I woke up to the smell of pancakes intruding in my room. Wait, my room? No, the hardness of the mattress was clearly different from mine, and so was the texture of the sheets…

Ah. I remembered ; I had spent the night at Aoki’s place. Opening my eyes, I confirmed I was, in fact, in the guest room I had seen the night before. If anything, the few dust bunnies left on the floor after Aoki’s careless sweeping were enough to tell.

I rolled over to grab my phone on the nightstand. No power left. I was feeling a little disoriented after spending the night in an unfamiliar place, so I wanted to check the time. It seemed I was going to have to go downstairs.

And face Aoki.

“Wake up!” he softly said from the other side of the room, knocking. It appeared I didn’t even have to go downstairs to face him. How did he even get upstairs without me hearing his footsteps?

“I’m awake,” I mumbled.

Apparently, that meant “come in”, because he opened the door and stuck his head inside.

“That’s good, because you wouldn’t want to miss the best breakfast of your life!” he said, way too loud for someone who just woke up, before going away as fast as he arrived, leaving the door open.

I sighed, got up to close the door, then started getting changed. I was feeling pretty nervous about this one-on-one breakfast, but I couldn’t quite figure out why. After all, I’d been alone with Aoki a few times by now, and always had a fairly good time. Even though he was annoying.

Going down the stairs, the pancake smell got stronger and stronger. When I finally entered the kitchen, I laid eyes on the breakfast equivalent of a fine-dining buffet ; as expected, a pile, or rather a tower of pancakes was sitting atop a plate in the center of the table, complete with a bowl of blueberries and a bottle of maple syrup. Next to it was an entire loaf of sliced bread, a block of butter, and various jars of jam, as well as chocolate spread. And as if that wasn’t enough, there was also a fruit basket with different types of fruit. And let’s not forget he had somehow had the time to go to the bakery and get a whole assortment of pastries.

Right across from the entrance stood Aoki, still in his pajamas now stained with pancake batter, looking at me expectantly.

“What do you want to drink? Coffee? Tea? Hot chocolate maybe?”

I hadn’t even had the time to take in the abundance of food on the table that he was already asking me to pick a drink.

“Uh, I don’t usually have breakfast,” I stammered.

His jaw dropped.

“No way. I tried to think of every possible thing that could be your usual breakfast, and I didn’t even consider this an option.”

His look of defeat was quickly replaced with his usual smile.

“It doesn’t matter!” he exclaimed. “You can just try everything ; you’re bound to find something you like in there!”

I felt frankly intimidated by the size of this task. I didn’t think my stomach was big enough to contain even a single bite of everything on this table. There was enough food for twenty people to have breakfast, at the very least.

I sighed and sat down at the table. “I’ll have some orange juice, please. Uh, if you have some?”

“Of course I have some. Who do you think I am?” he replied before joining me with the juice. “So, are you feeling any better?”

“Yeah,” I lied.

I technically felt worse, even, because on top of the hotness, the racing heart, and the clammy hands, I was nervous and could barely look Aoki in the eye.

“Give it time, you probably haven’t completely sobered up yet,” he said, seeing right through me.

I somehow survived the most awkward breakfast in my life, unable to make eye contact with the person I was having it with. I even managed to have a bite of every single thing on the table, although that meant it was now covered with barely eaten food ; Aoki would probably have to throw most of it away later. What a waste.

“Did you find what you liked most?” he asked.

Please, make it stop. I couldn’t bear to talk to him any longer. What was wrong with me? I had been able to handle him just fine before, but I couldn’t even look at him anymore. I felt like I was sweating bullets. I thought about calling my doctor ; I refused to believe the few glasses of wine I’d had the night before were still having such an effect on me.

Dying to get him off my case, I answered the first thing that came to mind : “I liked the croissant.”

“You have expensive tastes, don’t you?”

He started going on about how one couldn’t have a croissant every morning in this economy, but he would if he could, and the price of wheat flour had really gone up recently, etc. Trying to make an escape, I stammered :

“I’m going to the bathroom.”

And did just that. I took advantage of this time alone to try to calm down. I breathed in, and out. In, and out. That didn’t really work, so I figured I needed to leave this place as soon as possible, and maybe even avoid Aoki for the rest of my life.

Executing my plan, I went to the guest room to gather my things. Sadly, I didn’t consider the fact that Aoki would definitely come to check on me after I’d left so abruptly, so I froze when I heard :

“Oh, are you leaving?”

I wasn’t turning around and kept quiet, so he walked up to me to look me in the eye. I looked away.

“Are you okay?” he asked, genuinely worried. “You’ve been jittery all morning.”

“It’s nothing,” I said in the most unnatural way possible.

He placed his hands on my shoulders, making me jump, and forcefully rotated me so that I would face him.

“Look at me,” he ordered. “You already know you can’t lie to me. What’s wrong?”

I had no other choice but to comply. So I looked him in the eye and lost whatever was left of my speaking ability.

“I, uh… It’s…” were the only coherent words to come out of my mouth.

His gaze was more intense than usual – or so I thought, at least, and it took everything in me to keep looking at him. I felt his hands slowly slide from my shoulders to the small of my back, and by the time he was done, I was almost shaking.

“I’ve figured out the problem,” he declared.

He pulled me closer and I thought I was going to lose consciousness. Our faces were practically touching. He tilted his head slightly, and…

… he kissed me.

And I hated that I loved it.