Akira's POV
The problem with growing affection was that it grew whether you acknowledged it or not.
I had tried the acknowledgment route and found it very uncomfortable in a way that honest things were uncomfortable. Sort of like the kind of discomfort that didn't resolve itself by being looked at and didn't get worse by being ignored.
It simply sat there in the chest and ran its warm constant temperature and waited for you to decide what to do with it. I had tried the ignoring route and found it functionally useless.
What I had not tried was the third option, which was neither acknowledging nor ignoring but simply… redirecting. Taking the warmth, the Thursday anticipation and the way his name arrived in my thoughts with a frequency I had stopped tracking because the frequency was no longer notable, and pointing all of it somewhere more productive.
The system was pointing at A-rank.
