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With a belabored sigh, Shouko flicks her magazine closed. The fashions may be good, but with the amount the school thinks she’s worth, it’d still take months to save up for a full outfit. By then, it’ll be a new season with new trends and she’ll have wasted all her cash on cigarettes, boots, and more magazines.
Gojou is always an option. That guy spends hundreds of thousands of yen as though it’s pocket change. Currying his favor in that way is just too much of a hassle to ever bother with.
Shouko frowns at the magazine cover. She then flops it to the top of the haphazard mountain that’s formed beside her desk. In a week or two it’ll be toppling over, and she’ll start looking like an actual slob.
From the corner of her eye she looks at Getou, who hasn’t moved once in the last twenty minutes. With his back to her bed and book in hand, he keeps perfect posture like he’s ready to be lectured at a moment’s notice. He’s not reading a light novel like a normal teenage boy, and he’s not reading sorcery books like he often does either. It’s something foreign, but she doesn’t care enough to get a look at it.
After watching him for a few minutes with no reaction, Shouko extends her leg and reaches until her toes come into contact with Getou’s bare knee. “Ne. Is this really how we’re gonna spend our free day, Getou?”
Getou doesn’t look away from his book. He just barely shrugs a single shoulder. “If that’s how you feel, you’re more than welcome to suggest something. I’m up for anything.”
Shouko hums and curls her toes around the hair on his shin. She watches for the inevitable twitch of reaction when she tugs too far. “So lazy. It’s always me who has to decide.”
“Don’t like being in charge, Shouko?”
“Oh, I wouldn’t say that.” She pulls her foot away from Getou’s leg and to the edge of the bed, settling her heel on Getou’s shoulder. She keeps herself propped up with her arms, leaving her legs splayed wide.
Getou is practically enclosed. That’s what gets Getou’s eyes off his book, though he doesn’t close it.
Shouko meets his raised eyebrows with her own.
Coolly, his gaze slides down the length of one smooth, bare leg, and up the other. Back to her face, then, and he says with a playful smile, “Careful. Wouldn’t want me to catch a glimpse up your skirt, now, would you?”
“Maybe if I were wearing a skirt, Getou-kun. Or can you see up my shorts, too?” Shouko wiggles her leg, slow and tantalizing, while Getou scrutinizes her thighs, where her loose shorts hang, but not enough to expose anything.
“Afraid not.”
“No? Maybe you need to take a closer look.”
“I assure you I looked very closely. There was nothing. What, wearing some cute panties you want to show off?”
Shouko clicks her tongue. “You wish.”
“Ah. I see. So, you’re wearing ugly panties, then. Or maybe some very childish panties? Don’t worry, Shouko, I promise to not tease you too much.”
The fact she can actually hit him when he proves himself an irredeemable idiot is only a small part of why he’s preferable to Gojou.
That he’s not indignant about it afterward is also a point in his favor.
Getou chuckles, and lets his book slip off his lap without bothering to mark the page. There’s a look on his face that’s almost fond, but there’s also something indulgent in that that leaves Shouko wanting to yank his hair.
She’s not Gojou.
If he’s going to treat them similarly, it shouldn’t be like that, of all ways.
Yanking his hair can come later, though.
Shouko moves to sit in the space between Getou’s legs. She pulls up her knees and hugs his thighs to her with her ankles, so she can feel like she has her hooks in him. She crosses her arms.
Getou blinks at her. “And how am I supposed to see your panties, now?”
“You are such a dumb boy, Getou.”
“Am I?” he asks with a laugh.
They’re close enough she can feel the heat of his breath ghosting along her cheekbones. There’s a tingle of peppermint that sends a shiver down her spine, and she swallows.
She likes the curve of his mouth, the line of his brow; the way they come together to form one wholly unrestrained emotion.
From afar, he doesn’t come off all that approachable, but he gives himself so freely, so readily, to whomever is open to receiving him.
That makes one of them very, very unlucky, but she’s not sure if it’ll be Getou or Gojou in the long run.
Shouko, on the other hand, knows better.
She’s also not all that interested, but also…
Getou’s hands are so light on her hips they’re hovering. A dumb and polite boy who’s happy to be strung along for a ride, so long as it’s a good time.
If Shouko were going to kiss a boy, it might as well be Getou.
She reaches a hand forward and twirls his hair around her finger idly.
Getou watches her, and when his gaze flickers to her it’s with a knowing smile. The clearest invitation in the world.
As if she’d give him the satisfaction.
She takes a firm grip on his hair and yanks. As he grunts, Shouko scoffs. “You wish, pretty boy.”
“Aw, you think I’m pretty, Shouko?”
“Yeah, and you’re gonna be a lot less pretty when I’m through with you.”
Getou laughs, but there’s nothing condescending about it. His fingertips touch her skin with enough friction to create a spark.
Getou’s head inclines just so—maybe intention, maybe happenstance. Whichever the case, she takes a sharp, soft breath.
It might as well happen.
It might as well be him.
It’s not like her love life is thriving.
So, why not. This is what youth is supposed to be all about, isn’t it.
Shouko flutters her eyelids shut, and allows her jaw to loosen.
In the darkness his scent is stronger, masculine but diffused, and she welcomes it.
It’s like a movie.
And equally like a movie, the moment is spoiled by an uninvited interloper.
Her door, which was definitely locked, bursts open.
“Suguru!”
Gojou’s voice is booming in her small room, like he’s calling out to him down the hall. Shouko can’t help but cringe at the volume, but when she focuses back on Getou, his eyes have lit up at Gojou’s intrusion.
“Ehh… Getou, you invited Gojou?”
A betrayal so to speak. One of them. Not both of them. Though there are exceptions, that’s the general rule.
“I didn’t,” Getou answers without looking at her. “I thought you were going to the Gojou Estate.”
“Changed my mind.” Gojou makes his way over in two long strides and plops right next to them. He sighs and rolls his neck. His sunglasses balanced on the crown of his head slip downwards, but don’t fall. “What’re you up to?”
The question doesn’t include Shouko. Just like that she’s been turned into a third wheel in her own bedroom—while poised over Getou’s lap, at that. And…
With a small shiver she realizes Getou’s hands are gone.
When? Did he remove them because Gojou took notice? Or did he drop them the moment Gojou came into the picture?
It’s uncomfortably chilly without them.
“We were deciding how to spend our free day,” Getou says.
“Yeah?” Gojou hums, unimpressed, and he looks over them both without comment. Though, the way he presses to Getou’s side is statement enough. He coils his arms around Getou while not coming into contact with Shouko once. “Come up with anything? Doesn’t look like it so far.”
“No. But the weather isn’t great for going out anyway. Do you have any suggestions?”
“Hmmm. Let me think…”
Getou winces. “Ah. Ah... Satoru…”
The expression that dawns over Getou’s face isn’t one Shouko’s seen before. There’s a split second of embarrassment that quickly clouds over with desire. His eyelashes quiver in his indecision as he glances at her and away.
Shy isn’t the right word for it. Maybe self-conscious.
They are crowding him on all sides, after all. He’s the only one with shortened breath, and the only one putting off heat like a lantern. His fingers are scrunched against the floor.
Getou’s shirt shifts as Gojou’s hand moves under it. The waves start at his stomach, gradually rising to his chest. That’s when Getou’s eyes widen, and he quietly gasps Gojou’s name. The sound is too hollow to pass as admonishment or encouragement.
Abruptly, and with a molten drop in her stomach, Shouko realizes the increasingly hazy look on his face is arousal.
It’s different from how he gets when they mess around in the classroom, like her bedroom is an intimate space.
“Shouko.”
Startled, Shouko straightens her back, but manages to school her expression into disgruntlement when she turns to Gojou. “What?”
“See something you like?” he asks with a cheeky grin.
“And what could I possibly like here?”
“Suguru, of course,” he says, and nuzzles Getou, who makes a soft sound as he nuzzles back. “Or me.” Gojou grins wider as though to challenge her.
Shouko rolls her eyes. “Not in a million years.”
Gojou sticks his tongue out at her. “Saaame.”
With a chuckle, Shouko shifts her attention. “Hey, Getou-kun.”
“Hm.”
“Should we pick up where we left off? Before being so rudely interrupted.”
Getou hums. His head drops toward her.
The kiss is remarkably gentle, in contrast to what the intense heat forming around them would dictate. Though the fit isn’t perfect, it’s not as fumbling as she expects. It’s like any other kiss she’s had, really. Just, this one is with Getou, whose lips are soft and pliant, and who doesn’t let his gaze stray to Gojou once.
She likes it. She likes when one of his hands comes to rest on her side, half on bare skin and half on the thin fabric of her tank top. She likes how dark and defined his eyelashes are when they’re this close.
She likes his long hair; she likes how she can grab it and urge him closer to deepen the kiss.
Eager, his mouth parts for her, and he meets her halfway. Their tongues meet, entwine, slide. He tastes exactly as she always thought he might. Of smoke and mint and something indescribably muddy, but she can’t say she dislikes it much at all. In fact, there may even be something a little addictive in it.