Archive of Our Own ^beta

Asano Gakushuu, son of Asano Gakuhou, student council president of Kunugigaoka High School and current reigning highest mock entrance exam scorer among all the third years in the country — had an excellent life.

In fact, whenever he had a particularly fulfilling night of studying, he’d even drift off to sleep with the thoughts of how the rest of said excellent life might play out. He’d attend a university overseas where his reign of victory would go uncontested by any persistent red-haired classmates. He’d get a job and quickly climb into the position of CEO. He might even become the richest man in the world, overtaking his father, that’d show him. His life was a continuous upwards road from here on out.

Except—

His classmate, rival, whatever it was had a crush on him. Which was normal, expected, even. Who wouldn’t fall for him, really? And they would be headed to different universities soon, because Gakushuu wanted to go to Berkeley or Oxford and the classmate/rival/something akin to a best friend with a crush on him wants to become a Japanese bureaucrat, which meant staying in Japan, so really, it wouldn’t be a problem in a year or so anyways, but. Well.

“Is it true that you can’t be friends with someone who rejected you?”

Ren looked up from his pile of papers, and adjusted his reading glasses. “Who’d reject me?”

“Hypothetically speaking then.”

“Then of course not. Could you imagine? I wouldn’t even be able to pass her handouts without feeling like some kind of depraved lunatic desperate for the touch of a woman who scorned me, how would I hang out with her normally?”

“And what would it take to stay friends with… the person who likes you afterwards?”

“It’s just not done.” Ren set down his pen and crossed his arms. “Listen, Asano, because we’re such good friends, if you tell me who it is, I’ll do you a huge favour and take her off your hands by wooing her instead. As a late birthday gift, we’ll even say you don’t owe me anything for it.”

Gakushuu considered the possibility, turned it over in his mind, but could only look at it from two and a half angles before he felt physically nauseous. “I’d really rather you didn’t.” He sighed. “So I have to date them if I don’t want the friendship to be strained, is what you’re saying?”

“You make it sound like such a chore.”

It really is, Gakushuu thought. The girls he dated before — they were pretty, they were nice. They never smelled of sweat unless it was after gym class and made the effort to write their kanji with consistent spacing. Whenever they wanted to kiss him, he wouldn’t mind, because they smelled like fruit or flowers or fresh laundry. And however inexperienced they might’ve been, dating was never unpleasant, it just wasn’t… well, he just had better things to think about. Like studying. Or doing student council work. Or memorizing playthroughs of games that Karma mentioned during said student council work so that he wouldn’t make a fool of himself should Karma bring said games in to play together. Asano Gakushuu was such a busy man. As far as he was concerned, dating was like showering, simply something to be done every now and again if one wanted to engage with society.

Gakushuu sighed again. “I guess it could be worse.” Karma oftentimes had bits of dirt or leaves on his uniform, whenever he visited the old mountain before coming to school, but even still, he wasn’t hard on the eyes at all. Not that Gakushuu was looking. And he was entertaining, too, always finding them new things to compete over.

Besides, it wasn’t as though his old excuses were no longer accessible to him, the ones about how his studies come first (while true, he realized some time ago that he’s studied just about everything Japanese high schools have to offer, and he can only entertain himself with university textbooks for so long) and his father wouldn’t let Gakushuu bring anyone home (which was not at all true, but Gakushuu did not have any desire to open himself to that particular strain of embarrassment). Even if Karma saw through the first, surely he wouldn’t see through the second. With their third year now starting, Gakushuu might be able to get away with a few pecks here and a few gifts there and maybe even the occasional walking to school together hand-in-hand, and then the year would fly by, and they would go their own separate ways in university, and they would drift apart so very naturally and return to being best friends, that is, rivals as things used to be. As things ought to be.

Finally, he decided, “I could possibly consider going out with him if he asks nicely. Really nicely. Flowers are a must. Chocolates, I could do without — tea leaves or dried plums would be better.” Gakushuu hummed at the thought that followed, which wasn’t unpleasant at all. “In fact, what an opportunity this could be to see him bowing for once, a proper bow, forty-five degrees at minimum. Karma Akabane, showing me some proper respect, don’t you think that picture would hang so beautifully on the student council room’s wall?”

The sound of splintering plastic came from Ren’s desk. Two halves of what used to be a whole mechanical pencil fell into the floor. “Asano,” he said, before his mouth flapped open and closed like a fish. “Are you… Perhaps. Insinuating.”

Gakushuu simply smiled.

“—and he’s not gay, I think.” Ren paused. “I think. There was that one time I showed him Senjou no Merii Kurisumasu, and he only looked up from his physics homework during the kiss scene. But that’s the only thing I can think of. And that could be purely coincidental. Be honest with me, my friend — do you think this is Asano’s idea of a prank?”

Araki pushed up his glasses in a way that dramatically caught the light. “Yesterday, what did he say afterwards? Surely you questioned him.”

“He smiled mysteriously then checked his phone and said his chauffeur was there to pick him up, and it doesn’t look good if the student council secretary got spotted chasing the president down the halls, but God I should’ve risked it.”

“Bad journalism.” Araki clicked his tongue. “You wouldn’t survive a day under my management.”

Ren ignored him. “It would explain why they’re always sitting so close together during study sessions.”

“Definitely closer than strictly required.”

“And Karma’s been a bad influence on Asano too. Nobody’s ever been an influence on him at all before.”

“They have been… playing video games.” Araki nodded solemnly, as though he didn’t have ten thousand hours on Dragon Quest.

“And—”

Gakushuu clapped him on the shoulder. “I didn’t realize the virtuosos had the time for romantic gossip.”

Araki unleashed a high-pitched yelp. Ren froze completely.

“So when do you think he’ll confess?” Gakushuu asked.

He’d prepared for it thoroughly the night before (face mask, full-body lotion) and the morning of (he might’ve spent a few — just a few — extra minutes on his hair). He’d chosen to bike to school today, which meant he was without the safety of his chauffeur or the tinted windows of his car, and he’d already been scouted on three separate occasions. Would becoming a model increase my desirability more than it decreased approachability? He concluded he had insufficient data to make a decision.

“Asano, you know I’d never question your intelligence, nor your wisdom, but on matters of love…” Ren picked his next words carefully. “You simply don’t have as much experience as I do.”

Asano blinked at him. “Hence why I’m asking for your input.”

“Are we sure Karma’s into you like that?”

“And even if he is—” Araki chimed in. “—Who’s to say he’ll confess soon, if he’s been holding back this whole time?”

“Look at me, Araki. Imagine you have a massive, embarrassing crush on me.” Asano tilted his head in such a way that he knows will catch the morning sun just right. “Would you be able to continue holding yourself back?”

Red crept up Araki’s neck, and Gakushuu was disappointed to find that it didn’t interest him in anywhere near the same way that Karma did, last week, when Gakushuu brushed his knuckles against his hair and commented on how soft it was in hopes of fishing for his conditioner brand’s name. Karma’s ears had heated deliciously, turning the colour of an overripe tomato, and Gakushuu had felt a thrill travel through his stomach as he realized that Karma too was capable of such expressions.

“I-You-” Araki stuttered. “You’ve made your point.”

“Exactly. So I will need your expert opinion, Ren, on an ETA. This morning routine is highly unsustainable.”

Ren made a sound as if being strangled, before coming to the conclusion that this surely had to be some sort of elaborate scheme. Elaborate scheme… yes, that must be it. That or some twisted mind games. “I’ll see what I can do to find out.”

Gakushuu nodded. “Thank you for your hard work. I’ll take your secretarial work for the following week. And, if you can get me an answer before end of day, I’ll take your next three morning duty shifts from you too.”

“It’s not possible,” Ren declared, after school, in the student council office. “His defense is ironclad. Impenetrable.”

Gakushuu looked up from his laptop, where he was finalizing details about the student exchange happening next month.

“I ask you to do one thing…” He sighed. “That’s alright, I’ll handle my own problems. Leave in seven minutes, then come back in thirty. Take your work with you.”

If his calculations were correct — and they were always correct — taking into account the pedestrian traffic at the convenience store and the number of students in clubs, then after the clock ticked from 16:18 (when Ren quietly took his leave) to 16:19…

Karma entered the office with a bag of snacks. Gakushuu smiled down at his laptop’s clock with satisfaction, mentally giving himself a pat on the back.

“They ran out of those dried plums you like,” he said, dropping the plastic bags onto the table.

Gakushuu’s smile faded. “I hope you didn’t buy any of the other brands. They don’t make them the same way at all.”

“Who do you take me for, Seo? It’s because you’re always snacking on them, so of course they’d grow popular.” Karma dumped his loot onto Gakushuu’s desk. Lines of ramune and konpeito bags joined stacks of dried squid and nori packs. And then finally, crumpled at the bottom of the bag, the receipt.

“You know we don’t have to only go once a week, right?” Gakushuu brushed back some of the daifuku packets, which were beginning to encroach into his personal space. “Not even a zombie apocalypse can starve us out at this rate.”

“So dramatic.” Karma stuck out his tongue, soft and pink. “We’re within budget. Who cares?”

Gakushuu typed in all the information on the receipt and attached a picture of it to an email, which he promptly sent out to their secretary. “Ren will find some way to justify the spending to our principal, I’m sure.”

“He always does. So are you going to help me put these away, or are you gonna just sit there and gloat?”

They decided for the last competition that the loser would get the punishment of doing the grocery run, and the honour of picking the next game. Gakushuu had trained in everything from Dark Souls speedruns to Super Smash Bros Melee combos the past week to prepare, since there weren’t any external contests this early in the school year (the Go and Under 21 Open tennis tournaments were already marked on the shared calendar, and Araki had been tasked with keeping an ear to the ground and reporting back if he hears about any new ones).

“This isn’t gloating,” Gakushuu said. “You’ll see gloating when I beat you at your game of choice today.”

“Them’s fighting words, prez,” Karma rummaged around his jacket pocket, before pulling out a pack of dried plums. He dropped it triumphantly on the desk, and it landed with a soft smack. “And spoken to your favourite vice-president too, who fought tooth and nail through that crowd to secure the last bag.”

Gakushuu’s eyes widened. Being the object of someone’s affections were not without its benefits, it appeared. “Thank you,” he said, reaching for it.

His wrist was immediately pinned to the oak desk.

“Not for free,” Karma said.

“Oh.”

Gakushuu hoped the hair gel from this morning still stuck. His wrist was warm where Karma held it, but he refused to move. No, squirming meant showing discomfort, weakness. And if the intensity in Karma’s eyes meant anything, then this would be it. It would start now, Gakushuu’s first and last relationship with another man.

He refused to show weakness here.

“What do you want for it?” Gakushuu asked, voice barely above a whisper.

“A promise that if I win our next game…”

Just say yes, don’t think about it so hard. So what if the friendship will turn into something far more strange and uncharted? Better than not having a friendship at all. You did not live through all those years of mental torment under your father to keel over here. Just say yes, easy as that. Gakushuu swallowed around the lump in his throat.

“…You’ll do me a small favour.” Karma grinned. “Same as always. I chose shogi for today’s game, by the way.”

“Yes.” Gakushuu blinked. “Shogi?” His ears steamed.

Karma released his wrist, and tossed over the dried plums. “I’ve been practicing since you beat me last time, don’t you dare think it’ll be the same today. We’ll see if you can find anything to gloat over.”

“You didn’t have… something else you wanted to ask for?”

What Gakushuu wouldn’t give for a mirror at this moment! Were his bangs out of place, stuck up in strange directions? Was the sunlight hitting his bad side? Impossible, he didn’t have a bad side. Asano Gakuhou did not make every girlfriend of his get a full genetic test to maximize compatibility just so his son could have a bad side.

Was Karma experiencing a sudden bout of insanity? Was he blind? The love of his life, apple of his eye, sitting pretty right in front of him and his wrist in his palm, offering himself up on a silver platter, and he won’t ask him out?

“Did you want me to ask something else?” Karma raised an eyebrow, the wheels in his mind turning. “Ah, you mean that exchange event with the French school? I filed my half of the forms away already, I can pull them out later if you need to look at them. Anyways, work can wait. Let me kick your ass at shogi first.”

Playing coy then. A vein popped against Gakushuu’s temple. The embarrassment of being wrong — despite Karma being completely unaware of his lead — was getting to Gakushuu now, and whatever confusion bubbled within him was quickly churning into anger.

“Alright then. Winner gets snacks next week?” Gakushuu plotted what sorts of hard-to-carry, unreasonably packaged cookies he was going to request next week. The kind that’ll poke holes through plastic bags, or at least threaten to. The kind that would never balance in one’s arms.

Karma smiled at him, a glint in his amber eyes, a short lick over his sharp incisors. And then he was setting a shogi board on the desk next to Gakushuu’s laptop, arranging the pieces into their starting positions with easy precision. Who allowed him to be so damn attractive? was Gakushuu’s last thought before Karma tilted his shoulders down into a pathetic excuse for a bow and said, sing-song and taunting, “Onegaishimasu~”

(Ren would come back in the time that Gakushuu instructed, but backed off and called his chauffeur home once he heard the eerie, heated silence, interspersed by sharp clicks, coming from the Student Council’s office).

An hour later, Gakushuu was counting down from a hundred, bottom eyelid quivering, an string of curse words rolling into a lump around his throat.

Karma, meanwhile, was laughing his ass off.

“You’re still too focused on numbers,” Karma teased. “Doesn’t matter how much material you’re up by if your moves don’t scare me into doing what you want.”

“You—” A lesser man would claim it was a fluke, that his strategy of continuously striking with his pawns was cheap and only worked because Gakushuu has never played against such barbarian strategy. But Gakushuu, who would’ve won against any other playstyle, who was read so thoroughly by his opponent, couldn’t feel any heat to his anger. The sensation felt more like habit than anything else, as though he was just going through the motions.

In fact, he actually felt quite naked, down to the soul. Was this what it was like having someone in love with you? To be seen so deeply? To have an opponent play against you with something that only worked because he knew it was you? Something electric trilled its way past Gakushuu’s heart, and he found that maybe he didn’t mind it quite as much as he thought he would. This was so unlike all of his relationships before, with those classmates who were only interested in holding his hand or biting his lip. Karma was, as always, something otherworldly.

It was thus with a smile so genuine it surprised even its owner when Gakushuu said, “Thanks for the game.”

Karma’s smile froze in place. Gakushuu searched in his eyes for the question he’d been waiting all day for, and Karma’s pupils darted back and forth in response, and they just stared at each other, in the dimming early-evening light, before Karma’s face flashed with the ghost of an expression too quick for Gakushuu to catch before darting away.

The oak door of the Student Council room swung closed with a heavy thud, and Gakushuu — perfect, poised, Gakushuu — reached up with the back of his hand towards his cheek and found it hot.

He’d been blushing.

No, no. Now, this wouldn’t do. This wouldn’t do at all.

Even if Karma had fallen for Gakushuu first, to be seen blushing was near tantamount to a proposal. And, while being the subject of someone’s affections was one thing, being the one to confess was a white flag declaring that you’d be willing to lay your head down at the other’s foot and do whatever it took to enter into a relationship with them. Asano Gakushuu, President of Kunugigaoka Student Council… grovelling? Unacceptable.

A shogi piece, which Gakushuu was in the middle of putting away, snapped between his fingers. Two halves of a 桂馬 fell to the ground as Gakushuu chewed on the inside of his cheek, and considered his dilemma. He had to coax a confession out of Karma before the reverse was performed onto him. What a devil that man was, to set up this sort of game, to be so roundabout in his affections.

But Gakushuu has never been one to back down from a challenge, and there’s nothing he loves more than winning.

Gakushuu shuffled the papers on his desk. “I realized something last night, Karma.”

“And what would that be?”

“I never confirmed with you what the prize would be for winning.”

The soft click-clack of Karma’s DS buttons echoed through the office. Ren politely excused himself. “Didn’t you say it would be snack duty next week?”

“Mmhm, but you never replied.” Gakushuu had played through every second of that whole encounter last night, over and over again— for what? (Reviewing his shogi moves, naturally, what else could it possible be?) He wasn’t entirely sure. But it wasn’t leaving him alone for long enough to fall asleep either, so. “What did you mean by that smile?”

Karma sighed, then set down his game. “Couldn’t sneak it past you this time, I guess. Sencha?”

“Always.” Two simultaneous threads of thought unspooled in his mind: one, that he, in his book, had already won the match that would result from this for throwing his opponent off his advantage; and two, that he practically had Karma perched on his little finger, that boy was down so bad for him. Gakushuu covered up his smile with a report printout, but he couldn’t figure out which thought had caused it.

“So you remember Kanzaki, right.” Karma set down two steaming cups for them.

“From your class E?”

“Yeah, that one. She’ll be coming back for Tanabata, and she says we can meet up at the arcade while she’s here.”

“Isn’t it a little early to be planning for Tanabata?”

Karma leaned forward, a dark look in his eyes. “You haven’t seen her play. I’m not ashamed to admit I need the practice if I want a chance at beating her.”

Gakushuu frowned, unhappy with the turn of this conversation. Why was his admirer talking about his plans to meet up with someone else? “What does this have to do with me?”

“Don’t let this get to your head, but— honestly, you learn games fast.”

“The theory is all just math.”

“You say that like you’re mentally calculating the payout matrices when there’s a thousand fucking parameters, in a matter of seconds, while the scope is changing.”

Gakushuu shrugged. “I could be.”

Karma laughed. “Sure. Well anyways, I need you to come with me to the arcade this weekend, that’s my favour for winning our shogi game.”

“You’re asking me to go to the arcade together?”

“Asking is a generous way of putting it. You’re contractually bound to.” He lifted his cup to his lips.

“Are you asking me out on a date?”

Karma spat out his tea, coughing as his cheeks and ears flushed a deep red. “What— that’s not—” he caught himself, then cleaned his expression. Face stoic (but still red), he continued, “Now why would you ask that? Were you… hoping it was?”

Yes. Wait. No. Gakushuu… he scolded himself, in a mental voice that sounded, discordantly, like his father’s. These trains of thought are dangerous. Do you know why people lose? Because losing is easy. Gakushuu’s eyebrows furrowed. Compose yourself.

“Why take it so seriously, Karma? It was just a joke.”

“Funny. I’ve never heard you joke that way with the virtuosos before.” Karma recovered his footing, and began his assault. “You’ve been playing coy with me lately, prez. Last night, you asked if I had anything else you want to ask, and now, you’re asking if I’m intending on asking you on a date? It almost sounds like it’s you who has something to get off your chest, doesn’t it?”

I messed up. He’d bled his cards. No, worse, he’d thrown his cards right up into the air, declaring victory, while his hand was still incomplete. Fortunately, no Asano showed up to play without a few cheats — er, tricks— tucked up their sleeves.

Gakushuu sighed, and took a sip of his tea. Brewed perfectly as always, and without any surprise hot sauce this time too. “Can I be frank with you, Karma?”

Karma’s face reddened again, matching his hair. Cute, Gakushuu’s mind unhelpfully supplied. Thinking he’s cute is losing mentality, his inner-Gakuhou fought back. He then said, in a voice that could almost be called shy, “…What.”

“I’m sure you know about how overbearing my father was.” Gakushuu tucked his chin and lowered his eyes, making himself small, but not too dramatically. “…I’ve never been to the arcade before. None of my friends ever dared ask.”

“Oh.” Karma hesitated. “It’s-It really isn’t all that. You weren’t missing out on much.”

“Really?” Gakushuu contemplated keeping his eyes open until they watered, but determined that display would be far too much.

“Yeah, I mean, most of the machines don’t work properly anyways, because of all the kids hitting them.” Karma cleared his throat. “I can also pass it on to the other virtuosos if you want to just experience the arcade instead of making it a study session in Gunslinger 3 strategy. I’m sure they’d also be happy to go.”

Gakushuu faltered then. His estimations were falling apart around him. Why was Karma even thinking of the other virtuosos at a time like this? Perhaps because Ren was secretary; Gakushuu should stop waging wars in the student council office, in case Ren kept coming to Karma’s mind. What if he trained some strange Pavlovian response into him?

“Wait,” Gakushuu said. Karma had already taken out his phone, tackling it, like he tackled all things: with a confidence as bright as the sun. “I’m alright with it just being the two of us.”

Karma’s thumbs faltered over his keyboard. He raised an eyebrow. “Oh?”

“That is— They have a certain impression of me, you know.” He was rambling, but his mouth ran away faster than he could catch. “It wouldn’t do to have them see me fumbling around with those… slots, or whatever machines are in arcades.”

“Mmhm,” Karma hummed, a devilish light glinting in his eyes. He looked, then, like that troublemaker with a suspension on record for beating up his seniors.

Shit. How did I fumble it? I had this one in the bag! “And I’m the student council president, you know. The paradigm of a model student.” His throat was wobbling slightly on the words in his rush to spit them all out. “Going to the arcade with one person, that’s ordinary, healthy, even! But a group of six…”

Karma snickered, honest to god snickered, before he turned off his phone and gathered his things. “If you say so,” he said, in a tone of voice that declared to both of them that he was willing to drop it. Or rather, that he would be ever so generous as to drop it, but Gakushuu owed him one. “Lunch is almost over, Mr. Model Student. Make sure you get back to class on time.”

Blood drained from Gakushuu’s face. That sick bastard. It was one thing to be defeated by an opponent, it was another thing to be pitied and spared by him.

“Bye bye~” Karma said, then shut the door with a resounding thud.

You’re going down, Karma Akabane. Gakushuu fumed, his vision blotting with red. You’re going to confess to me if it’s the last thing you do.

“How did you and mother meet?” Gakushuu asked while delicately cutting a slice off his French-style steak.

Gakuhou paused. “What brought this on all of a sudden?”

“Please, I’m just making conversation.” Gakushuu smiled. “I realized how bad of a son it must make me, to not even know my parents’ love story.”

“Hm.” Gakuhou did that thing where he would stare menacingly at his opponent to buy himself time to think of an answer. Finally, he opened his mouth and said, “I see you’ve gotten yourself a serious relationship this time. What’s her name?”

Gakushuu sighed. That’s on him for ever thinking his father might help him in any meaningful way. A true hail mary. “I’m sure you can find out on your own.”

“It’s.” Gakushuu’s eyes scanned the room. Loud. Crowded. When was the last time they disinfected those— oh, there’s someone doing it now. Lovely. “Colourful.”

“Not bad, right?” Karma said. “Normally it’s pretty crowded on the weekend, but people will give up the machine if you’re good enough at it, so they can watch.”

Gakushuu looked at rows of machines that looked and sounded very similar. Bright, colourful lights flashed at him as a cacophony of sounds played over the conversations.

“Interesting.” He said, looking at the people slamming rhythm game keyboards to the colourful circles. He learned piano before (and violin, and flute, and a few more after that), because what kind of Asano would he be if he couldn’t fill in for any open slot in an orchestra? “Look like most of these are just about muscle memory. Just practice, and you’ll be able to get the highest score.” Koyama might enjoy this place.

“Oh, those aren’t the games Kanzaki challenged me to. She couldn't find any songs she liked on the machines.” Karma gestured to a corner of the hall. “Come on, we’re lining up for Gunslinger.”

Gunslinger Stratos 3 had come out recently, and apparently had the selling point of being able to “combine your guns!” Gakushuu scrolled through the website’s description and frowned. The eight people currently occupying the 4v4 were clumsy with their controllers, or maybe with the gun recoil, but watching them play made Gakushuu feel slightly motion sick. They’re not even repositioning onto high ground, he thought. Just swinging around with no purpose at all. He glanced at Karma, one eyebrow raised.

“I’ve never wielded a gun before.”

“You haven’t?”

“Yes. It’s illegal.”

Karma laughed, as though Gakushuu made some hilarious joke. “You’ll figure it out.”

Gakushuu did, eventually, figure it out. He lost the first round, because Gakushuu refused to allow it to be declared a practice run (Karma’s mocking snicker still echoed through his nightmares. He refused to lose any more sleep over that man). But by then he’d re-evaluated his terrain, figured out how to play around his teammates, who may as well have been NPCs for how helpful they were, and read all the ability descriptions on his guns. He led his team to victory the next two rounds in a row.

Gakushuu stuck out his tongue. He’d picked up many bad, childish habits from Karma over the years. “You’re still overestimating your spacial awareness. Would you like to make it out of five?”

Karma’s eye twitched. “I’m hungry,” he declared. “Since I lost, I’ll buy you gyoza. Come on.”

A thrill of adrenaline shot through his veins as Gakushuu couldn’t help but smile. “If you insist,” he said. He does so love winning.

They hopped around a few more games afterwards, trying to come up with counter-strategies to counter-strategies that Kanzaki wouldn’t have already mastered. The skill ceiling on most of the games was just too low, unfortunately, which meant they didn’t have much to go off of.

In the end, Karma declared that he’d get Gakushuu back in the arcade another day, after beating him on their next round of exams or festivals or whatnot. Gakushuu looked at the windows, which were showing an amber sunset, and realized with a panging, hollow emptiness in his stomach that felt vaguely like defeat, that he didn’t want their date completely platonic competition to end already.

“I’d like to try the claw machines,” Gakushuu declared.

“What?”

“The claw machines. Once I graduate high school, how could I ever be caught playing a claw machine ever again?” Gakushuu’s gaze hardened around a machine that held a pile of fluffy toy cats. “I’d like a memento.”

Karma’s mouth hung open, then snapped closed. “Didn’t take you for the sentimental type.”

“Am I not allowed?”

“No, you’re— here.” Karma inserted a coin. “Go on, just, uh, don’t get too mad if you don’t win, yeah? These machines are so insanely rigged it’s not even funny.”

They proceeded to spend ¥3000 at the machine. Somewhere around ¥1000 in, a worker had stepped up to offer that he just give them the toy, but Gakushuu had already spent this much time and energy at the stupid claw, and he hated doing things halfway.

“Try spinning the claw,” Karma said, looking up from his Youtube guide on how to win at arcades.

“Will that work on a toy this big?”

“Well, which one are you aiming for?”

The red one. “The black one.” With the little amber eyes.

“That one’s leg is a little trapped. Are you sure you don’t want to go for the red one instead?”

“Are you trying to imply something?” Gakushuu asked, meaningfully glancing up at Karma’s hair.

“Quit the mind games, Shuu. Do you want the cat or not.”

Gakushuu’s eyebrows furrowed. “I do.”

“So fucking— spin the claw. Knock that piece of shit into the chute.”

Gakushuu slid another coin in.

“Excuse me, valued customers… It’s really no problem for me to just get it for you, you’ve spent more than enough…”

Karma shushed the worker, who took another look at the four glinting eyes huddled around the claw machine, and scurried away to sweep the perfectly clean floor away from their field of view.

The claw, for all its weakness and feeble joints which locked at completely unmodellable random patterns, had good momentum. Through the past (couple) dozen attempts, Gakushuu had managed to bump the red cat close enough to the chute that it was just barely hanging on. Gakushuu’s eyes stung. When was the last time he blinked?

He knocked the thing from its cradle, it tilted, it leaned, its chin getting caught on the glass lip…

And then it fell.

Gakushuu pumped his first into the air, letting out a unrestrained (but still a respectable volume, he had a reputation to uphold), “Yes!” as he claimed his prize. It was just as soft as it had appeared under that machine’s angelic light. He clutched it perhaps a little tighter than strictly necessary.

Karma was beaming at him too, his mouth open to say something, perhaps a congratulations, you’re so cool, like the coolest person I’ve ever met, would you like to go out? or something along those lines, but then a feminine voice rang out behind them and interrupted whatever he was able to say.

It was a high schooler with a different uniform, one Gakushuu didn’t recognize, hanging onto the arm of someone who was also wearing that uniform. She was pointing towards them, a pout on her face, as she pressed her chest into the boy’s arm and whined, “Babe, why don’t you try that hard to win me a prize?”

Gakushuu broke eye contact with Karma immediately (or was it Karma who broke eye contact with him?) as they beelined for the exit. The cool air was a welcome chill to his warm cheeks, and he was grateful that the sunset light was still just as red to cover it up.

“Do you need a ride home?” Gakushuu offered. “My chauffeur should still be on standby.”

Karma was looking somewhere in the middle distance, his expression dazed. “I’m good, my house isn’t too far away from here.”

“Okay.”

“…Okay.”

“Uh.” Gakushuu’s grip tightened on his prize. “Get home safe. We’ll figure out more strategies for your match against Kanzaki-san another time.”

Karma smiled, his wind blowing his bangs across his face in a way that was so entirely unfair. “Sure, I’ll look forward to it.” Then he slung his schoolbag over his shoulder and marched off, and Gakushuu bit back the words I had fun as he watched him walk away.

It was, perhaps, a cosmic intervention that caused that last message — and only that last message — to be the first one that Gakushuu managed to decrypt from his MITM attack on Karma’s IP (using his father’s laptop, of course). He read the message over twelve times, eyes stinging from forgetting to blink, until he eventually killed the program and shut the laptop, deciding that, he supposed, was what he deserved for being so desperate as to spy on his not-best-friend. Gakushuu did not sleep soundly that night, wondering why the hell Karma would want to take over the world with Nagisa Shiota (160cm as of last year August, aiming for a teacher’s college, and overall not that remarkable… to his knowledge), when Asano Gakushuu (the closest mankind will get to perfection, at least according to himself) was right there. He glanced at the red cat toy, which was sitting innocently on his desk, the only thing there that wasn’t a lamp or a writing implement or a stack of papers. And then he Did Not examine the ugly twisting in his chest any further, popped a melatonin, put in two wireless earbuds, turned on a video titled 10 Relaxing Sounds to Help You Sleep, and pretended his dreams weren’t full of red and amber come morning.

Kunugigaoka High School was unique in that it actually tried to build a reputation with other schools. Not the ones in its prefecture, to clarify, for those were all trite and beneath them according to administration. Sometimes, they would not mind sending a particularly high-ranking student to other places to give a speech. But they believed that academic prowess could only be obtained if one kept expanding, not stagnating. Thus, the exchange students.

“Why is it always France?” Karma asked, rummaging through a delivery box full of blue ribbons. “Why don’t we look into inviting people from Luxembourg instead?

“What’s wrong with France?” Gakushuu asked, just to be contrary. When you ‘take over the world’ with Nagisa Shiota, will you leave it for the rest of us? He tore open another box with more force than was strictly necessary. .

“For one, the last batch didn’t even bother learning Japanese, and made you translate for them the whole time.”

Gakushuu loathed those two students. He’d tried teaching them Japanese multiple times over their time at Kunugigaoka, but they were completely unmotivated, which was a character trait that Gakushuu couldn’t stand. Fortunately, they claimed some sort of food poisoning and went back to Europe a few weeks before they were meant to. He didn’t want to admit this to Karma out loud though, so he turned his chin the other way and said, “It was good practice.”

Karma laughed. “Bullshit. You didn’t even make for good competition back then, it was so obvious you were wasting your time on them.”

Didn’t even make for good competition, echoed through Gakushuu’s head. Then: How dare—

Gakuhuu dropped his clipboard in front of Karma’s boxes. “Go check on the classes to see how their room cleaning is going.”

“And what will you be doing in the meantime?”

“I have forms to arrange for the principal.”

Karma eyed him warily. “You…” he started, then sighed. “Nevermind. See you.”

And then he swept out of the storage room with silent steps, and it was only after Gakushuu found himself staring at the closed door in front of him that he managed to bite out, “Good!”

He immediately felt awful. What was this, kindergarten? What horrendous behaviour. If his father was watching him now— forget being disowned, forget dismemberment, he’d take him on an all-expenses-paid tour of a couple circles of hell! Gakushuu shook his head and eyed the boxes warily. Well. He wasn’t going to apologize. It was Karma who was interested in Gakushuu to begin with, why was he always thinking of Kanzaki Yukiko, the flower of the E-as-in-End class, and Nagisa Shiota, his childhood(?) best friend? It was disrespectful, was what it was, and Gakushuu was fully within his right to feel disrespected.

But still. He had his own standards for how he should act. Now to convince himself that it was be fine, and indeed optimal, if Karma gave up on his little infatuation with him and they returned to being rivals who happened to each lunch together and stay late at school together and maybe occasionally go to the arcade on the weekend. Together. It would rid him of the dilemma that plagued him in the first place, about how atrociously his life as it currently was and their friendship would fall apart if Karma professed his undying love for him. Everything would be back as it always has been.

Gakushuu sighed again, all to himself in the empty storage room. All his reasoning was logical. So why wasn’t he convinced?

When Karma returned to the hallway they were tasked with, it was meticulously decorated, naturally, looking straight out of an interior design magazine (that is, if interior design magazines featured high schools with ribbons and Welcome to Japan! banners).

“Everything’s done,” Karma reported. “A little too done. Those second years are going to have to pull some late hours to clean.”

“That’s good. That they’re finished decorating, I mean.”

The French exchange students were set to arrive sometime this afternoon, but it was all just motions — a speech he already memorized, a ceremony where he already double checked that the catering would have no issues, and… this event would come and go, the same way it came and went last year, and the year before that. And then he’d be off to university in America or Europe or wherever else had a internationally prestigious enough business program so that he could sow the seeds for his worldwide conglomerate. And then he’d be gone, high school a faint, pleasant memory behind him.

“A month has already passed,” Gakushuu said, unprompted. “I remember my first month of junior high. I thought it would make for a change of pace, but my father taught as he always taught, and I learned as I always learned, and my days grew very dull, I think.”

Karma stood still where he was, resting against the window pane. He stared at Gakushuu for a long moment before he admitted, “I missed my first month of junior high. My parents were taking me sightseeing in Spain and figured I was smart enough that I won’t need the first month of classes.”

Gakushuu looked at him pitifully. “I’m sorry.”

“What? Oh, you’ve misunderstood. Spain was beautiful. And they were right, there wasn’t anything the teachers taught me that I didn’t already know, or could easily figure out.” Confusion must have showed on Gakushuu’s face, because Karma then burst into laughter. “But, you know, I guess… there’s a few interesting things in Japan too.”

Usually, whenever Karma’s tone dipped into the territory where it could be considered “soft” by very specific standards, his eyes would unfocus and his chin would tilt ever so slightly towards the mountain near Kunugigaoka’s junior high school. Today, however, Gakushuu found his chest constricting, because Karma was looking right at him.

“A few. Interesting…” Gakushuu cleared his throat. “Indeed.” His neck was uncomfortably warm. Whomever turned up the heat so high in the halls should be charged with child endangerment. “I have to practice my welcome speech some more.”

“You? Have to practice?” Karma laughed. “It’s the same as the speech you made last year, which was the same as the speech you wrote the year before that.”

“And, just like last year and the year before that, the student council president can’t afford to embarrass the school by making a mistake.”

Karma shrugged. “Suit yourself. I’m going to see if that new Persona game got released.”

He turned around, waving behind him, and Gakushuu couldn’t help but notice that Karma’s posture was better now — straighter and more relaxed all at once. It’s been getting better for a while, presumably because he disliked having to look up to meet Gakushuu’s eyes. And the way he spoke too was more self-assured than their first few interactions from junior high, back when he was all bluster and gnarled teeth, fueled by a complete and total distrust that anyone could look at him and see his potential unless he beat it into them first. Examined from one end, they’ve both mellowed each other out. Examined from another, and they’ve catalyzed each other’s evolution. The truth, Gakushuu suspected, laid somewhere in between.

How many more times would Gakushuu get to do this? How many times before the one after it has Gakushuu gazing upon someone who’s so different he’s unrecognizable, with a degree from a university whose campus Gakushuu did not recognize or a ring on his finger that Gakushuu wouldn’t have chosen?

Get used to it, a voice that sounded suspiciously like his father’s rang through his mind. People enter your life, then they leave. And they never stop leaving. Completely normal. He’ll meet dozens if not hundreds of people of his caliber, who both can and are willing to compete with him in anything if not everything. High school will just be a single blip in the long, long life ahead of him.

And if he said this to himself enough times, then maybe he can convince himself to forget the hollow ache in his gut at the prospect that this is all it’ll ever be. Just two diamonds carving shine into one another, two steps on each other’s ladders.

“There’s a new ramen shop that opened down the street,” Gakushuu said, just as Karma was about to exit earshot. They used to go to new restaurants all the time, as friends, without any ulterior motives (except to compete to see who could handle more spice in their broth). It was fun back then. It’ll be fun now too.

“Is that the one run by Miya from class C’s uncle?”

“I think so.”

“Okay.”

It was just like making any other plan. “Okay.”

The ramen was delicious. Gakushuu still ended up walking home hungry.

“Read it and weep, boys!” Koyama slammed a stack of paper onto the library table. “A booklet of all the properties of trigonal planar structured molecules and relevant questions about them that have appeared in the school’s past exam archive. Better get memorizing quick! Or make copies if you can’t memorize them before lunch is over. But! If you make copies, do them on your card, because mine got a little bit blocked on the library printers for overuse.”

”Trigonal planar only?” Seo asked, flipping through the sheets. “You aren’t holding out on us, are you? I’d like to remind you that I delivered everything from Shakespere to Oxford’s research papers on marine biology for English prep last week.”

“What do you not understand about my student card got blocked from the library printers, you dimwit! Buffon! Nycticebus!!” (Seo cracked a smile at that one). “I’ll bring it tomorrow, alright?”

“And if the quiz tomorrow is on square planars?” Araki proposed. “Come on, dude. This divide and conquer study group only works if we’re all actually conquering.”

Koyama groaned. “You’re all so unreasonable, you know that? Fine! I’ll just email everything to you guys, and then you can complain about not having any paper to write it on, and then— oh! Or Asano-kun can run a quick print errand for me using that super fancy, expensive, student council printer…”

They all looked over at him. It was a rare day when Karma had drawn the short straw (so rare, in fact, that they were all quite sure he was cheating somehow, but hadn’t quite gathered the evidence to prove it yet) and had to get the five reams lined paper from the storage closets. This meant that the corner of the table which usually housed Gakushuu and Karma, bickering or teasing, or laughing at each other over their shogi board, now just had a lonesome Gakushuu staring out the window.

“Asano-kun…?”

His gaze shifted from the blue sky towards his friends, and his soul returned from wherever it had travelled to, back to the classroom. He then sunk his cheek into his palm and asked, “Is dating… fun?”

The four others looked at him, then each other, then blinked in unison, certain they’d heard him wrong.

Ren was the first to speak.

“Sorry?”

“Is dating fun? Holding hands, going to the movies, kissing with tongue.” Gakushuu shrugged. “And the like. Is it fun?”

“It’s… a good way to pass the time? Girls are nice.” Ren looked at the others and nodded, hoping for assent. They nodded blankly along, like bobblehead dolls. All that literary Japanese and poetry he’d learned evaporated from his mind as he could only repeat, “Girls are nice.”

“What makes it fun?” Gakushuu pressed. When Ren didn’t immediately have an answer, all sorts of definitions and ballads passing through his mind in a whirlwind, Gakushuu kept pressing. “Would you say it brings out a side in people that would otherwise never come to light?”

“That’s one part of it, yes,” Araki said. “Do you remember Kobayashi-san last year? Didn’t think that girl had any backbone to her at all, but she fought through that crowd like a total beast to get that picture with you at the cultural festival.”

Gakushuu had used his charms to get his classmates more motivated before — he was fully aware that he was very conventionally attractive, and that his confidence only helped things, and he would never not use an advantage. But those were… tactics. They were to make someone’s heart sway for a day or a week, to drive up profits at the cultural festivals and get him elected student council president. They were not going to drag out a blushing, fumbling mess from someone who still could not fully let go of a certain tough facade. Though the thought of it…

“I understand.” Gakushuu said. What was the label of that archetype again? “There is a certain appeal to the… gap moe.”

Araki choked on his tea. “Who taught you that word.”

Koyama laughed. “Who else could’ve?”

“So the relationship is… usually… fun enough to justify ending a friendship over?”

“So dramatic,” Seo said. “It’s not ending a friendship. It’s starting a relationship. Two completely different things. So, Asano, you got someone you—”

Ren’s face went three shades paler as he cleared his throat. “Asano, everyone. Let’s, ah, return to studying, shall we?”

The door of their private room slid open, and the table let out a satisfying thud under the weight of two and a half thousand pages.

“You didn’t use the cart?” Gakushuu asked, trying to maintain eye contact. Karma wasn’t sweating in the slightest, but his shoulders had received enough blood flow to where they stretched his uniform shirt just shy of too tight. Eye contact, Gakushuu reminded himself. Eye contact.

“Who needs a cart?” Karma asked, playing dumb as he stared right at Koyama. “It’s just three flights of stairs. In fact, you’d probably be walking further just to reach the elevator, wouldn’t you?”

Koyama’s fist clenched. “So it looks like I can just email the questions to everyone, and you can answer on blank paper instead of the nicely-formatted handouts I made. And if we run out of paper, Karma-kun can just get more…” He slung his arm around Karma’s shoulders, and Gakushuu felt a flash of completely unprompted anger at the contact. “…Can’t he?”

“Wait, wait, let’s keep talking.” Seo smirked. “So, Asano, you were saying something about your—”

Ren, the excellent, excellent friend that he was, lunged at him to cover his mouth with both hands.

Gakushuu gave him a small smile, mentally making a note that he owed him one, before he crossed his arms and put on his Serious Face (which always, against his will, made him look a certain parent of his).

“That’s enough fooling around, you two. We’re here to study, not gossip or roughhouse.”

Seo protested as much as he could, which involved a muffled grumble before taking out his pencil case. Ren flashed Gakushuu a thumbs-up. Karma, whom Gakushuu expected to look maybe a little confused at the sudden change in commotion, or a little bored as he always tried to look, had an unreadable expression on his face. Whatever he was feeling, it wasn’t joy.

Gakushuu simply tried to ignore it, certain that Karma didn’t have enough information to discern his massive embarrassing crush slight infatuation with him from the encounter. He brushed his bangs away from his eyes, sharpened his pencils, and because he already studied all of the content that Koyama compiled for them, Gakushuu spent the next few hours with his mental energy half on solving the questions, and half on how he’ll… proceed.

“Our principal is a joke,” Karma declared. “I can’t believe I’m saying this, but let’s reinstate your dad.”

Gakushuu was currently cradling his head in his hands. A small, guilty cardboard box stood tall on his desk. Its lid: opened. Its contents: revealed to all. All of Gakushuu’s thoughtful plotting — er, planning from the day before: flushed down the goddamn drain, because this would either make or break him, irrevocable either way.

That offensive paper note that was taken out from the cardboard box and read out loud to the student council room in absolute disbelief, was now fluttering to the ground. A stark, white scar on their expensive oak floor.

“He can’t make me,” Gakushuu concluded. “He can’t make us. That—” utterly useless figurehead who will soon see Kunugigaoka fall apart at his feet after this year’s class graduates. Gakushuu cleared his throat. “This is unacceptable.”

Karma, who was blustering and laughing with him until now, suddenly got a focused glint in his eye. “I haven’t seen you this pressed over anything in a while, prez. It does make it easier to see the principal’s vision…”

Gakushuu groaned. “Don’t start what I know you’re about to start. Let’s just work together to reinstate my father before those French exchange students catch wind of this.”

The doors flung open, revealing an out-of-breath Ren. He looked at the two of them with frantic eyes, which then darted down to the open box on Gakushuu’s desk.

“No,” he breathed. “The exchange students were serious?”

“Guess they’ve caught wind of it.” Karma’s lips twitched once before he burst into laughter. “Come on now, Shuu, it’s not so bad. We’re — what did the letter say again? Giving them a proper taste of Japanese culture.”

Gakushuu’s jaw clicked. “I’m not putting on those cat ears.”

“One could even say it’s… your duty as president, to welcome them properly. Wouldn’t you say?”

“I’m. Not. Wearing. Them.”

Ren, from where he stood in the doorway, looked rather pale. “It’s not so bad, Asano. You’d have done it if it was for… say, a school festival.”

“For the sake of profit.”

“For the sake of profit?” Karma echoed, a grin curling at his lips. “So that’s the extent of your integrity, then?”

Gakushuu opened his mouth, retort primed, before realizing that… this could be altogether… not entirely disadvantageous. He has seen himself in the mirror, he knows he’s not an unattractive person. Cat ears, ridiculous as they were, had to look good on someone. And if he couldn’t pull them off, who would? Besides — Gakushuu peered back into the box — sure enough, three pairs. Seeing Karma wear them might make the whole ordeal worth it.

He sighed. “It’s just for the greeting, right? Five minutes maximum.” Gakushuu toyed with the fuzzy headband between his fingers. He contemplated snapping it in half. It would only take the slightest bit of effort between his index and thumb. “Let it be known that Asano Gakushuu can handle five minutes of torture, at the very least.”

The sound of a camera shutter went off. Gakushuu turned to see Karma holding up a peace sign beside his phone.

“Whenever you’re ready, prez,” Karma announced, his phone still tilted upwards.

“I’m going to snap that thing in half.”

“I’d like to see you try.”

An email notification popped onto Gakushuu’s laptop. He tossed the two of them their respective headbands (the black one, he felt, would suit Karma better. He tried to be discreet about his selection process), and announced with defeat in his voice, “The principal will be here with the exchange students any moment now. We will give them their stupid welcome with these stupid cat ears, and then they will go on to tour the rest of the school and we will go on with the rest of our lives and pretend this never happened. Karma, if I catch you spreading the pictures around, I’m going to do something drastic.”

“Don’t worry, you won’t catch me.”

Gakushuu gave a strained smile. “Great.”

Here’s what Gakushuu expected to happen: the welcome would go on as normal, head accessories notwithstanding; Gakushuu would ensure he’s standing to Karma’s left, which meant that any pictures taken of him would have the sun backlighting him in a kind of dreamy but approachable way; and when Karma took out those pictures of Gakushuu to tease him with over the next week or month, he would subconsciously note how pretty his friend, that is, rival was. The friend-slash-rival that he should’ve had a massive crush on and already confessed to by now, but alas. Gakushuu has never claimed to fully understand the vice-president. He could only adjust his estimations. And even in the worst case, so long as things went to Gakushuu’s plans, he’d still have a boyfriend at least a month before graduation.

Here’s what actually happened:

(Holy shit. Holy heavens above. Whoever is out there, whoever or whatever shaped Akabane Karma, you’ve done an excellent job. No wonder there is such a large market for cat ears. They were designed to eventually make their way to him. Gakushuu would take a photo if the shutter sound didn’t give him away. He resorted to the next best thing of committing the relaxed, sly image of his… his someone, to memory down to every last detail. The arrangement of his bangs around the headband. The way they brought out his eyes. Holy shit. Holy heavens above…)

“K-Karashi,” The french boy said, pointing at Gakushuu and snapping him out of his stupor. “Desu ka?”

“I’m not seasoning,” Gakushuu said, politely, a thin smile on his face. Couldn’t he see Gakushuu was busy admiring the piece of art to his right?

“Ah, pardonnez-moi, est-ce que c’est… kareshi?”

Gakushuu tilted his head, tempted to start speaking in French just to get this stranger’s yammering over with. But last year flashed in his mind, what a horrid two months he had to spend translating everything for him. Best to hide his cards this time around. “彼氏?”

“H-hai!” The boy nodded, as though it meant anything. “Kareshi! Desu ka?”

“I think,” Karma interrupted, an uncharacteristic seriousness to his tone. “What our friend means to ask, is if you have a boyfriend.” He threw in a chuckle at the end, but Gakushuu could tell he didn’t find the whole thing very funny at all.

Because Karma likes me, or because he’s bored? Gakushuu wasn’t nearly as sure about the answer as he’d like to be. “Ah. A bit of an inappropriate question, Nicolas-san. But no, I do not.”

(Meanwhile, Ren had passed a slip of paper — presumably with his LINE contact — to the French girl.)

The principal cleared his throat. “Shall we move on with the next step in our tour? I’d love to show you two the gardens.”

The French girl rolled her eyes to make a show of how bored she was while her fist clenched around a piece of paper in her sweater pocket, but the boy was still looking intensely at Gakushuu. “Omae to ore. Kareshi? Desu ka?”

Gakushuu suppressed a wince at the rudeness. “Sorry,” he said, unsure if he should say any more in case the message got lost. How do these exchange students even survive here for a term? Perhaps once upon a time, back when it was Gakushuu’s father who was principal here, the exchange program meant something. The Japanese students learned a bit of French. The French students left after their term fluent in Japanese and academically ahead of everyone else in their next few grades. Both schools got to brag about it. Gakushuu wondered sometimes if this new principal that his father chose to replace him, after he got removed from his position, was purposefully selected to be a clumsy man who couldn’t even dream of commanding a room. So, when the board of directors asked for his father to return to his position, they’d have to beg.

“O-Onegai?”

Karma walked up to him and slung an arm around his shoulder. He whispered something into the boy’s ear, the words of which, Gakushuu couldn’t make out. He could only tell it was French. The boy’s face turned a bit blue-ish as Karma held up his phone.

“I’ll take a picture for you, how about that?” Karma eventually said in Japanese. “Smile, prez!”

Gakushuu refused, instead opting to raise an eyebrow at him. The camera shutter went off.

“Okay~ You go and enjoy the rest of our beautiful school now. Éclate-toi bien!”

The door shut, and Ren turned back around with a low whistle. “She wasn’t bad at all, don’t you think?”

“She pays good attention to her hair,” Gakushuu said. “I can respect that. Though, I’d wager a week before you get bored and move on to the next one.”

“You always use such crude language,” Ren sighed. “It’s not getting bored, it’s spreading the love.”

Gakushuu just stared at him blankly. “You’re very fortunate none of them have been upset so far.”

“Don’t say it’s fortune. That makes it sound like I haven’t put any skill nor careful effort into ensuring exactly that.”

“Wait,” Karma interrupted them. He blinked once, twice, then laughed to himself and shook his head. “Nevermind.”

“No, what is it?” Gakushuu crossed his arms. “I refuse to owe you for the save, by the way, since you managed to get your picture of me after all.”

“That’s not it.” Karma removed those wonderful cat ears of his (which reminded Gakushuu to also remove the devilish things, which were admittedly comfortable). “I just remembered an awful miscalculation I made earlier. Anyways, I finally picked up that new game we were looking at, Shuu. Come to my place later to play it?”

“I have to study,” Gakushuu said, like he always said. They both knew he’d be there anyways, after he did an hour of reviewing the same things he’d been reviewing for the past three years and found himself bored by the same old questions.

“Sure you do,” Karma said. “I’ll charge your controller for you.”

“And— Karma,” Gakushuu said, chin held high. “That picture, just out of curiosity, who do you intend on sending that to?”

Karma simply stuck out his tongue and retreated.

Ren hummed.

“What.”

“Nothing.” Ren cracked a smile. “So, I take it you’ll stay in Japan for university after all?”

“…Shut up.”

Karma’s house was always about as warm as Gakushuu’s: not very. The empty rooms made themselves known, silence echoing, and the fridge never stocked more food than was strictly necessary. Strangely, the chill made Gakushuu feel more at ease. Like it was just the two of them sitting in the same clamshell.

“What should we compete for this time?” Gakushuu asked.

Karma’s living room had Gakushuu’s favourite couch in the world. The first time he sat in it some two years back, he nearly fell asleep on the spot. The five-hundred-and-twenty-second time, he realized just how close his spot was to Karma’s. He could feel the heat of him brushing against his leg. If he set down the controller and let gravity take over his arm, their fingers would stack on top of one another. Suffice to say, Gakushuu’s eyes were not on the TV screen.

“You lost the last one. You pick.” Karma clicked through the home page menu. Each ding of the UI echoed.

Here’s the thing: Gakushuu didn’t care about the mushy stuff. He didn’t. (This was the only conclusion he allowed himself to reach). They were not conducive to his learning nor to his future job prospects, and going to the arcade on the regular was certainly not going to help him with the world domination he’s been trained for since birth. However. He does, admittedly, enjoy being first. And coming second to Nagisa or Kanzaki or any other future stranger in a certain person’s heart was simply unacceptable. A loser’s mentality. And Gakushuu was — simply, with nothing more to it — not a loser.

And if winning happened to come with a side of soft red hair falling through his fingertips — Gakushuu wouldn’t complain.

“If I win,” Gakushuu said, his heartbeat ringing in his ears. “I’d like a kiss.”

Karma stopped clicking through the menus. “What was that?”

“You heard me.”

“Oh.”

Gakushuu’s fingertips went numb around his controller. He approached this attack with the intention of losing one battle to win the war. He’d already eliminated the possibility that he’d lose both, but it now rose to taunt him.

“Oh?” Gakushuu held himself back from pressing the subject as the muscles in his jawline trembled.

“What… What do I get, if I win?”

“You won’t—” Gakushuu’s throat bobbed. “—Find out. I don’t lose twice in a row.”

“Hm. I have some memories that would disprove that.”

Gakushuu took too long to answer.

Karma took a breath. “Did you. Mean that? Your prize.”

“I don’t make my deals half-heartedly.”

“You meant it seriously?”

Gakushuu didn’t respond.

“Okay. Pick a game.”

“What?”

“You lost the last one,” Karma repeated. “You pick the game.”

“Janken.” Gakushuu set down the controller in his lap and turned to Karma, but found himself, for the first time in his life, unable to lift his head. He didn’t want to find out what expression was contained on Karma’s face. “I’m thinking of playing rock.”

A beat of silence. Then, they held out their fists. “Saisho wa guu.”

Gakushuu felt like he might faint. All of the reasons he’d had for wanting this in the first place flew away from him, and his mind came up blank. He’d never competed with his life on the line before. The game was happening too quick. All the preparation in the world couldn’t have readied him for this — laying his heart bare. What straightforward, barbarian strategy. No cheats up his sleeve, no mind games or advantages. This was the only way he could get his point across. And now, all he could do was play his rock.

“Janken pon!”

His own rock stared up at him, his pale hand trembling slightly under the living room’s cool light. On the other side was Karma’s flat, outstretched hand.

Gakushuu blinked, his eyes processing a sharp sting before his heart could. “Um.”

And then with the reflexes of a trained assassin, Karma’s hands were suddenly cradling the sides of Gakushuu’s jaw, and then their lips were touching, and it was — physically, at least — no different from any of the other times Gakushuu had ever tasted anyone, but something about the calloused hands touching his cheeks and the sharp tongue against his own made Gakushuu’s heart skip a beat. There was the sound of a controller falling to the ground, and Gakushuu suddenly no longer knew where his hands and arms were moving, because Karma’s shoulders were now so firm under Gakushuu’s touch, and his breath tasted like strawberry daifuku, which might’ve become Gakushuu’s new favourite flavour.

“See?” Karma breathed into Gakushuu’s hot cheek. “Two losses in a row. You didn’t really think I’d throw the game on purpose, did you?”

“You—”

“My request is that you be my boyfriend. And that you stay in Japan for university.”

Gakushuu blinked again, then, as blood returned to his fingertips, he found himself laughing. “You only get one, Karma. Request that I stay in Japan if you win the next one.”

“You mean when I win the next one.”

Then he leaned in again, and Gakushuu hoped that Karma didn’t pick kissing to be their next competition, because while one of them was getting training from the finest honeytrap assassin in the world, the other was studying for his high school entrance exams. Though, Gakushuu supposed, with the practice he was planning on getting, he’ll catch up soon enough.

And the strangest part of it all: losing, for once, didn’t taste bitter at all.