Chapter Text
When Kanako was in kindergarten, she met public enemy number one.
Of course, in retrospect, public enemy number one hadn't really done a lot to earn her eternal spite. He had been quietly applying paste on that shy kid's lunch box, and she had taken one look at Shun-kun's poor tumbler and said, with the arrogance of a child, "Yuuta-kun's playing with Shun-kun again, huh?"
Her hated foe didn't bother to level her with a look, simply choosing to clean out his nails with the nonchalance she'd only ever seen on adults. "Sensei's playing with Shun-chan too."
It was the inflection that made Kanako hit him with her Bishoujo Sailor Senshi doll and cry.
As far as she was concerned, that particular scene in her preschool years was a stain in her otherwise beautiful memories of childhood. Call it selective blindness or hypocrisy, but the boy had absolutely no right to judge a girl's preferences for older men. Perhaps if she had been a boy, it would have been the start of a (grudgingly) close friendship, but because she was a girl and held a grudge like Amaterasu on a bad day, she proceeded to snub him all throughout the year. (Especially when that cute high school boy came to class for a few sessions. If she hadn't been too distracted, she would have never lived it down.)
It was with some relief that she rarely saw him during elementary school, and she cherished his absence even as she nurtured years and years of bitterness over the brat's popularity among their peers. She'd gotten into a fight of epic proportions with Hisako once, when Hisako had made the mistake of implying something other than her raging hatred for the guy, and it was only resolved through a sufficient amount of bribery and flattery. At least Hisako had the good sense not to mention it ever again.
Too bad her luck seemed to run out come junior high school.
"Oh fuck," blurted out Kanako when she saw him lounging around the doorway to their classroom, "it's you."
The annoyance squinted at her, for a second, before turning to one of their classmates. "Do you know this girl?"
Kanako had never wanted to hit someone as if her life depended on it as much as she did then and there.
It didn't help that when break time had arrived, Shun-kun -- no, Matsuoka-san, she reminded herself, they were at school! -- visibly brightened at seeing her and said, very cheerfully, "Kana-chan, I didn't know you were classmates with Yuuki-kun."
Asaba Yuuta looked at her with some interest, but Yuuki's face didn't even register the slightest trace of recognition. "Who?" Yuuki said, but as Shun opened his mouth to explain, he'd already grown bored and chose to fascinate himself with his brother's hair. Yuuta didn't seem to be bothered by it too much, but Kanako didn't remember having problems with him. He'd mostly kept close to Shun in kindergarten (and apparently until now), and she'd thought he was a pretty cool and okay --
"I heard Azuma-sensei's your homeroom teacher," said Yuuta. "Isn't it nice to rekindle a childhood love?"
Bastard, Kanako decided viciously. No wonder they were brothers.
"Ah," said Yuuki, simply. "So you were the cake eater."
"Yuuki-kun," admonished Shun.
"I thought cake eaters were men who liked older women," said Yuuta.
"I dunno," said Yuuki. "It's the first time I've seen a real, live specimen of her kind."
Kanako wanted to crawl into a cave and die. "That's hardly appropriate classroom discussion," said Kanako, tightly. She closed her eyes and thought of all the nice things in the world. Cake. Perfect report cards. Azuma-sensei. Beating the crap out of Asaba Yuuki -- oh wait, like that wasn't counterproductive. What she needed was to regain her center and forget his past transgressions, if she wanted to become student council president in the future. Think of this as training, she told herself. Think of the power. The prestige. Think of what Azuma-sensei will say. Think of--
"Can I call you cake eater in class?" Yuuki said.
Kanako, very calmly, raised her hand to grab at his hair.
The suspension she got was almost worth it.
Almost.
Somehow, the entire class had translated her declaration of war as proof of their undeniable love. "I think it's so romantic," said the girl two seats behind her during gym class. "You've been pining for so long and now you're finally getting fed up of waiting for him to make a move."
"What," said Kanako, flatly.
"Boys can be idiots," another chimed in, "but you don't have to worry about Yuuki-kun. He may act like that but I'll bet he likes you a lot too."
"What," repeated Kanako. Apparently even girls were stupid when it came to imagined romances.
She was so upset over how her classmates had misinterpreted her aggression that she didn't notice when she tripped over a wayward volleyball. She sprained her ankle and got looks of pity from the attractive (and older, fine, could the world stop judging her now?) gym teacher, which wasn't that bad. What took the cake, however, was when some blonde idiot had crowed at Yuuki to "man up and take his girlfriend to the nurse". And the bastard hadn't denied anything.
"Great," said Kanako, visibly seething as Yuuki offered her his shoulder. "Just what I needed."
"Do you want me to princess carry you?" Yuuki said.
"I can walk," said Kanako, sharply, but she still looked uncertain even as Yuuki bent to crouch down, as if telling her to climb on.
Yuuki gave her that look that made all of their female classmates erupt in a chorus of awwwws and created yet another rumor of their non-existent relationship, which, frankly, Kanako thought was disgusting. Filtered through the strange-boy-speak system of her brain, Yuuki was probably giving her his version of triumphant glee (it really didn't amount to much), and it was like kindergarten all over again only worse because now Kanako's hormones chose that exact moment to go into overdrive and admit that, yeah, sure, she was an inverted cake eater, but Yuuki was kind of. Well.
She cut that thought off, immediately. Kanako tried to channel her version of a finger for his thoughts. Some things were better left as uncharted territory.
"Tsukahara-san," said Yuuki, mocking even when he didn't mean to be, "you can't keep me waiting forever."
For the first time in a long time, Kanako felt as though she were well and truly fucked.