Chapter Text
Three changes of clothes later, and Shiho could officially declare this a very successful shoot.
Successful, and, well...
Interesting.
With many results that she probably couldn't send to Ann to post.
One one of her favorites was one of the last: Akira was slouched on the couch, one arm thrown over the back and his lazy hedonist's smile aimed at Ann alone. The other arm was held out to steady Ann's thigh, red-gloved hand only just high enough to scrunch up the hem of her little black dress. Ann, leaning over him with her arms braced on either side of his head, was matching his confidence drop for drop, switching laziness for audacity and nonchalance for heat.
It was a beautiful shot with a gorgeous angle that she'd totally lucked out on... and there was no way it could be posted to x_panther.
It was really too bad. Shiho had had fun getting them into those poses.
The shoot had been interesting for plenty more reasons than that, though.
She'd dismissed Akira's odd little swallow when he'd first seen Ann bouncing down the stairs, because swallowing was just something humans did sometimes. She'd only half-noticed his almost flummoxed reaction to Ann's little wave there at the beginning, and that was only because Ann herself had noticed it. She'd completely skipped over the admiring glances he'd given Ann because, well. Ann.
And then she'd spent about hour hours watching the two of them very closely through a camera lens.
By the time they'd gotten to the little black dress, instructing Akira to slide his hand just a little bit higher up Ann's thigh had been only somewhat for the resulting aesthetic.
He. Hadn't. Blushed. Once.
Not once! During that whole session! Barely a flinch! Only passing moments of distraction, none of which lasted long enough to affect his face. His hands never shook, the smirk never faltered, he'd never been reduced to awkward squirming...
The only indication that his crush was crawling all over him in a miniskirt was the way his eyes occasionally glazed over; even the way he glanced at-then-away from her thighs before she could catch him would have looked casual and accidental if not for how often it happened.
It was kind of impressive, really.
"See you guys at school tomorrow!" Ann chirped as Shiho and Akira walked down the Takamaki's front walk together.
"Later," Shiho bid her with a smile and a wave, Akira nodding in her peripheral vision.
Ann tripped over her own two feet in the process of closing the door, poking her head around the heavy oak to flash them a sheepish smile and a wiggle of her fingers before shutting it completely.
If Shiho were alone, she would have snorted to herself and left. If Shiho were alone, however, there would be no opportunity to watch and see how her new coworker reacted to that, so she waited instead.
Akira spent a solid three seconds just staring at the door, impassive as ever, then seemed to realize that she was still there. He then looked down at her and tilted his head in the direction of the gate.
Smiling, she went, and he followed her without a word.
"So that was an interesting shoot today, wasn't it?" she murmured to him as she passed through the gate.
"'Interesting'?" he echoed softly—warily, she'd like to think—as he pulled it shut behind them.
"It's been a while since I've seen Ann that cheerful," she continued blithely, leading the way to the station. "She really likes having you around."
The streetlight reflected off his lenses as he glanced down at her. "...I like being here," he finally ventured.
"I noticed," she agreed, airy.
She wouldn't have noticed the slight hitch in his step if they hadn't been walking, but they were, and she did.
Vic~to~ry.
When it didn't seem like he had anything to add, she went on, "Some of those shots turned out... intense."
"I was just following orders," he said, sounding very bland indeed. There was no hitch in his step this time, sadly.
"Quite well, too," she said. "You're a natural."
"...Thank you."
She hummed her response and let the ensuing silence stretch for a bit, pondering.
It wasn't that nothing was getting to him, she decided, just that he was good at hiding it.
And he was good, but not perfect.
Hmm... Maybe...
Aha.
"While we're on the topic..." She pulled out her phone, fishing her portable card reader out of her bag and her camera's memory card with it. She usually left the camera itself at Ann's—it was way safer there than it was at her house. "Want me to send you the full album from today?"
He stayed quiet for long enough for her to hook the card reader up to her phone and open the most recent folder, then dryly said, "I'll... pass."
"Really?" She thumbed through the gallery, looking for that one particular picture. "The really good shots probably won't make it online..."
"I thought it was your job to choose the best?" he asked, sounding genuinely curious.
"...Well, I choose the best ones for x_panther's image," she admitted ruefully, leading them around the next corner but trusting Akira to keep them on track otherwise. "Those aren't always the best, per se."
"Hm..."
After about a minute of mindless swiping, she found what she was looking for. "Here, I'll send you one as a sample."
Akira glanced sideways at her, at the little twitch of the mouth she couldn't suppress, then turned his gaze back to the street ahead of them.
She hit send.
Three steps later, his phone pinged.
He ignored it.
"...I believe you just received a message," she said, when it became obvious that he was going to ignore it.
"Imagine that."
"It might be important," Shiho pressed. She wanted to see his reaction, dammit. "It might even be a really cute picture of Ann."
"I'm sure it can wait."
She narrowed her eyes at the little Sent at 8:50 below her text. "You never know," she said delicately. "It could be an emergency."
"Unlikely."
"A text from your mother?" she tried.
"My mother has never once texted me in her life," he replied. "I don't see why she'd start now."
"From... Sakamato-san?"
"He can take care of his own messes."
"Mishima-kun."
Akira tilted his head in thought for a second, then decided, "He'll live."
"That's rather cold of you," she chided, trying not to be amused. Then it abruptly occurred to her that there was only one person she'd ever seen him be warm to, and that was... "It might be from Ann."
A partial flicker of an expression, like he was actually considering it, and then it cleared and he shook his head, just slightly. "Also unlikely."
So close.
Shiho sighed and stowed her phone away. "Well, if you change your mind about the album, you have my number."
"Duly noted."
She inhaled the chilly night air through her teeth, stretching her arms out high above her head and letting the air out on a sigh. She didn't know what kind of magic Ann had, but these sessions worked better than any of the prescription painkillers stocked in Shiho's bathroom cabinet.
"...Ann's kind of amazing, isn't she?" she mused at the sky.
"Hm," Akira concurred.
"I mean," she continued, letting her arms drop, a pleasant kind of exhaustion weighing them down, "lots of models are pretty, but Ann's just got that spark, you know?"
"She 'wears the clothes.'"
Shiho let out a little pffft noise. "That too."
He glanced at her curiously.
"She's hardworking, and sweet too," she elaborated. "She's one of those people that just... sucks you in and makes you want to stick around. One of those people who can make you feel like you've won a prize just by making her smile."
"Hmm," he said low in his throat, carefully neutral.
Very, very carefully neutral.
...Was she finally getting to him?
She kept talking, attention devoted to the perfectly even rhythms of the boy walking beside her. "It's not a fluke that she's fully employed and has as much success online as she does. She recently broke thirty thousand followers—though, I s'pose it's lower now."
She'd lost close to seven hundred, actually. What had read 30.2k now read 29.5k, and, as far as she was aware, the number was still dropping. Internet fame was fickle like that. Hopefully those were the people they wanted gone.
Ahh, bad train of thought. He really had been helping them out with this; she shouldn't be reminding him of the negatives.
A quick check revealed no emotional reaction of note.
"Well," she continued more cheerfully, "with your combined talent, I'm sure you'll make the number back up quick."
"I'll do what I can to help," he promised.
"Thank you," she said, really truly meaning it, but also cursing internally as she felt him edge up onto safer ground.
Then a stroke of inspiration hit her.
"Oh, I know what you can do to help!" She ducked forward slightly and glanced at him sideways, the most open smile she could manage fixed to her face.
Akira looked delightfully put off, maybe even borderline alarmed, if she was reading him right.
Shiho was the opposite of discouraged. "You should help Ann with outfit coordination!"
"...Fashion isn't really my forte," he demurred—though, with the way he said it, it sounded less like demurring and more like he smelled the trap.
"And yet you're a model now," she teased. "But I'm sure you don't really need to know fashion to help Ann decide what lipstick looks best on her. Sometimes she asks me whether cherry or mauve would look better and I never know how to answer. I'm sure it would help us both out a lot if you could go with her while she tries them out." She cranked up the innocence as much as she dared. (Force him to think about it...) "Gloss or matte? Pink or rose? Ann looks good in them all, but I'm sure you'd have a stronger opinion than either of us." She'd eat her four hundred thousand yen camera if he actually thought about the color. "You are a part of our demographic after all."
His face had been going blanker and blanker as she talked, but at the last bit, his step hitched again, just slightly out of rhythm, and Shiho scented blood.
"Your demographic," he echoed almost flatly.
(So there was a button to push there. Now she was getting somewhere!)
"Boys," she said easily. "I know you've noticed, but neither Ann nor I are male. We can only guess so much of what goes on in your minds, you know. Having an insider opinion on what would make Ann the most attractive to guys would be a huge asset."
He didn't answer that. Shiho bit the corner of her mouth against a smirk.
"I know the gloss looks sort of like she's just been kissed, but the matte makes her lips look softer—which would you prefer?"
"Shiho," he said so pleasantly that it was a warning in itself.
"We-e-ell," Shiho drew out, "I guess she's gorgeous either way, huh? No wonder everyone goes nuts for her."
"Shiho."
(And that was exactly the response Shiho wanted.)
"Is something wrong, Akira? You look a little... flustered." She couldn't fully suppress the grin any longer. "Maybe even jealous...?"
He didn't, not even slightly, but it felt good to say, so.
Long eyelashes dipped as he glanced at her sideways. "Did I ever say you could call me Akira...?"
She had him.
"Mm..." She pretended to think. "I think it was somewhere between, 'yes, Shiho, I would love the full album,' and 'isn't Ann's taste in cosmetics just the best, Shiho? I could stare at her beautiful face for hours.'"
He eyed her down. "...Not ringing a bell, Suzui-san."
She didn't look at him, instead taking her phone out and pretending to check for new messages. "But am I wrong?"
He turned his chin away and declined to answer.
It wasn't long after that before they turned the final corner that led up to the split between her street and the train station.
"Well, I go this way." She flashed him her most angelic smile as she waved. "You have my contact information when you decide."
The second sideways glance he gave her was the kind of look one gave a statue the swore just moved, or a bush they suspected someone was hiding in. He wouldn't need to contact her if he decided against it, and he knew it.
Shiho turned before he could see her smile widen. "See you later, Akira."
"...Bye."
If Shiho was a whistler, she definitely would have whistled her way home.
Spite versus pictures of Ann: which would win?
One slightly dazed train ride later, Akira got home, up to his attic and then into his bed. He then laid down in a distinctly feline-unendorsed manner and attempted to sleep.
'Attempted' being the keyword here.
Shiho's taunting met the promise-slash-threat of whatever image she'd sent him, her absolute confidence that he wouldn't be able to resist asking for the rest—all of which met the searing memories of what had triggered that taunting, and...
Well.
That was a rabbit hole all of its own.
(She hadn't been wrong about Ann's smile feeling like the best kind of reward; she hadn't been wrong about Ann being the kind of gorgeous and magnetic that could get under just about anyone's skin; she hadn't been wrong about those all those jealous barbs prickling under his skin.
She hadn't said a thing about the sound of Ann's laughter or the way Ann's fingers had felt gripping in his hair and the way Ann's legs had moved under that skirt or the pure invitation of Ann sprawled out over that couch, flushed and happy and open—and that was definitely for the best.)
(Maybe.)
(Probably.)
(Or maybe if she'd said it, he could think of those moments in her voice, and not the palpable memories they were now.)
After three hours of failed meditation and restless turning, he had to concede defeat.
He rolled out of his futon foggy and itchy and irritated, and kicked the chair he kept by the foot of his bed over to the scuffed space beneath the low ceiling beam. Using it as a footstool, he hopped and caught the beam in both hands, then pulled himself up until his chin hovered over the edge. Held for one, two, three, then lowered himself back down to another count of three.
How many reps would it take him to burn through this insomnia?
Time to find out.
Somewhere between forty and fifty chin-ups, it occurred to him that this might take a while.
(Still beat staring at a wall and trying to ignore his phone, though.)
One hundred and fifty.
Sometimes he considered that maybe he and Ryuji and Yuuki spent too much time in the gym, but he hadn't expected it to take six sets to finally pass out.
Ann caught him with three cans of Arginade and a lone bottle of Mad Bull on his desk the next morning and blanched.
"Are... you okay?"
'Peachy keen,' he almost said, except he didn't have the energy to pull it off right. Saying, 'Yes,' would be a blatant lie, and a plain old, 'No,' might make her worry...
(The stuff on her lips today was something so glossy it looked wet, and despite Shiho's taunting that it looked like she'd 'just been kissed,' he couldn't help thinking that it just looked very... smeary. Like something that would get all over anything (anyone) who happened to touch it—and make a mess of her while they was at it.
That she wasn't a mess yet was a bigger tease than any measly implications.)
"Couldn't sleep," he ended up mumbling before he chugged the rest of his second Arginade. Overwhelmingly positive connotations aside, it still tasted absolutely disgusting. "Your friend is terrifying."
"Uh..." she said, like she honestly didn't know. She blinked at him (or... at his neck? It was a bit lower than eye-level), then asked, "Shi-... -ho...?"
That demon smile and faux innocence floated through Akira's mind, and while he wasn't quite far gone enough to physically shiver, the emotion was there.
He still hadn't opened his phone.
Reaching for the Mad Bull, he cracked the lid and repeated, "Terrifying."
Long, dark 'lashes fluttered against flawless skin as she processed, then she grew concerned again.
Akira held his breath and drank his Mad Bull.
"Well... okay," she said reluctantly. "Get some sleep soon, okay?"
He lowered the bottle half drunk as the back of his neck and fingertips all tingled with the zap of caffeine hitting his system. "Unlikely," slipped through the cracks in his Ann-filters.
Her mouth pursed in a sad, worried little moue.
Damn it.
"It was worth it," he said after a moment of kicking himself. He rested his cheek on his fist, tilting his head and half-smiling. "Yesterday was fun. Thank you."
Understatement of the year, but he wasn't sure if he could articulate what that experience had been like for him. Even on two total hours of sleep with his body aching with the workout and subsequent lack of rest, the sight of her worry softening and a responding smile creeping over her face felt like heaven.
The effect was... potent. So potent, in fact, that he could almost fully pay attention during the ensuing class.
(Almost. See: that smile.)
He was vaguely aware that Ann had trailed off into texting about halfway through math, but that was about par the course for her and Ms. Usami was tackling one of the few topics that hadn't made sense in his self-study, so he didn't think much of it.
That is, until Ms. Usami moved on to the next set of formulas and Akira's phone buzzed.
Pulling it out, he found two new messages—one from volleyballsysnaps and one from xPanther.
Unlocking his phone for the first time since he'd left her house last night, he ignored Shiho and opened the ongoing chat with Ann.
xPanther: I'm trying to figure out what Shiho did, but she won't spill.
xPanther: What did she *do?*
Akira Kurusu: It's fine.
xPanther: You don't look very 'fine.'
xPanther: I know I've said it before, but whatever it was, I'll make it up to you, promise!
At which point last night's brutal workout and more recent intellectual engagement proved to be less effective than he wished they had been, because the sudden invasive memory of her smirk as she caged him against the back of that damn couch still made his stomach jolt and knot.
Akira Kurusu: It's definitely fine.
The line of the shoulders in front of him had drawn up in what he could only gather was upset, then slumped in a silent sigh.
A few more buzzes that didn't have anything to do with him, and then:
xPanther: Shiho says that she's willing to send you the full album from yesterday as an apology.
Akira didn't faceplant onto his desk, but it was a near thing.
xPanther: Which still isn't that special or great, as apologies go.
xPanther: But there are some really cool pictures we'll probably never see otherwise!
xPanther: And we could compare favorites!
xPanther: It'll show us what to aim for in the future.
xPanther: Which... I guess we should probably be doing anyway, huh...
Akira Kurusu: You don't have to make it up to me, *promise.*
xPanther: Tell you what!
xPanther: Let's hit up the diner on Saturday.
xPanther: Anything you want. My treat.
At which point he had to beg his brain to just shut up, because it was all too happy to delete the second-to-last message and run wild with the rest.
Akira Kurusu: If it would make you feel better.
xPanther: You don't want to?
Her shoulders drooped, just a centimeter or two, and Akira's fingers were moving before he had the chance to think about it.
Akira Kurusu: I'd love to.
xPanther: Yay!
He didn't have to see her face to know she was smiling; the little bounce of her head said it all.
(He was the biggest pushover, it was him, Shiho was going to mock him for this forever—but the bright, warm glow in his chest wasn't going anywhere.)
xPanther: Oh, and I'll tell Shiho to send you the album, okay?
xPanther: Let's talk about it on Saturday.
Akira Kurusu: Sounds like a plan.
There was a pause, then his phone vibrated again, volleyballsysnaps popping up in the notification display.
He opened up Shiho's chat and tried not to look at the picture above her latest message, but still got the impression that it was of that one moment where his hand had been so high on her thigh that he swore his mind had melted a bit.
volleyballsysnaps: :3
Akira Kurusu: That was foul play, just so you know.
volleyballsysnaps: ;3
volleyballsysnaps: [Sent xpanther-05-11-2020-all.zip (406.2MB)]
volleyballsysnaps: Enjoy~