Summary: Hideyoshi examines how his friends express love for each other using various love languages.

—

Hideyoshi wasn't sure exactly when he'd first learned about love languages, come to think of it. It had probably been something for drama club. That was the only place he actually cared about learning things. Maybe he'd been researching a role, or maybe the director had taught him in order to help him add depth to a character, but how he learned mattered not, for the knowledge of love languages always lingered in his mind.

There were five love languages: gifts, encouraging words, acts of service, quality time, and physical touch. These represented the different ways people showed their love and appreciation for others, friends, family, lovers.

Knowing this gave Hideyoshi a new perspective when it came to his relationships with others. His own primary love language was quality time, followed by service which was Akihisa's main love language. That didn't take a genius to figure out, after seeing all the effort he went through to help others. Himeji's was words, which was obvious by how much she blushed when she was complimented, and Minami's was physical touch, though she usually disguised those touches as aggression.

His sister Yuuko's was physical touch as well, and that had actually taken a lot of time to figure out because Yuuko didn't like to show emotions like love, but if he payed her enough attention, he could see how she walked so close to her friends that they bumped into each other from time to time, he saw how she leaned against their father during game night, and rested her feet on his own lap when they would sit on the couch together, her with her BL and him with a play to read. She would never admit it, but she didn't really hate him as much as she seemed to, and Hideyoshi would never admit it either, but the feeling was mutual.

Yuuji's love language was also one of the more difficult to identify because he liked to rag on his friends a lot, but when Hideyoshi finally figured out it was words, that only made more sense. He supposed not all loving words were necessarily encouraging. Words ranked very low on Shoko's hierarchy of love languages, that much was clear. Her first was probably quality time, although her focus was more on the time than the quality if Yuuji's recounting of their movie dates was any indication.

If their relationship was going to work out they would have to find some common ground. Perhaps their secondary love languages were the same, like Hideyoshi's parents—his mother's first love language was gifts, and his father's was words, but acts of service was second for both of them—or perhaps Yuuji and Shoko would end up drifting apart because they couldn't figure out how to communicate their feelings to each other.

Hideyoshi had every one of his friends and family figured out pretty quickly, except for Kouta, because taking skeezy photos was not a love language. Kouta took a while to figure out. He never gave anyone gifts; he didn't much like talking to people, and when he did, he rarely said nice things; he hated being touched; he never did anything for anybody, unless he was forced to; and he avoided spending time with people whenever possible.

It took him a while to figure it out. It took time and effort, encouragement and incitement, but eventually Hideyoshi cracked Kouta's shell. Kouta wasn't big on relationships of any kind, but when he found someone he really cared about, he wanted to spend time with them more than anything. He was happy to sit silently with them, just enjoying each other's company. He took pictures of times they spent together so those times would last. His primary love language was quality time, just like Hideyoshi's, it was just harder for him to love others.

Even so, he had let Hideyoshi in, and neither could have been happier.