Chapter Text
It was a hot summer afternoon, and Yosuke had never been more thankful for Souji’s air conditioner and apparent stockpile of frozen treats. Of course that wasn’t the only reason he’d decided to come over today, but having a tub of ice cream to combat the uncomfortable humidity in the air was certainly a nice bonus.
“Sooooo, what’d you get on the test yesterday?” Yosuke asked, plopping himself down onto Souji’s futon and shoveling another spoonful of ice cream into his mouth. He was hoping to feel better about his own score, but he quickly realized there wasn’t much of a point in his inquiry. After all, there’s no way that Souji Seta, Mr. Perfect himself, could have failed a quiz as badly as he had.
“You should know, you copied half of the answers off of me.” Despite his face remaining as blank as ever, Yosuke could see faint hints of a smile when he looked deeper. That was something he’d learned how to do with just how frequently Souji’s poker face showed up, and it was nice to know what he was truly feeling.
“Oh come on, that was only a few! Just tell me what you got!” Yosuke begged exaggeratedly, and Souji actually smiled this time. It was pleasant and calming, just like it always was whenever he smiled.
..Not that he was watching Souji smile or anything.
Because that was weird.
“I got an eighty percent. I’m assuming that you-” Souji cut himself off as his phone buzzed what Yosuke immediately recognized to be a text notification sound. He could only hope that it was only a friendly message and not something relating to the Midnight Channel, but he didn’t let his worries get too large. It wasn’t raining or foggy, after all, and if it was anything serious he likely would have received a message as well. Or at least he hoped that the rest of the group would have bothered to send him a message for something that important.
“Who’s it from?” Yosuke asked, completely out of curiosity rather than worry at this point. It could have been a girl, after all; of course he’d be curious about that!
“It’s..” Souji started as he pulled his phone out of his pocket to see what had been sent. “ Oh .” His face dropped immediately, and Yosuke’s worries flared right back up. Was someone hurt? Why did he look so upset?
But as he peered over Souji’s shoulder to read the screen, curiosity getting the better of him yet again, it only confused him more.
Rise: uploaded image0.jpg
“Why do you look so upset, Partner? It’s just Rise.” he asked, wanting to make sure that everything was okay, and Souji only sighed.
“Right.. it’s just Rise,” Souji repeated. He looked even worse than before, and Yosuke only got more worried. Was something going on between them? He hated seeing Souji upset like this, and having no idea what was going on only made it worse. He opened his mouth to question him further, but stopped himself as yet another notification went off.
Rise: do i look good senpai?? ;)
Woah woah woah , so that’s what was going on? It shouldn’t have been all that surprising given all the flirting she had been doing for the past month or so, but that didn’t stop Yosuke from being jealous. Stupid Souji could have any chick he wanted, and they’d gone after the same one? And he hadn’t even bothered to tell him about it? Though Yosuke still didn’t completely understand why Souji was this upset over getting a suggestive text, at least it was that and nothing more serious.
And just when he thought he couldn’t get any more confused, Souji opened the picture right in front of him.
Yosuke’s eyes had never been more glued to something as he waited for whatever Rise had sent to load. His mind was running wild with different risqué pictures, and it felt like hours had passed before the thing actually loaded.
..It was just a picture of her in a swimsuit.
And a one piece swimsuit at that.
“Don’t get the wrong idea, she sends me this sort of stuff all the time. We aren’t dating.” Now Yosuke was the one upset, his dreams of seeing a risqué picture of Rise completely crushed. At least he still had a chance with her because she wasn’t dating Souji..? A chance so slim that it basically didn’t exist, but it was still technically a chance.
“Dude, don’t just get me all excited like that! I was expecting something .. you know!” Yosuke, defeated and disappointed, took another bite of ice cream as he tried to feel better about what had just happened.
“If I’d expected anything like that, why would I have opened it in front of you?” Souji replied blankly as he started to type up a response, deleting and retyping it more times than Yosuke could count.
“Yeah that’s..fair, I guess. But still!” Yosuke watched in silence as he stared blankly at the picture on the screen. He really wished he was with her right now; not even for perverted reasons, but because swimming was starting to sound amazing right now as the amount of ice cream he had was rapidly decreasing. “Man, why does she only send that sort of stuff to you? You already have enough people fangirling over you as-is, did you really have to take Rise too?” Yosuke sulked as he watched Souji finally finish his response, a very punctual ‘You look nice.’ that he couldn’t help but chuckle at.
“Trust me, I wish she wouldn’t,” Souji mumbled under his breath, pressing the power button on his phone and deciding to ignore the notification that came a few seconds later. Yosuke was confused as to why he seemed so disappointed for a bit, before it hit him. Obviously he was tired of being friend zoned by her, right? That would explain everything! Though he still wasn’t completely sure why Souji didn’t just ask her out— her flirting was about as subtle to a brick to the face, after all, and there’s no way that Souji didn’t pick up on it. Maybe he was just too nervous? Aww, that was cute- nononono, wrong word. It was.. endearing. It was endearing to imagine his partner being nervous over a girl because of how fearless he normally was. There, crisis averted.
“Ohhh, I getcha. C’mon, just tell her how you feel! She’s clearly into you, partner! You nervous or something?” He teased, expecting some sort of embarrassed nod from the other boy, but instead he only got an inexpressive stare.
“No, I don’t think you get it. I want her to stop because I’m not interested in her.” He.. what? In retrospect he probably should have seen this coming with how strange Souji could be, but that was one he didn’t expect. He could go out with Rise , a person that almost every teenage boy would sell an organ just to be able to talk to, but he simply didn’t want to.
Classic Souji.
“How can you not be interested in her!? She’s literally perfect! Her waist and chest-”
“Yeah yeah, I get it. She’s not my type, though,” Souji cut him off. There was a strange look on his face that Yosuke tried and failed to decipher, but it didn’t appear to be good. He was going to ask about it but instead opted to be silent. Maybe he’d just learned to look a little too deep into Souji’s facial expressions (or lack thereof) and nothing was wrong at all.
He hoped that was the case, anyway.
Souji’s phone buzzed yet again after a few seconds, and he wordlessly switched it to silent mode.
“Dude, I’m starting to think that your ‘type’ doesn’t exist,” Souji didn’t disagree about that, and he continued, “But why don’t you just reject her if you’re not interested?”
“She hasn’t actually asked me out, so I can’t really reject her. I’ve tried dropping hints but she still isn’t stopping. I don’t want to directly tell her that she’s being annoying, though, so I’ll just put up with it for now.” That.. actually made a lot of sense now that he thought about it. Rise tended to flirt with Souji a lot, but he’d never done the same in return. Yosuke had always viewed her doing that as something to be jealous of, but seeing it from the perspective of someone who didn’t want it, he could almost feel how uncomfortable it was.
“Oh. That sucks, man.” Yosuke wished he could have done more to help, but it was the only thing he could think of to say. It’s not like he could relate to the problem of having too many girls flirting with him, after all. “Maybe you could try.. um…” he opened his mouth to say something else, not wanting to offer such an insignificant response, until he realized that he didn’t have anything else to say. He cared, he really did, but he couldn’t find a way to express it very well. “....ignoring her? Or, um, asking her to stop? Oh wait, you just said that you don’t want to do that. Uh..” And somehow, in classic Yosuke fashion, he’d only managed to make everything worse. He went to go take another bite of ice cream to calm his anxiety, but was only met with disappointment and an empty container.
“I would, but I don’t want to lose her as a friend or for it to interfere with the team. It’s really not a big deal though, I promise. I’m sorry for worrying you.” Souji flashed him a smile, but something felt off about it. Once again he was starting to wonder if he was simply overthinking his partner’s facial expressions, but it seemed.. fake. It almost looked as if he was still upset and was trying to hide it, and that only made Yosuke want to help him even more. “By the way, there’s more ice cream in the freezer if you want it,” he added.
“I’m gonna eat all of your food, I’m not Chie!” Another smile, this one definitely not fake, and Yosuke got so caught up in staring at it that he almost forgot about the situation at hand. “And don’t apologize, it’s clearly hurting you. You’re my Partner, I can’t just let you suffer like this!”
“I’m really not, it’s-”
“Shut up, you’re not going to fool me. She’s clearly upsetting you, and I’m going to help fix it.” Yosuke expected some sort of argument or further denying the problem, (that was another thing he tended to notice with Souji; he didn’t like to admit it when something was bothering him) but thankfully he didn’t. Instead he merely stared down at his phone screen, which was flashing a new message.
Rise: hey you dont have a girlfriend do u?☹️🥺
“God, she’s.. really upfront, isn’t she?” Yosuke tried not to be jealous, he really did, but he couldn’t help it. Rise, the girl of his dreams, was chasing after his best friend; how could he not be jealous?
“Soujip. I can’t believe she hasn’t just asked me straight up yet.” Souji began to type up another response, this one much shorter with a simple ‘No,’ but that gave Yosuke an idea.
“Wait, don’t send that yet,” Souji seemed confused, but moved his finger away from the send button regardless. “Maybe you could just lie and say that you do have a girlfriend? She wouldn’t flirt with someone who’s taken, right?” Yosuke really shouldn’t have felt as proud as he was with that solution, but he was. He hadn’t expected to actually find any way to fix the problem, but that seemed like a good enough idea. Souji seemed to think so as well, deleting the word he had typed, before he abruptly stopped.
“Wouldn’t that just cause more problems, though? And I promise you it’s not a big deal, you don’t have to-”
“Dude, I’m not dumb. This is clearly upsetting you. And, um, what do you mean?” Yosuke stared at him in confusion. Was there some sort of flaw that he’d missed in that plan? Probably, he wasn’t exactly the best at coming up with ideas.
“Well she’s probably going to ask who it is, and I’m not going to have an answer,” Souji replied back, hints of frustration at this whole scenario behind his neutral expression. That made sense now that Yosuke thought about it, and he felt like an idiot for now considering it beforehand.
“You’re.. probably right. Dammit.” Yosuke sighed, looking down and feeling angry at himself for not having any other solution. His partner was in pain, and he couldn’t even do anything about it. His thoughts were going so quickly that he couldn’t even keep up with them, but eventually he managed to think of another idea, this one hopefully actually helping in some way
“Okay, well maybe you could just get an actual girlfriend..? You’ve got, like, the whole school chasing after you, I’m sure you can find someone.” It was hard to tell for sure, but that idea only seemed to make Souji feel even worse. He was gripping the sides of his phone screen tightly and taking a few deep breaths in and out, and Yosuke feared that he’d done something wrong once again. God, could he even do anything right? And this time he couldn’t even shovel more ice cream into his mouth to calm down because there wasn’t any left.
But, to Yosuke’s shock, his partner didn’t seem angry or even annoyed at him. He still looked.. vaguely upset in a way that was hard to describe, but he definitely wasn’t angry.
“Can’t,” Souji mumbled under his breath after a few seconds of silence. Really, that was it? He knew that Souji was a man of few words, but wow .
“Why not? It’s not like you don’t have any options.” Souji looked over at him, and for a brief moment Yosuke felt like he had seen something he wasn’t supposed to. He looked vulnerable and upset, as if something was making him incredibly uncomfortable. He wanted to ask about it, he really did, but by the time he’d managed to open his mouth to say anything Souji had looked away. Yosuke attributed it to the Rise situation, but he wasn’t completely sure that was all it had to do with.
“I- I just don’t want one. And I don’t want to lead someone on for someone simply for my own gain.” Souji looked back up at him, his expression neutral instead of distressed, though Yosuke barely processed that over his own shock.
“Wh- why would you not want a girlfriend?” That came off ruder than he’d anticipated, though he couldn’t really help it. Yosuke had always wondered why Souji never entered a relationship with anyone despite the mobs of girls throwing themselves at him every second of every day, and the answer was that he just.. didn’t want one? Why ??
“Well, um..” Souji seemed stumped, almost as if he was confused by his own reasoning, before finally managing to spit out, “They’re not my type.”
“The entire school isn’t your type? What even is your ‘type?’” Souji shot him a glare, an actual glare and not one he had to go through dozens of mental hoops to decipher, and Yosuke decided to shut his mouth. He still had so many more questions, including why the question had made him angry in the first place, but keeping a bit of curiosity to himself was significantly better than ending up dead at the hands of his own Partner.
“That doesn’t matter, the point is that I don’t want one,” he stated simply, avoiding eye contact once again.
“Okay, whatever. Well if you don’t want to get a girlfriend and you can’t lie about having one, maybe you could just… um…” Again, he’d spoken without having an actual idea to accompany his words. He tried thinking of something else, way harder than he really needed to, but no other ideas came up.
“I appreciate that you’re trying to help but I promise it isn’t a big deal. I could just ask her to stop if it was that serious.”
Yosuke didn’t believe that for a second, not with how upset he looked earlier, but he didn’t want to argue any further. He didn’t want to be annoying or get another terrifying glare, (which he still didn’t understand why he’d received in the first place) after all.
“Alright, whatever you say.”
“Thanks.” Once again it sounded disingenuous, but Yosuke shrugged it off. Maybe he was just looking too far into things? Or even if that wasn’t the case, it wasn’t his place to argue. Another message quickly flared up on the screen, and it was no mystery who it was from.
Rise: senpaiiii r u ok? Am I bothering u?🥺🥰🥰💕
Souji stared at the screen again, and sighed with disappointment. He hated seeing Souji suffer like this, even despite his adamant denial that it was more than a minor annoyance. Yosuke felt obligated to come up with another solution. Souji was clearly upset, and he already felt awful enough for not noticing this problem before. Eventually he managed to come up with one, though he wasn’t completely sure it was a good plan.
“You know, maybe you could get a girl to pretend to be your girlfriend just to avoid her? It sounds like some clichè trope, but it just might work.” Yosuke could only hope that there wasn’t a huge flaw with this plan as well, but that didn’t seem to be the case judging by the look Souji gave him. It was a genuine smile, almost blinding from how bright it was, and Yosuke started to worry just how big the Rise issue actually was for him to be this thankful over a mere idea.
He then promptly looked away from said smile, because he was getting a little too invested in it.
“That’s a good idea, actually. Thanks, Yosuke.” Souji unlocked his phone once again and clicked out of Rise’s message to the contacts screen, seemingly to message one of the other team members about the idea. “Who should I ask, though? I don’t want any of them to get the wrong idea, that’ll only make things worse.” Yosuke would have reassured him that it would be fine or have actually answered his question, if it wasn’t for Souji’s contact names distracting him completely. He hadn’t meant to pry, but his curiosity had gotten the better of him. Surely he had to have a crush on someone , right? He was one of the most popular people in the entire school, obviously there had to be someone he was harboring feelings towards, even despite his denial of that very thing. His eyes scanned the list of names for some sort of cheesy nickname or heart emoji to indicate hidden feelings, but there didn’t seem to be any. They were all simply the person’s first name followed by their last name, which wasn’t too surprising given how formal he tended to be.
..But then he got to his own.
It was simply labeled ‘partner.’ No name, no capitalization, just the dumb nickname Yosuke had given him back in April. To say that made him happy would have certainly been an understatement, especially with the way he could feel himself smile unintentionally. It was really- dammit, what was that word again? Oh, right. It was really endearing (not cute. It was absolutely not cute because that was way too romantic of a word to use while describing a male, especially his best friend of all people) that Souji had gone out of his way to make his contact name different. Not Chie’s, not Rise’s, not any of the billions of girls throwing themselves at him, only his.
He must have been thinking about that a little too hard, because the next thing he saw was a concerned stare.
“Hey, are you alright? You’re looking pretty red. If you need some water or anything I can get you s-”
“I’m fine!” He spat out a bit too quickly, which only made the concerned stare morph into one of straight up confusion. Red? He was visibly blushing?? He’d definitely have to find a way to mentally justify that later, but for now he decided to focus on whatever Souji had said.
..Which he’d completely forgotten amidst the chaos.
“Now, um, what were we talking about..?” Yosuke was now avoiding looking at Souji like his life depended on it, and he could only imagine how much more confused Souji had gotten. He was confused himself; how had a simple contact name gotten him so worked up? It’s not like it was a girl either, it was Souji. So why— Gah, he didn’t have time to think about this. It was.. just a reaction. It didn’t have to mean anything, right?
“I asked you which of the girls I should tell about your idea. I really don’t want any of them to misinterpret it, that would only make everything worse.” Right, they were talking about him getting a fake girlfriend to let Rise down easily. He took a deep breath and tried to remove any thoughts of what had just happened out of his head, and somehow managed to formulate something comprehensible.
“I’m not sure. That sort of thing is super chichè though, there’s no way it can actually lead to anything.”
“I know, I’m just worried. I really don’t want to have to reject anyone directly.”
“You’re really afraid of hurting anyone’s feelings, aren’t you Par- um- Souji ?” Not being able to use the nickname (or more accurately; forcing himself to not use the nickname due to the ..reaction he’d had a few moments prior) he used for Souji only made Yosuke realize just how infrequently he actually used his name. The word ‘Souji’ didn’t feel natural to say at all— it had always been Partner. Yosuke could only hope that he’d forget about the stupid contact name thing soon enough so that he could go back to using partner as soon as possible.
“Are you sure you’re doing alright?” Souji asked, conveniently dodging the question. “You said my name. You never do that unless you’re upset.” Souji sounded really worried for him, and Yosuke was shocked. He really cared that much about a simple vocabulary change?
“I’m fine, I promise. I just- um-” There was no way in hell that he was going to explain why he’d decided against using the nickname, so he instead forced out a lie. “- didn’t even notice..? It’s dumb anyways, I should probably stop using it.” That part wasn’t entirely a lie; he’d been meaning to stop calling Souji that for ages. Besides, the more he used it the more it started to sound like a pet name someone in a relationship would use. And that was definitely not something he wanted to think about every time he spoke to his best friend.
“It’s not dumb. It’s cute, I like it.” What? He thought it was what?? He didn’t even use one of the designated ‘not gay’ words that Yosuke always forced himself to use, he used cute . That was, like, the worst possible word to use!
“Wh- you’re joking, right?” He was almost certain that Souji was, in fact, not joking, but he only realized that after the question had already left his mouth.
“No, I’m not. Why would I be?”
“Because that sounds-!!” Yosuke looked over at Souji, who didn’t say anything, and decided that saying anything more on the subject would only make it worse. He still couldn’t quite get it out of his head, though, and it was making his heart do things that it really shouldn’t have been doing over a guy. He once again brushed it off as ‘just a reaction that didn’t have to mean anything,’ but he didn’t completely believe that. Once again he’d have to find some sort of justification later, but he had to focus on the conversation at hand.
“But, um, if you don’t want to lead anyone on you just gotta ask someone you know doesn’t have feelings for you. Like, a guy or something. Well any guy except Kanji, cuz, you know..” That last part was meant to be a joke, but Souji certainly didn’t take it that way. He was glaring yet again, and it was just as cold and terrifying as the last time. Neither of them said anything, and that was somehow worse than Souji just straight up insulting him. What was up with him today? Had everything with Rise really affected him that much? Yosuke’s natural instinct was to immediately blame himself for anything bad happening, but this time that didn’t work. He didn’t understand why Souji was even mad in the first place, after all, so he couldn’t blame himself for it.
He was frantically trying to come up with something to say, whether it be an apology or awkwardly laughing it off and hoping that Souji didn’t kill him, but surprisingly his partner was the one to speak up first.
“Okay, then about you?”
“Huh?” He.. misheard that, right?
“What if I told Rise I was dating you?”
“WHA- NO!” Was his instinctive reaction. He barely had any chance to process the question; it really only took the words ‘you’ and ‘boyfriend’ coming out of Souji’s mouth to make him object. Although if he actually did have time to think it through, the answer wouldn’t have been much different. It was Rise he was telling, after all. There’s no way that he could tell the girl of his dreams that he had a boyfriend ! She (probably) had a low enough opinion of him already, and that would only make it worse!
“Aw. Why not?” Yosuke hated the way he sounded genuinely disappointed in his refusal. Hell, Yosuke hated how quickly he’d resorted to asking him in the first place. There wasn’t even an attempt to find anyone else; it had gone straight to him. Why was he so okay with this? Did he not see just how weird it was? Was it another one of his jokes that managed to perfectly masquerade itself as a serious statement?
He’d gotten so lost in trying to decipher the mysteries of the silver haired dork next to him that said dork started looking at him funny, so he had to say something in order to not be awkward.
“Because duh! You’re- we’re-” We’re both guys, you idiot is what he tried to say, but he realized that it was hypocritical. He’s told Souji to ask a guy, after all. But he didn’t mean to ask him!!
“We’re what, Yosuke?”
“You’re my Partner! It would be so weird to have to.. you know!! I don’t want to think of you like that!” It had become less about losing his chances with Rise at this point, and more about not having to pretend to date Souji. He knew that it would most likely be a one time lie and nothing more than that, but the fear that they would have to actually live up to their words was more than enough to make him refuse.
“Why would it be weird? You said to ask someone who doesn’t have feelings for me, and I assume that you don’t. That is, unless..”
“ No!”
“Aw. How unfortunate.” It was just another one of his stupid jokes, Yosuke reminded himself. It didn’t mean anything beyond that. It couldn’t have meant anything beyond that, because he wasn’t sure what to do if it did. “You don’t have to if you’re not comfortable, though. I could always ask someone else.” Right, he could always ask someone else. It’s not like it was going to be the end of the world if he refused. But even despite knowing that, there was something in the back of his heart that was telling him to say yes. It would be a lot easier to believe that he was dating Souji than some random guy, after all.
Yosuke was conflicted. Because on one hand this was the gayest thing in the entire world, and that was not something he wanted to think about every time he hung out with his best friend. But on the other hand, this was just to help him out. It’s not like they were actually dating or anything, right? Besides, the whole point of Souji asking him in the first place was that they didn’t have feelings for each other, right? Plus he’d only be telling Rise— the rest of the team would have no idea. Yosuke wouldn’t have even considered saying yes if he was telling the rest of the group; Chie never would have let him live it down. After silently admitting to himself that his chances with Rise were almost nonexistent, especially with the way she threw herself onto Souji at every given occasion, and slowly started to come to a decision.
He was going to do it. It was just to help out his Partner, after all. What kind of best friend would he be if he stood by while he suffered like this?
“Fine, I’ll do it. But no weird shit! You’re already way too comfortable joking about it so I better not hear anything else come from your mouth about this. And you’re only telling Rise, got it?!” He had to almost force the words out of his mouth, but thankfully he managed to say it all before changing his mind and taking it back. He expected Souji to be thankful and smile, or at least a sort of half smile that he sometimes gave instead of a full one, but instead he was just staring, confused.
“You actually agreed to that? I thought you were going to punch me.” He said it so matter-of-factly that Yosuke couldn’t help but laugh.
“And I will if you don’t just hurry up and tell her already! God, I can’t believe I’m actually doing this. She’s going to think I’m- Ugh!”
“You don’t have to do this if you don’t want to. Seriously, it’s not that big of a deal.”
“No, it’s okay. It’s not like we’re actually dating or anything, it’s just a lie you’re telling her.” It was just a lie. It didn’t have to mean anything. He wasn’t going to let it mean anythingz
“Yeah, you’re right. I just didn’t expect you to actually agree.” He paused, gave a genuine smile that he didn’t seem to see too often, and added, “Thank you, Yosuke.” Immediately, this whole thing was worth it. Souji was looking at him with so much gratitude that the negatives of the whole situation dissipated into nothingness, and it was hard to believe that he’d ever debated saying no.
“It’s no problem. Now hurry up and tell her before I change my mind.”
“Alright then.” Souji unlocked his phone, and started to type out a response to her original question. Yosuke watched him intently, wanting to make sure that he didn’t type something even more embarrassing than it had to be. Though he wasn’t sure how it would even be possible to make this more mortifying than it already was, he was certain that Souji could find a way.
Thankfully his partner seemed to value his sanity over a joke, and only typed out the bare minimum required for Rise to understand the situation. It was painful to read, almost wincing as his name came up right next to the word ‘boyfriend.’ He reminded himself that this was all one big lie and that there was no truth to the statement whatsoever, but that didn’t help the weird feelings bubbling up in his chest.
“Does this look alright?” He looked up at Yosuke, not knowing that he’d been secretly reading over his shoulder the whole time. There was no way that he was going to read that whole thing again— he’d probably melt into the ground if he had to read the word boyfriend next to his name again. So he simply nodded, and Souji clicked send on the text.
There really was no turning back now, huh?
Yosuke could feel his heart beating quickly in his chest, and he had to repeatedly remind himself that it had absolutely nothing to do with the fact that he was now ‘dating’ his best friend. No, it was about Rise’s reaction and her reaction exclusively. What if she thought he was gross or something? The thought hadn’t really occurred to him until just now, but now it was the only thing he could think about.
It felt like ages before she actually responded, though maybe that was just Yosuke’s panic making things feel longer than they were.
Rise: omg rlly? :O i didnt expect that from yoske-senpai. Congrats tho!!!!
They both let out a long sigh of relief as they read that response over. Okay, at least she didn’t completely hate him. It was actually a pleasant surprise if he was being honest; he hadn’t expected her to be anywhere near that happy about it.
“Thank you again. You really didn’t have to do that.” Souji was smiling at him again, and he made sure to take a mental note to remember it. He couldn’t help himself, it was just too endearing to look at.
“It’s no problem, Partner.” He smiled back, largely unintentionally, after observing the amazing sight that he’d just witnessed.
“Now what did you get on that test?”
“Well, uh, about that..”