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“Operation Sweetheart is about more than just making their hearts flutter.”
Kinosaki Mei's pep talk rang in Gero Hikaru’s ears as he undressed, folding his paw print attire neatly before setting it aside. Hundreds of thousands of hours of training wouldn’t allow for anything less.
“You have to make them feel that, deep down, they want to spend the rest of their lives with you.”
Part of him was embarrassed. Not at his nudity, but that Mei knew that explaining this level of romance was a necessity for a socially inept workaholic like himself. Well, and because of…
“But it’s not just them, Gero. You’ve gotta feel that way too.”
The private hot springs were an aesthetic delight. A steady waterfall poured into a large, rock lined basin just beyond the showers. A few cats lazed about on the warm rocks nearby, comfortable with the prospect of strangers giving them a few scritches under the chin. The view was immaculate, with a beautiful forested landscape as far as the eye could see, and with Mei emerging from the changing rooms wrapped in a towel that showed off her slender arms and long, smooth legs.
“These hot springs are amazing. Don’t you think, Gero?” Mei shot him a devilish wink as Hikaru quickly shifted his gaze. It wasn’t at all appropriate to be looking so disrespectfully at her.
Hikaru shielded his face, hiding in the steamy water.
“W- why…” he muttered to himself. Why can’t I keep it straight? Kinosaki is a guy, right? Even though he lives his life as a woman?
He risked another peek while Mei rinsed off the day’s sweat and grime. She had the body of a model; With her towel wrapped so tightly around her chest, her enviable curves were a sirens song none could resist. Her skin was smooth and unblemished, surely the result of a dedicated skincare routine, and her hair was thick and beautiful (even if the length past her shoulders were extensions). Every new person they met thought she was a beautiful woman, and the use of Hes and Shes just got confusing after a while, but Mei never seemed to mind.
I guess Mei is just…Mei.
Hikaru smiled a little at the thought. It was a bit strange, but Mei was comfortable with who he or she was. In the end, that was what mattered most, at least to Hikaru.
“This is the hardest assignment of today’s marriage boot camp.” Mei continued, approaching the hot spring. Hikaru couldn’t turn around.
“Keep calm and carry on, no matter what happens!”
Between the heat of the water and the thought of Mei letting her towel drop to step into the hot springs, Hikaru felt faint. His body was trained for a million different kinds of pressure, including torture, but this…this was unlike anything he’d encountered before.
Keep calm? How was he supposed to do that?
“What’s the problem?” Mei asked from behind him, settling into the bath.
He knew Mei was smirking at his shyness. Hikaru didn’t know why it what was so funny, but time and time again he would turn to see Mei smiling as he flubbed over himself on these practice dates. Like last time, before the competition with Beppu…
“We’re both friends, right?”
They had been watching a scary movie. Hikaru had lent Mei a “boyfriend hoodie”, a lap to sit on, and an arm to cling to, and it had nearly killed him. Just when he thought he was in the clear, as Mei dozed peacefully next to him, he found himself above the sleeping beauty. Had he leaned down? Had Mei leaned up? Hikaru couldn’t remember, only that they were so, so close.
It was Mei who had stopped it. A single finger on his lips broke the tension, and stopped him from…
From…
Friends. Right. They were both friends.
Mei whistled contently as she soaked. A cat warmed itself by the waters edge. Hikaru faced the corner, like a scolded little boy, lost in thought. Minutes dragged on, tick tick ticking away. With so much going on, he just…couldn’t relax.
“…Kinosaki?”
Mei stopped, turning her attention to Hikaru’s muscled, scar laden back.
“About Operation Sweetheart.”
“Hmm?”
He chewed on his words for a second.
“I do want to spend the rest of my life with someone, but right now…” Images of a future almost unattainable flashed through his head. Having quiet nights in. Caring for each other. Shared meals. If only he could imagine who it was that he was living with. He spent so much time with Mei that it was hard to imagine anyone else in her place. “…It’s hard to know exactly what my future holds and…”
Under the water, his fists clenched. Vulnerability in any sense of the word was…unnatural, to him.
“And that scares me.”
Vibrations in the water told his heightened senses that Mei was moving.
“I’m used to being on my own. With my life, any day could be my last. Can…” His eyes closed. His muscles were taught, ready to react if this kind of vulnerability led to some sort of attack. Not from Mei, obviously, but maybe someone was in the trees, or spying with a drone…
“Can someone like me really have a relationship?”
Mei, towel clad once more, knelt before him. His eyes opened to her outstretched hand before him. In the light of the setting sun, Hikaru could swear she was glowing. The invitation was clear, and the symbolism was overflowing.
“Everyone’s scared at first.”
Mei’s words felt like a cold compress on a fevered forehead. Being with her was a balm on a wound that Hikaru didn’t even know he had. Until recently, he had never really worried about dating or partners. He had his work and his family and was happy with it, but with the threat from Grandma, he was forced to enter this world he had never cared much for. Without Mei’s help, he’d be drowning in the deep end. Instead, here he was. On a date.
A fake date? Maybe. But it felt so real…
“It’ll be okay.” Mei’s smile was impossible not to return. “Because I’ll be with you every step of the way.”
Her confidence, charm, and positivity were simple infectious. To have someone so kind and beautiful look so lovingly at you, there was nothing Hikaru could do but think that maybe, with Mei, it would be okay. Really, what more could he ask for? What more could he want?
Taking Mei’s offered hand was supposed to be, ya’know, symbolic. Accepting the pact, embracing their partnership, allowing someone else to help for once and hold his very future in their capable hands. Nobody told Hikaru’s muscles though, because with very little effort, Mei’s bare feet were slipping on the wet rocks and tumbling dangerously towards Hikaru.
Fortunately, Hikaru was trained to save damsels in distress.
Unfortunately, Mei’s towel wasn’t ready to be a damsel in distress.
As Hikaru caught his feminine friend (quite easily, in fact), it slipped from its high perch around Mei’s chest and barely covered her waist. With a splash, the increasingly exposed Mei was firmly in Hikaru’s surprisingly gentle embrace.
Hikaru didn’t know where to look. His brain was on fire. His hands were very near no-touch zones. Mei’s skin was so soft. She was so beautiful, even when she looked absolutely mortified.
Wait, mortified?
Surely this was only embarrassing, right?
No, Mei was not blushing. She wasn’t bashful, trying to hide her nearly-exposed waist or breasts. She looked…afraid.
Her hands went to cover her chest, yes, but it was the sternum they pressed against. Even still, the scar was quite visible.
It stretched down her entire sternum, flaring outward in the middle like a star on a moonless night. It looked painful. Maybe not anymore, but at one point, definitely. This was the exact kind of wound Hikaru wanted to protect Mei from.
The waterfall was the only noise for a long, long time.
He…should set her down, right? Truth be told, he wanted to. He wanted to give Mei a chance to recover, to compose herself, to reclaim her dignity, but…
Mei trembled in his arms. Her bangs hid her eyes as Hikaru failed to avert his own. How could he let Mei go after learning that someone he held so close to his heart was once so close to being lost to this world? How could he ever, ever risk losing her?
His grip on Mei’s arm and outer thigh steeled. Mei’s breathing hitched. Was she trying not to cry? What was going on inside her head?
Hikaru lowered Mei’s legs back into the water, freeing his right arm once he was sure Mei had found purchase on the rocky basin floor, but his left arm remained under her back, his hand firmly on Mei’s shoulder.
“u..um, Gero…?” Mei started, but Hikaru moved as if in a trance. His hand raised to Mei’s chest, his probing fingers gingerly moved Mei’s from covering the scar. Hands shaking, she allowed Hikaru’s intrusion, and shivered as his index carefully traced the thickest section.
“P…please, can we…just keep this our little secret?” Her voice, while shaky, clearly tried to recover her usual charm. A little honey on the words always got Hikaru on her side. She tried a smile as Hikaru’s gaze raised to meet her own, but it faltered. Something was different with Hikaru. Every little touch from Mei sent him scrambling up the wall like a scared kitten, but now he was still as a stone. His finger, rested ever so gently on the edge of the scar tissue, moved slow and deliberately up to the base of Mei’s chin, scooping up the single tear she hadn’t realized was there.
“Are you hurt?” The gentleness Mei had only seen before in brief moments made her heart skip. In Hikaru’s arms, nothing could hurt her. She swallowed hard, unsure of how to breath properly.
“No, I’m fine.” A half truth. Maybe a quarter truth.
“I’m sorry.” Hikaru was being strange, and they both knew it. Their hearts beat in rapid unison, unbeknownst to either.
Mei fought to regain her trademark charm. She was unshakable, right?
“For what?”
Hikaru’s finger lingered on her face before turning to run a thumb across Mei’s cheek. His hand supporting Mei’s weight squeezed a little tighter, pulling her just a little closer. They were so, so close.
“For not being there.”
Mei’s hands found their way to Hikaru’s chest, but she wasn’t sure why. For support? To push him away?
They were so, so close.
Hikaru’s hand remained on her cheek. Mei couldn’t stop herself from leaning into it. She was all but standing now, and Hikaru’s other hand was forced from her shoulder to between her shoulder blades as she rotated.
“Its okay, Gero. It…It wasn’t your fault.”
Her heart hammered in her chest. Hikaru’s thudded like a drum beneath her hand.
If only…this could be more than practice.
“Mei…”
Mei’s eyes went wide, shooting upward to meet Hikaru’s. He had never used Mei’s first name before, and with no honorifics, it made her weak in the knees. Hikaru’s expression was something Mei hadn’t seen…maybe ever.
Overwhelming tenderness and affection.
His sad, loving smile spoke volumes.
“…Hikaru.”
She shouldn’t lean up.
He shouldn’t lean down.
But they both did.
Hikaru couldn’t help being reserved (He had never done this before, after all), but Mei equally couldn’t help being eager. It was wrong, a massive overstep of Mei’s role as his marriage coach and Hikaru’s as her student, but it felt so right. Their lips touched slowly at first, but as Mei rose to her tiptoes and Hikaru sunk into the kiss, it became a fire that engulfed them both. Hikaru’s hands couldn’t help themselves to enough of Mei’s exposed back, and Mei’s arms naturally found themselves rising up to Hikaru’s shoulders, pulling him desperately deeper into the kiss.
“Is…is this right?” Hikaru asked when they broke for air. Mei giggled, drunk with the slightly bitter taste of his toxic lips.
“Trust your instincts. You’re doing great.”
Hikaru nodded, coming in to close that terrible distance once more. He wanted Mei closer, closer than humanly possible, but when he couldn’t lean down any farther he had no choice but to lift her into his arms. With one hand on her back and one on her ass, Mei couldn’t stop the surprised squeak that ensued.
She had never, ever imagined that Hikaru was capable of being this…smooth.
Their lips danced with each other, giving and taking in a messy desperate yearning, all but devouring each other in their need. Hikaru’s brain was fully on the fritz, unsure of anything he was doing but not caring because it didn’t matter. Mei knew his shortcomings, his inexperience, and she didn’t care. She was too busy giggling like a schoolgirl.
Panting for air as their lips unlocked, Hikaru’s curiosity became too great.
“What?” He asked, smiling up at Mei, who he held just above head height. She tried to stifle her snickering with her hand, but it was no use.
“Oh, nothing. I just couldn’t help but notice how…excited…you are.”
With her subtly pointing downward, Hikaru’s kiss addled brain suddenly became very, very aware of just how naked they were. How he had lifted Mei almost directly on top of his excitement. How excited Mei was, and how hard it was pressed against him.
“NGH-”
He quickly set Mei on the low stone wall surrounding the hot spring, turning his back to hide not only his erection but his beet red face as well. Mei’s snickering had become full chested laughter.
“STOP LAUGHING!”
“I’m- I’m sorry…” She wiped a tear from her eye, finding her composure. “I’m just…so happy.”
Timidly, Hikaru turned back around. The look on Mei’s face- awe filled adoration- almost had him running for cover, but he wouldn’t run.
Not anymore.
With a sigh, he lifted himself from the water’s privacy, covering himself with the small towel he had once kept dry on his head as he sat next to Mei.
“What do you mean?” His question was purely genuine. With someone as hard to read as Mei, sometimes he just had to ask. Luckily for Hikaru’s sanity, she had covered herself with her soaking wet towel as well, and he was able to find a shred of composure.
She kicked her legs in the hot spring water, swirling the mineral rich water in lazy, hypnotic patterns.
“I was so worried that I wouldn’t have a chance.” Her gaze was distant, far from the hot spring and the trees and Hikaru. “Before, you know, you got ma-“
“Don’t.”
Mei fell silent. Hikaru didn’t say anything else, but from the pained look on his face, she knew they were thinking the same thing.
“Hikaru…You know I can’t…” It was too much to say out loud. “For your grandmother. For your clan, I can’t…It can’t be me.”
“I don’t care.”
Mei’s eyes went wide. The night sky reflected in her teary eyes as she looked up at the steeled face of Hikaru Gero, hero that he was.
“I don’t care what it takes. I don’t care if I have to burn it all down. Let the clan shrivel and die. What they’ve done to my sister, my cousin, what they’ve done to me?”
He thought of all those he’d met who stood against their fate; Himekawa giving up her fortune. Ureshino conquering her anxieties. Ushio defeating fire clan. Arashiyama standing up to beast clan. Chinatsu forging a family with Erina. Himi defying her arranged marriage. Piichi slaughtering anyone who threatened his future with his girlfriend. He stood, a knight in naught but his birthday suit, fist clenched as he declared to the heavens above.
“I won’t let them control our lives anymore!”
It was a grand gesture, until he realized he was exposing himself right at Mei’s eye level. Hurriedly, he covered himself, all but running for the safety of the changing room while Mei chased behind trying to reassure him, all while silent, watchful eyes captured every moment in horrible 4k…