MMX HS AU: Love

“You mean you've been nice to me just to annoy Zero?” X asked her.
“Are you mad at me?” Aero asked, hanging her head in shame.
“Nah,” X decided, “That sounds just about right. Admittedly, I'm a bit impressed by how long you two have kept this up for.”
“You… are?”
“Yep.” he confirmed with a nod. “Most girls who see Zero either go away after the first attempt or try to act more like him to get at me. I've never seen anyone that keeps coming just for the sole purpose of annoying him.”
Aero's face lightly started to flush red.
“Although...” X continued, “I am a bit confused. Do you like me? Do you like Zero? Do you just like annoying a person by hurting another? I know you two think that I'm essentially emotionless sometimes, but all that stuff I did for you? I really meant that.”
Aero looked up at X, her face an even brighter shade of red now. She really wished she could crawl into a hole right about now- she didn't want to tell him. She didn't want to tell him that she really did like him. She didn't want to tell him that she could tell that everything he did for her was out of heart, it's not like he was part of her and Zero's game the entire time. He did know about it, she now figured, but he had taken a neutral position.
Truthfully, it made her respect him even more.
“Well? What is it then?” X then asked, knocking Aero out of her thoughts. “Do you like me or not?”
“Well… I...” she stuttered as she ran a hand through her hair. “I… yes. I… I do like you. I really like you. And I don't want… I'm sorry that I lied to you, especially when this all started. I just didn't… Zero was just so sure that no one could have you that I just… I didn't want him to win. I wanted to make him mad. But I didn't think I would… But you were so kind and sincere in what you did for me, and I started to feel bad about what I was doing; and Oba-ue, he could see it a mile away and he warned me too. But I didn't think I would start to really… really… love you.”
For a moment X blinked at her as his mind processed over that one word she had tried to avoid until now.
“Love…? After all this mess, you… love me?” X asked her, almost sounding doubtful and condescending. Aero didn't answer. She felt herself shrink further and further back into the ground. She wanted to disappear. She wanted to go into a space in the universe where she wouldn't be here and not having to deal with this feeling in her body that shook her to the very core. She just wanted to… to…!
“I-is love that thing that keep you up at night when a certain person gets into your thoughts and you can't go to sleep?” X asked, surprising Aero.
“Maybe.” Aero told him, not agreeing or denying. “It could.”
“Is love that thing that makes you hurt and think differently about every portion of your body when they walk into the room?”
“I… I guess so.”
“Does love make you think more about a stranger that you've known for a few months than the friends you've had for a lifetime?”
To this, Aero had no comment. The thought also made X go silent, creating a still air between them.
“Obawan really loves you, doesn't he?” X asked. Aero staggered backwards as if he had punched her in the gut- of all the ways for their conversation to go, why did it take that turn?
“Zero really loves you.” Aero told him, feeling as if she were pointing out the obvious. Then again, wasn't X doing the same thing?
To her surprise, X shook his head. “It's not the same.” X replied solemnly. “There's just something different. It's something… something I want to feel. It's something I want to experience to know what it's like to care and love someone like that. Zero… I'm not sure what Zero wants, besides the fact that we've been friends for a long time. But Obawan, he doesn't even need to know you're in the room to think about you, or worry where you are, or get jealous over the people you've talked to that day. Zero always wants to know where I am, he always asks who I've talked to, he has to know that I'm in the room before showing any kind of obvious affection toward me.”
“So… Zero's jealous?” Aero asked, still not liking how the conversation was going.
“Maybe.” X agreed. “But that's not the point. Aero, I've been having different thoughts differently about someone. When I think about them, it doesn't matter if they're in the room or not, and I catch myself smiling like an idiot.  I'm curious about who they talk to and if they talk about me as much as I want to talk about them. Damn Aero, I want to know where this person goes because their life is a complete mystery to me because they don't know anyone enough to have intel on what their home life is like. It wouldn't be so bad, but Aero, it's the new girl.”
For a moment, Aero was speechless. “But I...”
“Exactly.”
Aero remained catatonic as X carefully moved closer to her. Slowly, either from the moment or on purpose, he placed a finger underneath her chin to pull her in a bit closer before gently pressing his lips against hers. And for the longest time, they remained where they were… until Zero came in.