50 Sentences: Akiyama x Nao
Fandom: Liar Game
Pairing: Shinichi Akiyama x Nao Kanzaki
Theme set: Delta
Title: If we trust too little, we become desolate.
Rating: PG-13
Warning[s]: Hasn't been beta'd, and there's definitely wonky grammar. Also maybe a couple bits of WTFery.
Notes: Eh, I tried to be concrete and unrepetitive with the themes, didn't always work out so well....
#01 - Air
Akiyama has to learn--excruciatingly slowly--to simply trust that Nao can handle herself sometimes, and that holding in mouthful of air won't stop her from drowning anyway.
#02 - Apples
What Nao hadn't bargained for when the game ended and they decided to become more friendly was that Akiyama's reserved exterior hid a teasing nature that could turn her face the color of a ripe apple; of course, she could do exactly the same to him.
#03 - Beginning
Unconsciously, he always knew she wasn't going to swindle him, the moment they first bumped into each other, something in the rawness of her voice, and the ugliness of her tears convinced him in a way mere words could not.
#04 - Bugs
One of the most embarrassing--no probably the most embarrassing--thing Akiyama's ever had to do is watch helplessly as Nao quite calmly scoops up the spider and puts it outside; luckily she has to grace to only smile at his predicament.
#05 - Coffee
They spend hours, cups of coffee in hand, walking through the wintertime streets, not doing anything except talking, reminiscing about the times they had before they ever met, years of history to anchor their sudden acquaintence.
#06 - Dark
She's become afraid of the dark--silly because the monsters in her life show up in the afternoon and send invitations--to the point where she stares at the cell phone before she falls asleep, wondering if she can ask Akiyama to just be there.
#07 - Despair
When Nao despairs, which is often considering the humongous amount of debt she owes to a mysterious and shady organization, Akiyama is the firm hand around her wrist, the one who pulls her from the edge of the cliff.
#08 - Doors
Nao finally enlists Akiyama's help in dealing with one harmless but annoying pest: When the fake lawyer comes knocking at her door, it only takes one glare on Akiyama's part, and a simple command to hand over the invitation to make the lawyer leave her alone, for now.
#09 - Drink
The spend the evening after the Contraband game in a seedy bar, drinking sake, and making jokes about mice; an odd, and much needed break after three days of psychological testing and torture.
#10 - Duty
Well, if she ever asked, Akiyama would pretend that he helps her out of a sense of duty--he's honed some horrible skills, if he has to use them, he'd rather use them in the pursuit of justice--but the truth it, her smile makes it worth it.
#11 - Earth
She sometimes gets the feeling that Akiyama rests on the verge of sacrificing himself, that he's choosing to distance himself from her for that very reason; shouldn't he know already that she's still going to follow him to the ends of the Earth?
#12 - End
When it ends, the months and months of lies suspicion and betrayal, Nao chokes on the words that might possibly make Akiyama stay with her, and in sudden inaction chooses to let him go.
#13 - Fall
Nao can't recall the number of traps she's fallen into in the name of helping Akiyama, but no matter how many times her common sense takes a vacation in his name, he still just shakes his head and offers a helping hand.
#14 - Fire
The first time they touch, intentionally on both their parts, they draw back immediately, their cheeks blushing like a fire as they seem to ask each other, "You too?"
#15 - Flexible
He's got that smirk on his face, the one that says his opponent--Nao, in this case, is cornered--"I'm willing to be flexible on this: Either you can move in with me, I can move in with you, or we can get a place together."
#16 - Flying
This, Akiyama thinks after he's just taken Nao home from their date--their first real date--is difficult to explain: His feet remain quite solidly on the pavement, but his mind--and particularly his heart--might as well be soaring from the high of certain neurotransmitters, particularly those associated with falling in love.
#17 - Food
When the games run more than one day, Akiyama makes it a point to eat with Nao...not that he particularly wants to, just to make sure she keeps her strength up for the strenuous battles ahead.
#18 - Foot
After the second day of the contraband game ends, Akiyama goes to Nao's room to ask a huge favor of her, and then finds himself weirdly distracted by the fact that he can see the feet, ankles, and calves that her boots covered during the day.
#19 - Grave
Tearfully, Nao lays the bouquet of flowers on the Akiyama family grave for the woman she'll never meet, just to say thank you for raising such a wonderful son.
#20 - Green
Akiyama won't admit it but he's irked--and maybe a little jealous--at how easily the leechers can call her "Nao-chan" so easily, while he can't seem to call her anything but, "You."
#21 - Head
Nao can't fathom what he's thinking half the time--it must be so big and complex that she couldn't even start to understand--so she doesn't know what to make of it when he just looks at her and smirks.
#22 - Hollow
When Nao realizes, all at once, that even in a crowd, she feels lonely--empty--that always seems to be the time that Akiyama sends his messages, to reassure her that he's still there.
#23 - Honor
He's never been quite entirely without honor--but does he really trust himself, when she stands at the door of his room in her pajamas (and carrying that teddy bear) asking if it's okay to sleep with him (because of course she's been having bad dreams)?
#24 - Hope
Nao lingers at the place where the cab drops them off, hoping, hoping, that he'll say something stupid like, "Let's go to the amusement park," or "Let's get together sometime,"--and then she remembers that Akiyama is Akiyama and not the hero of a shoujo manga.
#25 - Light
When asked why he keeps helping Nao out, even when her stupidity has more than justified leaving her in debt, Akiyama just shrugs; he doesn't say the truth, that she found the light in him that he was sure had been extinguished, and that in itself deserves some kind of commendation.
#26 - Lost
Akiyama purposefully keeps Nao's fate entwined with his and dependent on him, that he'd be almost--almost--as lost without her is a reason he keeps buried below his consciousness.
#27 - Metal
They marry in a private ceremony, Nao's name in his family register, and the silver rings they now wear on their fingers, being the only official and public declaration of their new bond with each other.
#28 - New
Nao gazes down at the newest member of the Akiyama family--her son--and wonders if he'll wind up inheriting his father's brains and his kindness.
#29 - Old
"The age difference doesn't mean anything," Nao says blushing, when Akiyama asks if she'd rather be with someone her own age, "I'd just rather have you."
#30 - Peace
It's only after everything, when the Liar Game Tournament becomes a distant memory to share with no one, that either of them realizes that peace only means so much when their greatest ally is so far away.
#31 - Poison
No matter what the evidence he presents to her--all the scams he's pulled, all the lies he's told--all to keep her at arm's length, it seems he cannot do anything to poison this "hero worship" she seems to have for him, until he admits that he depends on her too.
#32 - Pretty
Akiyama lets it slip just once, when she's in the middle of yet another teary-eyed lament, that he actually finds her to be pretty when she's not all snot nosed and blotchy from crying.
#33 - Rain
Briefly--because Nao deserves much better than an ex-con for a boyfriend--he considers standing her up on the date she's forcing him to go on, and it's only because the weather predicts rain and he knows how long she can wait (and definitely not because he wants to see her again) that he shows up at the designated spot to wait for her.
#34 - Regret
One unspoken regret exists between them: That more and more, as the tangled vines of debt that connect them dig in deeper, they simply cannot extricate the other from its hold.
#35 - Roses
He holds out the bouquet of mixed flowers, and mumbles something about not being able to afford roses, only to have Nao smile knowningly and thank him.
#36 - Secret
No matter how much Nao tried to remain merely cordial, her crush on him only grew more obvious with every round, an open secret at best; how Akiyama never figured that out despite his considerable brainpower, no one was quite sure.
#37 - Snakes
Akiyama considers getting a pet--a snake seems oddly appealing, just for their mouse-eating habits--but upon seeing the horror on Nao's face, he decides something cuter and fluffier might be in order.
#38 - Snow
Just when he thinks he can finally trust her without reservations, he feels the puff of a snowball hitting his winter coat and turns to find her grinning and carrying the evidence of her misdeeds on her mittens; when he chases after her seeking retribution, he realizes that was the entire point.
#39 - Solid
Throughout the course of the game, friends, enemies, and by-standers pass by in what seems to be a people-colored whirl, leaving each other as the only solid, dependable presence.
#40 - Spring
If his choice of time and place for his proposal to her (spring, after graduation, with the cherry blossoms in bloom all around them) is romantic, then his choice of words serves as a counterpoint (a simple, "You should marry me").
#41 - Stable
Sometimes, Nao realizes just how troublesome her situation is, when the most stable presence in her life belongs to a notorious con-artist, and when she decides that she wouldn't have it any other way.
#42 - Strange
"Really, Fukunaga has a crush on me, how strange..." Akiyama trails off, leaving Nao to think that from her perspective, having a crush on Akiyama isn't strange at all.
#43 - Summer
Akiyama's relaxed at the beach, umbrella shielding him from the worst of the sun, novel in hand, when he thinks he catches a glimpse of Nao in a bikini--and remarkably, that's enough to make him lose his concentration for the rest of the day, as he tries to find her.
#44 - Taboo
For years, they keep the fact that Nao has known about his past long before Akiyama found the courage to tell her, unspoken; it bothers him more than it should, that she always knew.
#45 - Ugly
Nao can avoid telling her father the ugly truth, by focusing on a much more simple and beautiful one--she has someone out in the world who she can count on.
#46 - War
Yeah, it might be fought over loads of money with weapons that are no more deadly than your average run-of-the-mill lies, but it's a war, and he shouldn't want to return to the battlefield, especially not for a reason as irrational as Nao Kanzaki.
#47 - Water
As she's yelling at him--who knew that Nao had such a volatile temper when it came to such things as shrugging off illnesses--she still sits at the side of his bed wringing excess water out of washcloths to cool down his fever.
#48 - Welcome
Akiyama "welcomes" the news that there's going to be a baby soon with a moment of jaw-dropped silence followed by a murmured "Ah...that's fine, I guess," and a small smile.
#49 - Winter
Worst blizzard in years, small apartment, no power, and only one blanket for them to share--Akiyama couldn't have planned it better if he tried; though he'd be shocked to find out he wasn't the only one thinking that.
#50 - Wood
Nao admits that sometimes, she wishes she'd spent more time hanging around guys outside the Liar Game, and then perhaps she wouldn't have to ask Akiyama why she kept overhearing all of them talk about her in connection with carpentry...and why they all went eerily silent when she speaks up about it.
Pairing: Shinichi Akiyama x Nao Kanzaki
Theme set: Delta
Title: If we trust too little, we become desolate.
Rating: PG-13
Warning[s]: Hasn't been beta'd, and there's definitely wonky grammar. Also maybe a couple bits of WTFery.
Notes: Eh, I tried to be concrete and unrepetitive with the themes, didn't always work out so well....
#01 - Air
Akiyama has to learn--excruciatingly slowly--to simply trust that Nao can handle herself sometimes, and that holding in mouthful of air won't stop her from drowning anyway.
#02 - Apples
What Nao hadn't bargained for when the game ended and they decided to become more friendly was that Akiyama's reserved exterior hid a teasing nature that could turn her face the color of a ripe apple; of course, she could do exactly the same to him.
#03 - Beginning
Unconsciously, he always knew she wasn't going to swindle him, the moment they first bumped into each other, something in the rawness of her voice, and the ugliness of her tears convinced him in a way mere words could not.
#04 - Bugs
One of the most embarrassing--no probably the most embarrassing--thing Akiyama's ever had to do is watch helplessly as Nao quite calmly scoops up the spider and puts it outside; luckily she has to grace to only smile at his predicament.
#05 - Coffee
They spend hours, cups of coffee in hand, walking through the wintertime streets, not doing anything except talking, reminiscing about the times they had before they ever met, years of history to anchor their sudden acquaintence.
#06 - Dark
She's become afraid of the dark--silly because the monsters in her life show up in the afternoon and send invitations--to the point where she stares at the cell phone before she falls asleep, wondering if she can ask Akiyama to just be there.
#07 - Despair
When Nao despairs, which is often considering the humongous amount of debt she owes to a mysterious and shady organization, Akiyama is the firm hand around her wrist, the one who pulls her from the edge of the cliff.
#08 - Doors
Nao finally enlists Akiyama's help in dealing with one harmless but annoying pest: When the fake lawyer comes knocking at her door, it only takes one glare on Akiyama's part, and a simple command to hand over the invitation to make the lawyer leave her alone, for now.
#09 - Drink
The spend the evening after the Contraband game in a seedy bar, drinking sake, and making jokes about mice; an odd, and much needed break after three days of psychological testing and torture.
#10 - Duty
Well, if she ever asked, Akiyama would pretend that he helps her out of a sense of duty--he's honed some horrible skills, if he has to use them, he'd rather use them in the pursuit of justice--but the truth it, her smile makes it worth it.
#11 - Earth
She sometimes gets the feeling that Akiyama rests on the verge of sacrificing himself, that he's choosing to distance himself from her for that very reason; shouldn't he know already that she's still going to follow him to the ends of the Earth?
#12 - End
When it ends, the months and months of lies suspicion and betrayal, Nao chokes on the words that might possibly make Akiyama stay with her, and in sudden inaction chooses to let him go.
#13 - Fall
Nao can't recall the number of traps she's fallen into in the name of helping Akiyama, but no matter how many times her common sense takes a vacation in his name, he still just shakes his head and offers a helping hand.
#14 - Fire
The first time they touch, intentionally on both their parts, they draw back immediately, their cheeks blushing like a fire as they seem to ask each other, "You too?"
#15 - Flexible
He's got that smirk on his face, the one that says his opponent--Nao, in this case, is cornered--"I'm willing to be flexible on this: Either you can move in with me, I can move in with you, or we can get a place together."
#16 - Flying
This, Akiyama thinks after he's just taken Nao home from their date--their first real date--is difficult to explain: His feet remain quite solidly on the pavement, but his mind--and particularly his heart--might as well be soaring from the high of certain neurotransmitters, particularly those associated with falling in love.
#17 - Food
When the games run more than one day, Akiyama makes it a point to eat with Nao...not that he particularly wants to, just to make sure she keeps her strength up for the strenuous battles ahead.
#18 - Foot
After the second day of the contraband game ends, Akiyama goes to Nao's room to ask a huge favor of her, and then finds himself weirdly distracted by the fact that he can see the feet, ankles, and calves that her boots covered during the day.
#19 - Grave
Tearfully, Nao lays the bouquet of flowers on the Akiyama family grave for the woman she'll never meet, just to say thank you for raising such a wonderful son.
#20 - Green
Akiyama won't admit it but he's irked--and maybe a little jealous--at how easily the leechers can call her "Nao-chan" so easily, while he can't seem to call her anything but, "You."
#21 - Head
Nao can't fathom what he's thinking half the time--it must be so big and complex that she couldn't even start to understand--so she doesn't know what to make of it when he just looks at her and smirks.
#22 - Hollow
When Nao realizes, all at once, that even in a crowd, she feels lonely--empty--that always seems to be the time that Akiyama sends his messages, to reassure her that he's still there.
#23 - Honor
He's never been quite entirely without honor--but does he really trust himself, when she stands at the door of his room in her pajamas (and carrying that teddy bear) asking if it's okay to sleep with him (because of course she's been having bad dreams)?
#24 - Hope
Nao lingers at the place where the cab drops them off, hoping, hoping, that he'll say something stupid like, "Let's go to the amusement park," or "Let's get together sometime,"--and then she remembers that Akiyama is Akiyama and not the hero of a shoujo manga.
#25 - Light
When asked why he keeps helping Nao out, even when her stupidity has more than justified leaving her in debt, Akiyama just shrugs; he doesn't say the truth, that she found the light in him that he was sure had been extinguished, and that in itself deserves some kind of commendation.
#26 - Lost
Akiyama purposefully keeps Nao's fate entwined with his and dependent on him, that he'd be almost--almost--as lost without her is a reason he keeps buried below his consciousness.
#27 - Metal
They marry in a private ceremony, Nao's name in his family register, and the silver rings they now wear on their fingers, being the only official and public declaration of their new bond with each other.
#28 - New
Nao gazes down at the newest member of the Akiyama family--her son--and wonders if he'll wind up inheriting his father's brains and his kindness.
#29 - Old
"The age difference doesn't mean anything," Nao says blushing, when Akiyama asks if she'd rather be with someone her own age, "I'd just rather have you."
#30 - Peace
It's only after everything, when the Liar Game Tournament becomes a distant memory to share with no one, that either of them realizes that peace only means so much when their greatest ally is so far away.
#31 - Poison
No matter what the evidence he presents to her--all the scams he's pulled, all the lies he's told--all to keep her at arm's length, it seems he cannot do anything to poison this "hero worship" she seems to have for him, until he admits that he depends on her too.
#32 - Pretty
Akiyama lets it slip just once, when she's in the middle of yet another teary-eyed lament, that he actually finds her to be pretty when she's not all snot nosed and blotchy from crying.
#33 - Rain
Briefly--because Nao deserves much better than an ex-con for a boyfriend--he considers standing her up on the date she's forcing him to go on, and it's only because the weather predicts rain and he knows how long she can wait (and definitely not because he wants to see her again) that he shows up at the designated spot to wait for her.
#34 - Regret
One unspoken regret exists between them: That more and more, as the tangled vines of debt that connect them dig in deeper, they simply cannot extricate the other from its hold.
#35 - Roses
He holds out the bouquet of mixed flowers, and mumbles something about not being able to afford roses, only to have Nao smile knowningly and thank him.
#36 - Secret
No matter how much Nao tried to remain merely cordial, her crush on him only grew more obvious with every round, an open secret at best; how Akiyama never figured that out despite his considerable brainpower, no one was quite sure.
#37 - Snakes
Akiyama considers getting a pet--a snake seems oddly appealing, just for their mouse-eating habits--but upon seeing the horror on Nao's face, he decides something cuter and fluffier might be in order.
#38 - Snow
Just when he thinks he can finally trust her without reservations, he feels the puff of a snowball hitting his winter coat and turns to find her grinning and carrying the evidence of her misdeeds on her mittens; when he chases after her seeking retribution, he realizes that was the entire point.
#39 - Solid
Throughout the course of the game, friends, enemies, and by-standers pass by in what seems to be a people-colored whirl, leaving each other as the only solid, dependable presence.
#40 - Spring
If his choice of time and place for his proposal to her (spring, after graduation, with the cherry blossoms in bloom all around them) is romantic, then his choice of words serves as a counterpoint (a simple, "You should marry me").
#41 - Stable
Sometimes, Nao realizes just how troublesome her situation is, when the most stable presence in her life belongs to a notorious con-artist, and when she decides that she wouldn't have it any other way.
#42 - Strange
"Really, Fukunaga has a crush on me, how strange..." Akiyama trails off, leaving Nao to think that from her perspective, having a crush on Akiyama isn't strange at all.
#43 - Summer
Akiyama's relaxed at the beach, umbrella shielding him from the worst of the sun, novel in hand, when he thinks he catches a glimpse of Nao in a bikini--and remarkably, that's enough to make him lose his concentration for the rest of the day, as he tries to find her.
#44 - Taboo
For years, they keep the fact that Nao has known about his past long before Akiyama found the courage to tell her, unspoken; it bothers him more than it should, that she always knew.
#45 - Ugly
Nao can avoid telling her father the ugly truth, by focusing on a much more simple and beautiful one--she has someone out in the world who she can count on.
#46 - War
Yeah, it might be fought over loads of money with weapons that are no more deadly than your average run-of-the-mill lies, but it's a war, and he shouldn't want to return to the battlefield, especially not for a reason as irrational as Nao Kanzaki.
#47 - Water
As she's yelling at him--who knew that Nao had such a volatile temper when it came to such things as shrugging off illnesses--she still sits at the side of his bed wringing excess water out of washcloths to cool down his fever.
#48 - Welcome
Akiyama "welcomes" the news that there's going to be a baby soon with a moment of jaw-dropped silence followed by a murmured "Ah...that's fine, I guess," and a small smile.
#49 - Winter
Worst blizzard in years, small apartment, no power, and only one blanket for them to share--Akiyama couldn't have planned it better if he tried; though he'd be shocked to find out he wasn't the only one thinking that.
#50 - Wood
Nao admits that sometimes, she wishes she'd spent more time hanging around guys outside the Liar Game, and then perhaps she wouldn't have to ask Akiyama why she kept overhearing all of them talk about her in connection with carpentry...and why they all went eerily silent when she speaks up about it.