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Her hatred of Tōdō Aoi went as far back as her first day in Kyōto. A buff dumbass nearly knocked her unconscious in the line for Takada-chan’s meet and greet—one of those creepy weirdos who thought they were special to the idol—flailing his arms like crazy because Takada-chan had tossed a flower into the crowd. The sorceress was the one who caught the flower—obviously, Takada-chan had meant it for a pretty girl, not some dumb man. She understood Takada-chan better than those fake fans.
When she walked into the classroom two weeks later and spotted that same dumbass in the front row, she knew it was a wrap. She could handle curses, awful teachers, and tough missions, but creeps who harassed Takada-chan were the lowest of low. She was going to kill him.
“You—!“ The buffoon sprung from his seat, jabbing a finger at her, jealousy in his snarl. “You are the weasel who stole Takada-chan’s flower!”
“Stole?” she spat. “You almost took the heads off four people with your shovel arms, numbskull! She had tossed it to me.”
“To you?” He looked at her as if she’d grown another head. “She looked me right in the eye as she threw it!”
“Oh my god, not another one,” a short blond girl groaned quietly, pressing a palm to her forehead.
“Refrain from confrontation, our teacher will be here in a moment. Introductions are due,” a black-haired guy in dated, traditional garb said coolly.
The arrival of the teacher put hostilities on hold, but she made sure to slip the flower she’d preserved in resin and made a decoration on a hairclip out of a pocket and tuck it into her hair, smirking at the despair in his eyes. Yup, that creep was going down. For Takada-chan’s sake.
Tōdō Aoi hated the newbie with a passion. A dirty rat, scuttling for Takada-chan’s flower which she’d clearly thrown to him. He would’ve taken her head off to get it if Takada-chan hadn’t been so close and looking at him with so much love. He didn’t want to scare his future wife with jujutsu things. They could worry about that after the engagement.
He hadn’t considered that the girl would end up in his class. One of those delusional fangirls—she looked exactly like the type that would try to follow Takada-chan’s car to find her apartment—she was the lowest of low. In fact, she was jealous, Tōdō reasoned. Unlike the tall and gorgeous Takada-chan who had all womanly charms in her flowy dresses and beautiful hairstyles, that creepy stalker girl was short and plain, wore black hoodies and leggings with a messy bird’s nest of a bun on top of her little head. An otaku. An ex-hikikomori, dragged out of her creep cave to attend jujutsu high, for sure.
One thing was certain—Tōdō would kill her eventually.
Killing the fangirl proved more difficult than he would’ve liked. He was doing a great job of it—pummeling the otaku into a pulp when they were paired up to spar—when, suddenly, all her injuries disappeared and a wave of intense pain washed over him. He fell to his knees, struggling to breathe, and she rose from the puddle of blood on the floor where he’d thrown her, grinning.
“What’s that, fanboy? Punctured a lung?” She chuckled and kicked him.
He landed on his back, gritting his teeth through the pain. “What the hell did you—?”
“Aww, didn’t you do any research?” She clicked her tongue, blood in her teeth. “This is why you’ll never take Takada-chan from me—I’ve learned everything there is to your dumbass technique. You didn’t even ask around about mine.”
The lack of blood flow to his brain impaired his ability to think, but when he took inventory of the injuries, Aoi realized they were the exact ones he’d inflicted on her.
“Don’t tell me you just figured it out?” She laughed. “Wow. Well, the sales for her next handshake event start in seventeen minutes. That’s why you were rushing to finish me, right? I guess one of us won’t make it in time to get a ticket.” She leaned over him and patted his head like a dog’s. “Sucks to be you, buddy.”
“Should we call a doctor?” Momo asked a teacher from the sidelines.
Iori Utahime sighed. “In twenty minutes.”
She knew him well because, after watching the otaku walk away, Tōdō Aoi mustered all his strength to crawl to his phone and pushed through the pain long enough to secure a ticket. His dedication to Takada-chan was stronger than anyone’s. He wouldn’t miss seeing her even if he had to come from beyond the grave to do it.
The fangirl, he decided right before passing out, would pay.
Her disappointment to see the patched-up fanboy ahead of her in line was immeasurable, but Takada-chan was so cute and energetic that the sorceress could forget about him for the time being and profess her unwavering love and support to the idol. Problems began when it was over and the two of them had to return to the school.
He took the same road, the same train, and got off at the same station, glaring at her silently. She glared right back. As they passed the school gates, he finally spoke.
“You caught me off guard. Don’t think it’ll happen again,” he said.
“Hah. You really don’t get it,” she replied, putting her hands on her hips. “No matter what you do to me, it’ll transfer to you. You can’t hurt me without killing yourself, stupid.”
“I can if I vaporize you before you can activate the technique,” he growled, getting in her face.
“What makes you think you won’t be vaporized after I’m dead?” she shot back, lifting her heels off the ground to be closer to his eye level.
He stared her down for a long, long time, rubbing his chin.
“Are we . . . rivals in love?” he asked.
She huffed. “How are we rivals when you don’t stand a chance?”
“Takada-chan doesn’t even like girls!”
“If you saw how she looked at me, you wouldn’t be so sure,” she defended and rolled her eyes. “Leave it to a man to speak for a woman and what she likes.”
“I’m her future husband,” he hissed.
“Over my dead body.”
“Doable.”
“Let’s see it then.” She spread her arms, daring him to attack.
Light hands descended on both their heads. Iori Utahime looked from one to the other, disappointed. “Can you two get along for one day?”
“If she wasn’t—” Tōdō began.
“We’re rivals in love,” the young sorceress cut him off, crossing her arms. “We’ll never get along.”
Tōdō blinked. Grinned. “So you acknowledge me?”
“That still doesn’t mean you stand a chance,” she said, cheeks coloring slightly. “It’s my duty as Takada-chan’s defender to keep freaks like you in line.”
“Heh, we’ll see about that.” He offered a hand. “My rival.”
She shook it.
Her advantage in fights was usually that she could withstand more pain and physical damage than anyone. Typically, the moment her damage was transferred, the other party would simply pass out from shock. Tōdō Aoi had been the first to stay conscious on the receiving end of her technique and she would’ve been a liar if she’d said that hadn’t concerned her. The more they sparred, it seemed, the more he got used to it, the longer he could fight after being injured. He was astoundingly tactical in battle, learned to hit and break on her what he could best stand to fight through on himself.
Tōdō was a frightening opponent and she was starting to see why he’d been scouted, despite not coming from a family of sorcerers. After the first year, he’d pushed her past her limits thrice and strengthened both her cursed technique and his physical endurance.
They were still rivals, of course, and she had no intention of giving up Takada-chan to him, but they’d managed to find common ground in appreciating her. When there was a fan event, initially they glared at one another from across the room and scowled at each other on the way back, but after their first year of high school they’d worked up to travelling to the venue together and bickering about who Takada-chan would speak to longer. When there was a fan-voted contest, they sat side by side in the dorm living room, making burner accounts in a competition of who could cast the most votes to bring Takada-chan victory.
So gradually that she didn’t notice until it was too late, Tōdō Aoi became a constant annoying presence in her everyday life. She realized it during summer break when the girls met up to go to a beach together and she found that no one talked back to her, no one argued with her, and no one challenged her. She spent the whole day without her temper flaring up and it had left an odd taste in her mouth.
“I won rock-paper-scissors, I’m going first,” she hissed, elbowing Tōdō out of the way as they stood in line for a handshake event.
“You cheated!” he said, trying to drag her back.
“It’s not my fault you can’t count to three, dumbass!”
“Don’t you dare call me a dumbass in front of Takada-chan, fangirl!”
They ended up stumbling out in front of the idol together and were greeted with a bright smile and a comment that ruined both their day.
“Aw, it’s you guys! You’re such a cute couple!” Takada-chan said and shook their hands as they stood, stunned. One of the security guards began pushing them on ahead.
“W-Wait a minute, Takada-chan—” the sorceress tried to explain.
“She’s not even my type—” Aoi tried just as hard.
In the end they were pushed out, both pale and disturbed. Their eyes met. They both retched.
“Damn it! Now she’ll think I cheated on her!” he howled as they walked home, wiping tears and snot in turn.
“Agh! The admin timed me out already and that was only part four of the explanation,” she cried, refreshing the fanclub page on her phone. “How am I gonna post the rest if I’m on cooldown for three whole days?” She dragged a hand over her face. “I can’t believe Takada-chan could think I would ever betray her like this.”
“This wouldn’t have happened if you’d just let me go first,” he said, rounding on her.
“Huh? Your damn hand was on my back, that’s why she thought we were together,” she shot back, gagging at the word ‘together’.
“You stumbled, damn otaku, I couldn’t have you flailing around as you fell, you could’ve scratched Takada-chan!”
“I would rather die than scratch Takada-chan, idiot!” She shoved at his chest. “And if I had fallen, she would’ve helped me up, but you had to grab me like a dumbass!”
He threw his hands up. “This is the worst.”
“No shit, Sherlock.” She sighed. “We’re screwed.”
Although Takada-chan had no way of looking into their daily lives, the two stayed away from each other as if they could prove her wrong that way, anxiously waiting for a chance to redeem themselves. But the event season had passed and the most they could see of the idol was on TV.
Aoi waited for every stream and variety show appearance with bated breath and heard the same sounds blaring from her room which was right under his. Sometimes he thought it was a waste they no longer hoarded the remote in the shared living room, elbowing each other off the sofa in anticipation of Takada-chan’s newest interview and showcase.
He had to admit that the fangirl had made him not only a stronger sorcerer but also a better fan. With her around, his knowledge of Takada-chan trivia was constantly tested, his dedication too, and when he had to gush about the idol’s excellence there was always someone who would listen and understand.
The rivalry persevered, of course. No one in the world could love Takada-chan as much as he could—that was the absolute truth and he wasn’t opposed to proving it as often as their frequent spats necessitated. Not that he saw a genuine threat in the short, snappy fangirl—unlike her, he was totally Takada-chan’s type—but a rivalry that made both parties better was closest to brotherhood and Aoi engaged in it because he thought it mutually beneficial. Despite the fact that she didn’t have a shot with Takada-chan, the fangirl deserved respect for her commitment to their idol and her prowess as a sorceress. Only a worthy rival could push him to the evolve-or-die line like she had. She was the single non-boring classmate he had, after all.
Aoi truly thought that would be the extent of their relationship.
The eccentric meathead grew on her through the years. By their third year, he was certifiably stronger than her, yet he continued to push and beat her into improvising, thinking on her feet, and strategizing. Meathead or not, he was a duelist a cut above the rest and she spiteful enough to want to bring him to his knees once more.
“Brother! I introduce to you—my rival in love,” he boasted to a first-year from Tōkyō after the goodwill event.
“Um . . . what?” the boy mumbled, glancing from Tōdō to her.
“He’s delusional and I’m his classmate,” she said to Itadori Yūji and offered a hand he shook gently. “You did well with that special grade.”
“Where were you anyway?” Aoi cut in, turning to her.
“What a stupid question,” she said, crossing her arms. “You saw that Takada-chan posted a selfie before the event started. I can’t be wasting time when the tutorials on her look were going up. I’m wearing that makeup for her next concert.”
“Ah, that’s reasonable then,” Aoi said, nodding in approval.
“It is?” Yūji mumbled, raising a brow.
She shrugged. “No offense, but without Okkotsu Yuta on your side, it wasn’t necessary for me to be out there. Takada-chan likes to see girls recreate her looks for events. I have to be on top of trends.”
Itadori Yūji squinted at them. “Are—Are you guys—?”
“No!” “My brother! How could you assume—!”
“Okay, okay, I get it!”
Takada-chan’s biggest Kyōto concert yet was two days only. Both Tōdō Aoi and his rival in love were awake in the early morning hours, sitting in the hallway in front of the locked staff room where the router was—she with her laptop, he on his smartphone—obsessively refreshing the webpage. They knew it would sell out in less than ten minutes and being premium members of the fanclub didn’t guarantee they would get floor tickets.
“If the WiFi goes out because of you I’ll kill you,” she said, tapping incessantly.
“You’re the one who has three browsers open,” he replied.
“I can’t believe they wouldn’t give us the key to the staff room,” she grumbled. “This is not a game, we can’t do this if the Internet connection isn’t reliable.”
“I should’ve gone to an Internet café after all,” he mused, refreshing.
“Would’ve lowered your chances for sure.”
“No way, you’re connected by cable there.”
“Yes way, how many people do you think are around you in an Internet café, using up the connection and the signal?”
“Doesn’t matter, I only need one ticket.” He looked down on her. “You’ll never get two seats.”
“Wanna bet? My middle school friend and I are both trying to buy, that’s double the chance, dumbass.”
“Well—”
The top of the hour arrived and the battle for tickets began.
“Yes!” she screamed seven minutes in, leaping to her feet with joy. “My friend got in!” She turned to stick her tongue out at him. “Take that!”
“I still have a chance!” he shouted. “Give me your laptop, keep refreshing!”
She nudged it over to him with a foot, grinning triumphantly. “Good luck, half of Kyōto is on there right now.”
The absolute misery on his face when the reloaded screen showed the words ‘sold out’ was delicious to her. She pitied him, of course, but her excitement over seeing Takada-chan up close on the first day was greater than her pity for Aoi.
“I . . . I can’t believe this,” he said, breathless, phone falling from limp fingers. “How could this happen?”
She shrugged. “Sucks to be you, Aoi.” And collected her laptop, fishing her phone out of a pocket to answer her friend’s call.
The closer the concert drew, the less light there was in Tōdō Aoi’s eyes. She’d expected him to pester her and try to buy her ticket off her, but he didn’t. After exhausting all avenues, he sat on the stairs outside the school, hugging his knees with a blank expression.
“I guess this is what it takes to take down that monster,” she said to Momo, watching him from a window.
“If he finally snaps, it’ll be a mess,” Momo said, shaking up her fruit yogurt.
“Unlucky,” the sorceress commented, opening her bento box.
A day before the concert she got a text from her middle school friend who’d fallen ill and couldn’t make it to Kyōto for the concert. As it turned out, he was not unlucky. She sighed and spun around in her desk chair for a while, thinking. It was more fun to hold it over his head that she’d had an experience with Takada-chan that he hadn’t, but if she put herself in his shoes, she knew what she had to do.
A quick walk brought her to his door. Aoi didn’t answer, despite her three knocks.
“Open up, dumbass, I’ll take the damn door off the hinges!” she snapped, eye twitching but, with a light push, the door opened on its own.
Tōdō Aoi lay on the floor in his uniform, curled up in a ball of despair, mumbling, “I’m dreaming. This is all a bad dream. I’m going to wake up in time to get a ticket. This is a nightmare, it’s not real.”
“Wow, you are a serious nutcase.” She stepped into the room, the skirt of her uniform swaying about her knees. “Listen. You’ve got luck because my friend texted she’s too sick to come. So now I have a spare ticket.”
His eyes shone. “A-Are you saying—”
She sighed, exasperated. “Yes, you can come with me. This time only.”
He grabbed her ankle, crying. “You’re actually a good person!”
“Hey, I was always a good person!” She kicked at him with the other foot.
“Thank you! You’re invited to our wedding!”
“Keep dreaming, dumbass. And let go already!”
“Ah.” He blinked, looking up. “Takada-chan advertised that panty brand. I have the blue ones.”
She kicked him straight in the eyes. “Now you’re looking up my skirt? Pervert!”
He waited for her outside her bedroom door. They agreed to go queue a few hours early and he tapped his foot irritably, checking the time on his phone.
“Come on, we can’t be late!” he yelled.
“Shut up, I’m coming!” she shot back through the door. “These heels are freaking tall!”
Never in their three years of rivalry did Aoi look at her and see anything but an opponent and a rival in love. Yet, as she stepped out of the room, wearing an incredible copy of the outfit Takada-chan wore for her debut with her latest makeup look and a cute Takada-chan collab purse handing off her arm, something in Aoi shifted.
“What? I’ll take no slander, I sewed this myself,” she grumbled. “I don’t wanna get squished in the crowd but I’ll admit these heels might be a bit overkill.” She took a step and her ankle rolled.
He managed to catch her before she fell.
“Sheesh, thanks,” she mumbled, going red. “I wanted to wear these so I could see her better, but I’m not good at walking in heels.”
“Grab onto me then,” he blurted out. Their eyes met. He cleared his throat and averted his gaze. “A-Anyway, let’s go we’ll be late.”
“Y-Yeah, that’s what I was gonna say.”
He didn’t look at her again, stewing in the unusual feelings that had a grip on his guts as they queued. She was so not his type. He definitely didn’t see her as a woman. Not in a million years. It was Takada-chan’s clothes, he reasoned. Not that she looked like Takada-chan, but pretty clothes made any woman pretty, right?
Right?
She did not comment on the fact that he neither removed her hand from his forearm nor complained about her holding onto him as they made their way to their section. The concert was the best Takada-chan had ever given and, by the end of it, both the sorceress and her classmate were crying their eyes out. Not only did he let her lean on him, unsteady like a foal in her heels, but he even lifted her onto his shoulders for the final song, screaming Takada-chan’s name while she waved both their light sticks, singing along at the top of her lungs, tears making trails down her cheeks.
When they managed to slip out of the crowd outside, she was drained, her makeup ruined, and her voice gone. Aoi was busy on his phone, posting paragraph after paragraph on the fanclub homepage until the admins put him on cooldown.
“What a performance!” he said. “What a night!”
“I second that,” she croaked. Her throat was starting to hurt.
As if he could read her mind, Aoi guided her to a bench and darted away only to return with two bottles of water.
“Owe ya one,” she wheezed as she accepted a bottle.
“I owe you for the ticket.”
She made a dismissive hand gesture. “We’re even then.” And stretched her legs out. “Damn, these heels hurt.” The cool liquid did wonders for her burning throat.
“Can you walk?” he asked, crushing his empty bottle.
“Waddle and wince‘s the best I can do,” she mumbled and yelped when he suddenly hauled her onto his shoulder like a sack of rice. “What the hell, dumbass!”
“We’ll get back faster like this,” he said as if he was being reasonable.
“Hell no!” She punched his back and cursed—a rock of a man, Tōdō Aoi. “Put me down, one gust of wind and my whole ass will be on display.”
“Oh, that’s true.”
The world spun and she held onto him for dear life and he flipped her around to carry her with one arm under her back and the other tucking her skirt up just above the backs of her knees.
“There,” he said and went on casually.
She shook her head in disbelief, legs hanging in the air. “You’re really difficult, you know that?”
He shrugged. “With this, we can be even.”
“Fine.” She huffed. “It’s not like I need you to carry me, just so you know.”
“Ha! Of course not, I wouldn’t think so poorly of a rival of mine,” he boasted.
She accepted her faith with a roll of her eyes and stared up at the night sky, caught herself thinking that, perhaps, he wasn’t as much of a creep weirdo as she’d originally assumed. Maybe he was bearable. Not that musclehead dumbasses were her type. But maybe he was fine to be around occasionally.
Maybe.
They went to the next Takada-adjacent event together intentionally. And again after that. And got coffee after the first one. Saw a movie after the second. But that was all for Takada-chan, obviously.
“Are you two finally dating?” Momo asked one night when the girls were gathered for a sleepover.
“I’m gonna hurl on your bed,” she replied. “We just happened to go to the same event, it’s not that deep.”
“Really?” Momo looked skeptical. “You like men too, don’t you?”
Mai and Kasumi shared excited looks, acting truly like the schoolgirls they were.
The sorceress shrugged. “Sure. Doesn’t matter to me.”
“T-Then,” Kasumi said, “do you have a type, senpai?”
“Hmm. Of course, my ultimate type is Takada-chan—she’s so pretty and graceful but also entertaining and a sweetheart, you know?—and for guys,” she trailed off. “Let’s see . . . Maybe someone like Hakari?”
“From Tōkyō?” Kasumi asked.
“Wasn’t he expelled or something?” Momo said.
“And a narcissist gambler,” Mai quipped.
“A gangster?” Kasumi gasped.
Their senpai laughed. “All I know is I never got to fight him one-on-one and he kicked someone’s ass so well it got him suspended.” She grinned. “I wonder what he looks like when he’s close to dying.”
“Is he your type or do you want to fight him?” Momo asked, raising a brow.
“He could be my type,” the sorceress decided. “Why not? I’m not against kicking old man ass. And, some rules should be broken. They gotta add an upper limit to who can be a higher-up. Why should some dinosaur get to decide what our generation can and can’t do? Takada-chan would never stand for such injustice.”
“Aaand back to Takada-chan,” Momo mumbled, reaching for a bag of chips from their snack pile.
“But if the type is a loose cannon with a penchant for fighting,” Mai said slowly, “doesn’t that include Tōdō-senpai?”
“Him?” The sorceress retched. “Hell no.”
Tōdō Aoi was nothing but a rival and occasional sparring partner. They barely tolerated each other. In fact, Takada-chan was the only reason they were close.
Well, they weren’t close.
They weren’t.
Right?
Training with Tōdō Aoi had made it so that she could withstand five cycles of injury transfers in a thirty-hour period. For that reason, when she was dispatched to Shibuya, she wasn’t nervous. She’d survived a full-on beatdown from a muscleheaded dumbass so many times that the idea of dying to a curse was just about extinguished from her mind.
“You gonna go help that brother of yours?” she asked her rival in love as they ran towards the curtain.
“Of course.”
“See ya later then.” She turned to go to the opposite side of the curtain. “Don’t die, dumbass.”
“Same to you, my rival!” he said, grinned, and leapt ahead.
Curses and curse users kept coming in waves. Waves that were threatening to swallow her whole.
“They brought out the big guns, huh?” she mumbled, sprawling in a pool of her own blood.
It was as if someone had stored the oldest, strongest curses they could find and released them all inside the curtain. The highest level ones rivaled curse users and some of them were nigh immune to her technique which resulted in hand-to-hand combat and muscle work she was not particularly suited to.
“What’s that, girl? Getting dizzy?” the curse user she was fighting taunted, approaching with a knife.
“Me?” She pushed herself up slowly, dying her palms red. “Only Takada-chan can make me dizzy, dipshit.”
Pain lifted from her like a weighted blanket as she activated her technique, transferring the damage. The knife fell from his spasming hand as she got to her feet, nearly slipping on the blood. He couldn’t speak from the shock and she preferred it that way. With a heavy sigh, she snatched the knife off the pavement and ended his misery.
Her stomach turned and she fell to her knees, a stabbing pain flaring up in her head.
“Oh, that’s not good.” Breathing deeply, she surveyed the area, looking for a place to hide. She’d come near passing out enough to know that it was coming and inevitable. Her legs felt heavy and swollen, blood running sluggishly through her confused system. “Ugh.” The world tilted, her eyelids threatening to shut, and she dug her nails into her palms to stay conscious a little longer. Blood trickled over her fingers.
Footsteps drew closer. Behind her. She pivoted slowly, blinking past the blinding headache. A familiar figure. But it couldn’t be.
“A-Am I—?”
“What cycle are you on?” It was his voice. But he—
“Your arm—”
“Forget about that now. What cycle?” Aoi asked and knelt to inspect her bloodied limbs.
“Seventh,” she slurred.
He grit his teeth. “You said yourself that past six it’s suicidal. You know your limits,” he said to scold her, but there was concern in his voice.
“Yeah, well, it’s not a situation that allows for limits, now is it?” Nauseated, she slumped forward, her forehead landing on his shoulder. “I’m gonna pass out. Can you get me—?”
“I’ve got you.” With the one arm, he scooped her up gently. “I’ll bring you to the med station, hold on.” More softly than he’d ever spoken to her, he said, “Don’t die on me, fangirl. I got you one of the limited-offer keychains too. Don’t die on me.”
“’m not g’nna die,” she bit out, succumbing to skull-splitting pain. “I wan’ that key . . . chain.” The world faded into black.
By the time she woke up, it was all done. Ieiri Shoko informed her that it had been a close call—after the third day they weren’t sure she would wake up at all—but that her classmates, most dutifully Tōdō Aoi, had stayed by her side throughout. They appeared within the hour of her waking and the girls hugged her tightly, coming together to share both grief and relief. Aoi watched from the doorway.
They took a train back to Kyōto and he sat next to her casually. The side where he missed an arm was bandaged and away from her, so she leaned and rested her head on his strong shoulder. They rocked on in silence for the first hour. In the second he took her hand into his and put them both on his leg. Right before their stop he spoke.
“Wanna date?”
She looked up at him. “Huh?”
“Only until I marry Takada-chan though,” he said.
“Until one of us marries her, you mean.”
“Sure.”
His expression was neutral. She got the impression that he would be respectful of a rejection.
She sighed. “Why not.” And snuggled closer to him.
“Good. Are we watching her perform at the awards tonight?” he asked, looking over at her.
“Obviously, dumbass.”
“Your room?”
“Your bed is bigger,” she said, fascinated by the tenderness in his voice.
“Mine then.”
“Yup.”
It was oddly natural, how they just fell into it. When she strode into his room in an oversized T-shirt and loose shorts, he already had everything set up.
“I liked your post on the fanclub page,” he said from the bed where he sat, scrolling through his phone.
“I saw. Thanks for the boost.”
She got onto the bed on her knees and shuffled to him. The screen was off to one side.
“Takada-chan is going before the closer, I think. And I’m not gonna sit here, stiff-backed, for hours,” she declared.
Nodding in understanding, Aoi stretched out on his side and offered her the space in front. She slotted into the little spoon spot with a light sigh. The weight of his arm over her waist was calming.
Since they were temporary, it was fine. Of all the men, he wasn’t the worst. Always well-groomed—even his room was super clean and smelled nice—and fun to go to events with. At the very least she had a buddy for all outings and, with him around, it would be hard to get bored.
It was temporary, of course, she knew as she laced their fingers and tucked her head under his chin. It was temporary and how right it felt to be close to him had nothing to do with love. How her stomach bubbled when he pressed a casual kiss to her hairline had nothing to do with love. How she bashfully wondered if they would fall asleep together had nothing at all to do with love.
It was totally temporary.
Denial, the fanfic.
Thanks for reading, for more JJK check out this boyfriend Nanami, husband Satoru, sweet boyfriend Megumi, or this bittersweet Satoru, angsty Suguru,