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“Why did you come back?”
Io looked up, stopping in his tracks when he realized Ryuu had stopped too and was staring right at him, hands on his hips as he waited for an answer. Io noticed that Yumoto, En, and Atsushi were re-entering the school with Wombat, and he nodded at Atsushi when he turned back to glance at them. This wasn’t exactly a conversation he wanted to have in public anyway; having it in the club room with the four others staring would’ve been awkward.
“I told you, I was calculating the profit margin I’d achieve if I joined the student council,” Io responded, shrugging his shoulders nonchalantly.
“Yeah, and when I asked you what ended up being more profitable for you, you answered that you couldn’t tell me that.” Ryuu walked closer to Io, stopping when he was face to face with him. He removed a hand from his hip, pointing an accusing finger in Io’s face before speaking up again. “I don’t believe that! You should’ve come up with that calculation in your head before you finished asking yourself the question!”
Io simply laughed. “I hadn’t even been gone from the club for two hours, Ryuu. I didn’t even make it to the end of the school day.”
“That’s supposed to make it better?” Ryuu’s tone quieted down from the loud and wild way he had been speaking to a soft, quiet almost-whisper. It left Io feeling unnerved; it was very unlike Ryuu. “You still left. You still looked at me in the eye and told me that money doesn’t betray, even though you were doing just that.”
“Ryuu...”
“Fine.” Both of Ryuu’s hands came to grab at Io’s shoulders, gripping onto his jacket tightly almost as though Io would vanish if he loosened his hold in any way. “I can’t stop you from whatever decisions you make, but after all this time, shouldn’t you realize that I’m in it with you? Whatever damn profit you’re running after, you’ll get it. No, I guess money doesn’t betray, but I don’t either.”
Io opened his mouth to speak, but no words came out. He shouldn’t have been surprised to hear Ryuu’s comments, yet he still was - if the pale blush that painted his cheeks didn’t make it obvious.
“Those three might not get it, but I do. They haven’t known you as long as I have. Don’t play me like that again, sheesh.” Ryuu let out a loud sigh as he removed his hands from Io’s shoulders. Io cleared his throat nervously, tugging the hem of his jacket down to straighten his clothes out. “Whatever it was that got the rusty gears in your head spinning, I’m glad you were able to answer yourself.”
Ryuu turned on his heels, heading toward the door to re-enter the school. As he climbed the few steps leading up to it, Io’s voice stopped him from reaching for the doorknob.
“It was you.”
“Huh? Don’t be so vague!” Ryuu shouted, an eyebrow arched up curiously. “Say what you want to say!”
Io hurried to catch up with him, climbing up the stairs until he was standing one below Ryuu, looking up at him with a timid grin on his face. “For one that praises himself so much, and so often, I’m surprised you didn’t deduce this one on your own already.”
“What the hell are you talking about?” Ryuu’s eyes were wide. The gears in his head were spinning rapidly, working on over drive, putting two and two together albeit much slower than he was used to and would’ve liked.
“You asked me which I determined more profitable, joining the student council or otherwise, I assume.”
“Y-yeah...” Io grinned; it took a lot to make Ryuu fall at a loss for words.
“And yet, despite your sometimes insane levels of self-confidence, you never once came to the conclusion that maybe what I determined more profitable was you?”
Io took Ryuu’s stunned expression and silence as a chance to grab his wrist, opening the door with his free hand before tugging Ryuu inside along with him. Standing in the empty stairwell, Io folded his arms across his chest, leaning against the wall. It felt good to have the words have life breathed into them by speaking them aloud instead of simply letting them run around in his head for no one, including himself, to hear. It made him feel even more energized than he did when he transformed and attacked the monster earlier.
“True, my actual weekly income would increase, and as a result my net worth would profit as well. Interest would play a key factor in just how much it would increase, but at the end of the day none of it really mattered when I calculated it out. There are other things I could do to get the same result, and most of those ways included an even better monetary gain. There are multiple ways I could earn money from multiple things, but there’s only one of you, Ryuu.”
“You can’t just...” Ryuu blinked. “You can’t say...” His usual quick tongue was silenced and he had no comeback, had no comment; he had nothing but wide-eyed stares and unfinished sentences.
“I didn’t like seeing that thing’s hands on you.” There, now it was really out in the open. “No, we know nothing of our enemy, and so far every single monster’s been rather idiotic, but I still didn’t like it. It looked too much like the beginning of one of those movies you have to pay for late at night.”
“Wait just a second!” Ryuu’s faint blush had deepened tremendously. “That was so embarrassing... This is so embarrassing...What exactly did you think was going to happen?! And, wait, you watch those...?!”
“I don’t really know.” Io shrugged, but his grin never wavered but widened instead, all shades of previous shyness erased. “Those three were kind of just watching. Kinugawa-senpai’s face was pretty amusing, but I couldn’t just watch. I didn’t like seeing you like that. I didn’t like it touching you like that, especially not if I could stop it.”
Ryuu stayed quiet, regarding Io for a few moments. There was no sign of teasing or jokes in his face. Io looked quite honest, all serious and confident and really pretty attractive and if Ryuu thought he was blushing like mad before, he was wrong. His face was probably the same color as his hair, he was certain of it.
“So you came back for me,” he started, letting his mind mull over his words as he spoke them. “You came back to help me. You knocked that thing out with one punch, for me. You chose staying with the defense club despite whatever the student council would give you, for me.”
“That’s right,” Io agreed.
“You told it to take its filthy hands off of me,” Ryuu added, his confidence gradually rising back up to its normal position. “You told it you wouldn’t tolerate it touching me.”
“Indeed, I said those things.”
Ryuu simply nodded, finding himself smiling as the events of the past hour replayed in his head. He stepped in closer to Io, mimicking his stance by folding his arms across his chest. “I can understand why you’d choose me over them. I could help you make thousands just by standing next to you. Gero’s ugly face would subtract from your profit and put you in the red.”
Io laughed, rolling his eyes. He had kind of liked seeing Ryuu stutter and trip over his words thanks to how embarrassed he was, but it was this Ryuu - the confident, arrogant, self-assured Ryuu - that he really knew and liked the best. Io couldn’t deny that he had grown incredibly fond of him, regardless if the words ever left his mouth or not.
“So I see you finally understand my decision?” Io questioned, pushing himself off of the wall so he was standing upright again.
Ryuu laughed. “I do. Next time, don’t scare me for an hour while you figure it out!” He punched Io’s shoulder playfully. “And next time, don’t let some weird late night pay-per-view movie monster force a decision out of you.”
“Deal!” Io laughed, hand holding onto the banister as he began to walk up the stairs leading toward their club room. “Next time, don’t let your emotions get you caught by a weird late night pay-per-view movie monster and its metal tentacles.”
“Oh my god.” Ryuu stared at Io as he began climbing the second flight of stairs. He glared at him, frowning before he raced to catch up. “I did not let myself get caught! I was angry! And those were not... Don’t call them that!”
“You were angry, all right!” Io teased, hurrying to beat Ryuu to the club room. “They looked like metal tentacles to me!”
“You were ditching me for money and Gero’s ugly face, I had every right to be angry! And, stop it! That’s gross!”
“Jealous, were you, Ryuu?” Io made it up the last flight of stairs and turned to look down, facing Ryuu. Ryuu stopped at the center of the staircase, pausing to catch his breath. “I should’ve made a bet, I would’ve won some money.”
“You know...” Ryuu trailed off, slowly walking up the rest of the stairs to meet Io. “For all this love-talk Wombat keeps doing, you really suck at it.”
“Excuse me??” Io whirled around, gaze following Ryuu when he passed him to make his way to the closed club room door.
"Never, ever, ever, speak to Gero again unless I am present." Ryuu grabbed a hold of the doorknob, but the look he sent Io was nothing short of a flirtatious one - half-lidded eyes, a shy smirk, head tilted just slightly to throw Io for a loop.
“I'm no student council member, but I’m super positive that dating me will be profitable monetary-wise. And who knows what else it could earn you? Maybe it’s even better.” Ryuu shrugged playfully, then made his way into the defense club room, greeted by the shouts and reprimands of Wombat.
“I do not suck at love-talk...” Io grumbled, but was smiling in spite of his words. “How in the world do all those girls handle you?” Chuckling, Io finally followed Ryuu into the club room, closing the door behind him.