't make them with Papa because they're going to be for him. An it's my first time trying to make these from scratch, so could you help me, Ms. Tiffany?"

"Could I see the recipe for what you want to make?" Haley handed the papers over to the woman.

"Have you ever made something with chocolate from scratch like this, Ms. Tiffany?"

At the mention of chocolate, Takano let out a grunt in recognition and got up from his spot. Onodera only watched on in confusion until the man came back carrying a small bag.

"I made these up a few days ago after you went back to your place, here." He handed over the bag and the brunet peeked in to find a small container of brownies, powdered sugar sprinkled on top of them. "I hope you like them, cause I'm not too big on sweets."

"Oh, wow, they look so good." He popped one out of the container, taking a bite. "Tastes good, too. And really, I'm not too picky on things, the only thing I really can't stand is potatoes when they're mashed."

"Mashed potatoes?"

"Yeah, I don't know why," He took another bite, savouring the sweet taste. "I have to say now though, don't expect something like this on White Day next month. It'd take months to get something like this out of me."

"Oh, don't bother, it's fine to just spend my time with you." He then glanced to his side, noticing the time. "Well, it's getting late, you're normally getting ready for bed around this time."

"Ah, you're right. The credits are rolling anyways." He hadn't noticed until then, having been too caught up in the brownies. "Well, thanks for the food! Get to bed soon, Takano-san!"

After gathering his things up, he made his way back to the entryway to slip into his shoes. Right before he was able to leave the apartment, he heard Takano calling out his name along with hurried footsteps.

"I almost forgot." His face was suddenly a breath away, and Onodera couldn't help the gasp that escaped his lips. "Can I…?"

After all that happened that evening, he couldn't say that there was nothing there. In fact, if anything, that talk had only made him feel more confident about things, if only the tiniest bit. So he could let this happen.

This in mind, he nodded his head slowly.

Takano's hand came up to caress the brunet's left cheek slowly before moving to brush bangs out of green eyes.

He then went on to lean in, taking in the sight of his connection, his eyes shut and a bright blush spreading across his face.

With a low chuckle, he pecked the younger on the lips before pulling back and ruffling brown hair.

"Goodnight, rest well." He whispered before retreating back into his apartment, leaving the blushing mess that was his connection in the genkan.