forum I know we met like... a day ago... but, will you marry me? / oxo / closed

Started July 21, 2020 by @LittleRiver local_movies

tune

Korren had to manually keep himself composed, clenching is teeth as his face grew noticeably red. Suko just stood there happily, her hands clasped in front of her as she smiled.
“I believe you to look wonderful,” she admitted, offering a small nod. “But to you, I would assume my opinion is not the one that truly matters.”
With that, she flicked her eyes back up to Ren, who was trying his hardest to mask his near slack-jawed expression. With a little nudge from Suko he cleared his throat, blinking a few times before speaking.
“Ah—Y— You look… stunning,” he said, the last word seemingly more a question. Korren had forgotten his part in this whole play they were doing, and had to forcefully rope his mind back to it. He was a prince. Akito was … also a prince. But they were each other’s, and he needed to remember to play that part as best he could.
“Thank you so much for your help, Suko,” Korren murmured, seeming to gain back his composure as he spoke.
“You are always welcome, Kor,” she replied, grinning while looking between the two.

(Pardon the length)
Akito's face flushed at the Prince's reaction and he tried his best to hide the reaction as he quickly replied to Suko, "Your opinion matters, as you're the one who knows the most about clothing choices, thank you." Then he turned to talk to Korren, walking closer and motioning to the his robes, "I can't look as good as you do in your outfit, but thank you."
He truly liked the outfit, and the color, but already he felt fairly bad that the prince would have to pay for them. At the moment he didn't have enough, or what he figured would be enough to purchase the crimson robes. Akito decided that he was going to pay the Prince back though, since the robes would be essential for their plan of fooling the Queen.

(no worries!)

“Oh—heh.. thank you,” Korren mumbled, fiddling with the edge of his sleeve. He looked as if he were about to say something more when a loud noise cut him off.
A door shut toward the back of the shop, followed by laughs and yells. Three women sort of stumbled into view, faces alight as they talked amongst themselves. One looked very much like Suko but younger, eyes still holding that same brightness. The two others were clearly unrelated, one looking much older with tanner skin, hair a much lighter sepia and tied up in the back. The third was relatively the same age, with angular features and bright blue eyes, her smile seemingly more timid.
Both of the older women’s eyes caught the sight of Korren and they stopped, regaining composure, while the younger one ran over, engulfing him in a hug.
“H-Hello Saya,” he laughed, returning the gesture. The girl stepped back, attention flirting around to catch Akito.
“Hi Korren,” she mumbled, mind clearly elsewhere as she beamed toward the other man. “And who might this be?”

The sound of a dorr shutting was enough to startle Akito, and he turned to face it, a small smile forming on his face. Gently, he tugged at his robes, making sure he looked presentable as three women walked in, immedately causing him to assume that these were the rest of Suko's friends.
One of them reminded him of the older woman, with the same bright eyes, though the other two he assumed weren't related to Suko. They looked kind, and happy, but both seemed to stop when they saw Korren. The third didn't seem to care though, and rushed to the prince while Akito stepped to the side to give them room, his small smile still settled on his face.
"I'm Akito," He introduced himself easily when the girl turned to him, "Nice to meet you Saya."

“Didn’t know you had a boyfriend!” Saya yipped excitedly, already nearly prancing around Akito and sizing him up.
“H-h-yeah,” Korren muttered, his entire body stiff as a wooden plank. He could feel the blood rushing to his face once more and cursed the dregs of emotional anxiety.
Saya stopped in her tracks, bright eyes gleaming even brighter, if it were possible.
“Wait, really?” she replied, voice twisted up into that ecstatic question. “No way! I thought I was just razzing you!”
Her attention suddenly wobbled over to Akito as she smiled, almost forgetting formalities as she forced a bow. “Akito, how did you manage to wrap Princey here around your finger? It’s not usual he just falls for people out of the blue.”
“It-It wasn’t ‘out of the blue,’” Korren quickly added. “We’ve been… exchanging letters for the past… few months.” He glanced over to Akito periodically, almost nodding along as if to ask if he got the story right. Saya simply took that uncertainty as Korren’s horrid ability to suppress embarrassment. Luckily, lying was easy for someone as socially awkward as Korr.

Akito's face flushed as Saya pranced around him, feeling the attention on him and almost feeling awkward. "We've been talking for a few months, like Korren said," He replied, shrugging and smiling at the women, "I'm not sure how I succeeded in catching his attention though..I suppose I just got lucky."
Even for him, the nervousness coursing through Korren was visible, and he had spent less than a few hours around the princes. Gently he squeezed his hand, trying his best to keep the prince from getting more nervous than he already was. They had to convince the ladies that they were actually a couple, and having him freak out in front of them wasn't going to help.
"This is the first time I'm meeting the rest of Prince Korren's family though," He admitted, hoping that the little nugget of truth would help sell their story.

“Oh, I see,” Saya replied, clearly much to excited to bank on social cues. “So that’s why you’re so fancy. I barely ever see Korr in anything besides his armor. Lucky you, huh?”
She paused for a moment, squinting between the two before raising a finger and slowly pointing to Suko.
“Although I wouldn’t have gone with the red, maybe. A green perhaps? Was this the only one with gold trimming we had?” Saya mumbled, almost passively to herself. Suko narrowed her eyes, bumping her sister with the side of her shoulder.
“Shut it, Saya,” she uttered, unable to hide a smile. “Anyway— Have a great night, you two. You probably have to get going, no?”
“Yeah,” Korren replied, offering a small nod. “The Queen hates waiting. Thank you again, Suko. You always have my back.”
“What can I say? I like you, kid,” she replied, giving a diminutive bow. Saya just stayed there, ecstatically smiling.
“Nice to see you two, too,” Korren called, raising a hand to the two women still in the back. Their hands were filled with various bags and they looked busy enough, but stopped what they were doing to wave back.
Suko and Saya said their goodbyes to both of them, quickly shuffling over to one of the women in the back when they had called their names. It left just Korren and Akito, and Korren turned for the door.
He then looked back to Akito, heart beating more from excitement than nervousness.
“Well, ready to go?”

"Thank you for all your help ladies, it was nice to meet you," Akito replied, letting a charming smile show as he waved to them and stayed by Korren's side. It felt weird not to have to bow in the presence of the prince like the ladies did, but he stayed standing straight, knowing that he had to act less like a dock worker and more like a person with a high status.
Getting lost in his thoughts about acting more formal, he almost missed Korren's question, snapping back to reality just in time to nod. "Ready as I'll ever be I suppose, seeing as I'm meeting the Queen and Princess, both of who we have to make sure don't think we're suspicious."
He smiled at the prince, adjusting his new robes and looking back at the ladies once more before following Korren to and out of the door.

The women turned quickly to offer Akito a wave as well, all calling back with “nice meeting you”’s and “no problem”’s.
Once out of the store, Korren let out a long sigh, almost like he had held his breath the entire encounter.
“Good gods, I have to get better at this,” he said, words cut by stifled laughter. “I didn’t know it would be this difficult.”
He offered Akito a hand, simply out of formality, and continued walking down the dimly lit streets. The lanterns, just like the ones beside the shop, shined all kinds of beautiful oranges and yellows on the path below, holding a certain warmth to them.
“I mean— maybe it’s you,” he teased lightly. “Maybe it’s your fault for the fact I can’t think straight. Well… not like that wasn’t an issue before..”
Korren paused, glancing back over to meet Akito’s eyes.
“Or maybe that bodes well for us love-stricken pair, huh? The whole ‘not thinking right’ and spacing out and all that. But I still probably should play it smoother… not that I was smooth before, either.”

Akito sighed, almost instantly relaxing a little as well, even as he took Korren's hand and chuckled, "I think we both do. I certainly could've done better."
He glanced over at the prince, caught up with how the laterns cast soft glows over him before he realized what he was doing and quickly looked away. At least the yellow lighting hid most of his faint blush. This was going to be much more difficult than he had originally thought.
"It's not me, it has to be you and your regalness," Akito joked lightly, winking at him, "I have to reign in how starstruck I am just to pass as a love-stricken man. I can teach you if you'd like how to make it look like we're maddly in love. It takes practice."
He wasn't fully lying or joking about having to reign in sometimes how amazed he already was with the prince. After all, who else looked effortlessly this good besides Korren. No one he had ever been interested in could pull it off this well.