It's not a complete immersion school - the language of instruction in about three quarters the classes is Japanese - but it does really push the English. There's the usual complement of uniformed girls and boys in all his classes. This one's cute, but he's not paying Yutaka much attention.

(Speaking of sons to corrupt.)

The teachers are having him introduce himself at the start of every new class, so he's doing that here, too, with one of his best smiles and bows. "My name is Iwasaki Yutaka. I'm a new transfer student. I'm looking forward to getting to know everyone; it's nice to meet you all!"

Now, is there a free seat near the cute boy?

Yeah, he's on the far left in the second row and the spot right behind him is open.

Excellent. Yutaka makes a bit of a small show of looking for places so that it doesn't look like he's homing in on the gorgeous boy and then decides to go there.

"Hello!" he says to the boy, bowing. "Is it okay if I sit behind you?"

"Sure. I'm Suwan Masaharu."

"It's nice to meet you!" he says, bowing again, then he takes the relevant seat and drops his bag next to his chair.

And they return to their regularly scheduled lesson. Suwan-san is passable when he's just saying stock phrases but he does have a noticeable accent when he is called upon to say anything more substantive.

...huh! Yutaka would not have expected him to be foreign. Does that mean he's less likely to be homophobic and/or willing to experiment and/or gay and not closeted about it? Yutaka can't wait to find out~

None of the teacher's questions are about that! The teacher does say something about Suwan-san taking good notes and asking him to lend the ones from yesterday to the new student, so he tears them out of his notebook to do that.

"—aren't those yours? I can just copy them, you don't need to tear them out."

"You can give them back when you've copied them, it's fine."

"Alright. Thank you." Deploying charming smile #7.

That gets - blinked at, but then he returns his attention to taking notes for today on the pages after the torn ones.

That looks like a gay blink, in Yutaka's opinion. But he shouldn't get ahead of himself, he know he's got a bias towards thinking gorgeous boys are gayer than they actually are. But it would be good if he were right.

Anyway, uh, he's gotta, like, take notes, right. The less interesting part of school. Yawn.

They have their next class together too. It's math.

Cool! So he gets to ask, "So, sorry if I'm being rude, Suwan-san, but are you from abroad?"

"I'm from Canada. Was it the accent?"

"Yeah," he says, sheepishly. "My accent in English is really bad, though, so I can't say anything."

"Well, try retroactively having moved to an English speaking country when you were eight and then people will still notice."

"Accents are hard. My English teacher always used to say that if I don't put in the effort to get rid of my accent then just learning won't be enough."

"Well, enough for what? If you just want to watch Hollywood movies in the original you don't need a polished accent."

"You know, she never said? Enough for sounding like I'm native, at a guess."

"There aren't a lot of purposes you need to sound like a native for. In English. I think it matters more here."

"No, but she was a perfectionist."

"Can you say 'squirrel'?"

Charming smile #5: "Oh, are we at the making fun of each other part of our acquaintance already, Suwan-san? Squirrel." It's, uh. It's not great.

"Well, we don't have to be."

"Can't scare me. Give me your worst."

"If I were a squirrel I'd be offended."

"Oof, ouch."

"You'll catch me mangling kanji sooner or later."

"Careful, I've got a page of your notebook on me."

"Sooner, then."

Come on, this boy is totally gay, right, they're vibing here, these are some gay vibes. "Might keep you after school to go over your mistakes."

Well, he might be gay but that didn't land. "I have translation club."

That's fine, they can't all land. The recovery here is to show an interest.

"—translation club?"

"You have to be in some kind of club, that's mine. We translate things, mostly between Japanese and English but there's somebody who does German and somebody who does Chinese and two who do Korean."

"Huh. No one told me I had to join a club."

"Might be they make an exception if you're transferring in midyear? Or someone dropped the ball."

"Do you know who I'd ask?"

"No, sorry, I just got a form to fill out in the fall."

"Alright. I'll go bother someone about it later."

And with that they can return their attention to math class.

Yeah. And he shouldn't come off as too obsessive or clingy, boys don't like that, so he'll keep it cool for now.

They don't have the next couple classes together but then there's lunch!

Suwan-san isn't the only cute boy at school, and Yutaka's been hard at work (or hardly working, har har) getting them to like him, but unfortunately his hit rate is capped from above by the actual underlying rate of homosexuality in the base population, not to mention all of the closeted people around, so by lunch time he hasn't found a better target yet.

Is Suwan-san sitting with anyone?

He's not at an empty table but there is an empty seat next to him and he is not actively chatting with the people he's near.

What's the vibe, is he reading a book or does he have earbuds on or otherwise looks like he doesn't want to be disturbed?

He's got a book!

Yeah nah, people who are reading books do not want to be disturbed. He wants Suwan-san to like him, not think he's an annoying nuisance who keeps bugging him even when he clearly isn't up for it. He'll find some other people to sit with instead.

They have science together in the afternoon.

Space for Yutaka to sit near him?

If he's at class early enough, yes, he can get a spot on Suwan's right, and a nod.

"Hiya! Turns out someone did drop a ball and I was in fact meant to find a club. So now I gotta look through 'em. Journalism seems cool."

"I don't actually read the school paper, what do they put in there?"

"Not a clue! So when I look into it I might find out I don't vibe with it. But, you know, out of the options, at a glance, it seems cool."

"I hope you like it."

"What made you pick translation?"

"Well, initially, it just seemed like it'd be easy and I'd have more of my spare time to myself. But I actually like it, it's an interesting way to think about how people - decide what they mean and what words match it."

He's resting his head on his right elbow, looking at Suwan Masaharu as he says that. "And between English and Japanese there's a lot of room for trying to figure out which words to pick. Compare* or compare*? I know which one I'd pick in Japanese, but how do you choose?"

* 比べる
* 比較する

"Depends, does it need to scan?"

He grins. "That just makes it easy."

"Not necessarily. The difference between the right word and the almost right word is the difference between lightning and a lightning bug."

Oh Yutaka wants to kiss this boy.

Patience. All in due time.

"The difference between the right word and the almost right word is the difference between lightning and a lightning bug," he repeats. With words that aren't as evil as "squirrel" he does a lot better! He is speaking English with a Japanese accent rather than converting English words into kana in his speech. "Is that a quote?"

"Yeah! Mark Twain."

Oh he wants to kiss this boy even more. That's an unreasonably attractive smile. And most importantly if a boy smiles like that when talking about something it is extremely important that he find it super interesting.

But like, not going overboard with it. He shouldn't come off as fake.

"Is Twain a particular favourite?"

"I don't have a single favorite but I do like Twain."

"What do you like about him?"

"He's a wit, and -" Ah they are supposed to do science now.

Aw come on man he was flirting with the cute boy. 

Wherever. Science. He has time.

And after school, clubs.

He should probably put in at least a little bit of effort to find a club he doesn't hate. However much he may or may not want to kiss a boy, trying to rush it almost never works; the boy needs to look substantially hornier for it to. 

So, here he is, flitting from club to club this beautiful late winter afternoon, trying to find his muse.

The journalism club will be happy to have him if he's interested! But there's also sports and anime club and various games and academic subjects.

What does the journalism club cover? Thinking about what initially drove him to it, he thinks he'd like to meet more people and stuff? That seems neat.

They cover whatever's happening! At the moment he's happening, he could introduce himself in the paper.

Sure! He's down for that.

What brings him to Shimamoto High? Is he making friends? What's his favorite subject? What's different here compared to his old school?

"I grew up a bit sheltered, and my father thought that changing schools might broaden my horizons, especially an immersion school like this where I get to meet both people whose first language isn't Japanese and people who are more seriously interested in learning English."

"Yeah, I think I'm making friends! It's just day one, so there's a lot of people I haven't met yet, but I like the people I've met and would love to be their friend."

"My favourite subject... can I say none of them?" He laughs. "I'm not a very studious kind of person, but I guess I like reading, even the kind of stuff they give us in literature. It's fun."

"So many things! I think the immersion thing is the biggest one, though, I'm having to really brush up on my English skills to keep up, I'm not good at all."

They can show him how they turn this information into an article and format it for the paper!

Yeah! That's very cool. He thinks that, unless he sees something that sparkles a lot in another club, he might be joining this one. 

(It helps that the editor-in-chief is really cute.)

The next morning Haru goes to school as usual and also as usual picks his way very carefully across the ice, taking twenty times longer than anyone else to get from point A to point B instead of his indoor 1.5x standard.

When he finally arrives at his destination building, there's a group of three girls huddled together by the entrance and being substantially less quiet than they think they are.

"...group."

    "No way? You're joking?"

"You can Google it, it's the same guy—"

Well, he's going to continue to take a really long time till he gets to the really well sanded and salted part of the sidewalk so he will probably have time to hear a few more words.

        "This is a kid."

"It's the same face! Add, like, five years to him. And, look, he said his name was Iwasaki."

    "It's not a super rare name..." That one notices Haru approaching and pulls her friends with her somewhere more secluded while trying to pretend it wasn't because of Haru.

Yeah-huh. Step. Step. Okay there's a nice crunchy section, he gets both feet on there and goes up the front steps at a nearly normal speed.

There's another group on the way to his first class, this time all boys, from whom Haru can catch the "Iwasaki" name again, but this particular group is substantially better at keeping quiet than the girls from earlier. However, the boy sitting behind him in his first class is being a lot less careful than that, talking to the boy next to him while two other kids aren't trying very hard to pretend they're not eavesdropping.

"Is it true?"

    "Is what true?"

"The new guy, what's his face, is he Iwasaki Iemasa's kid?"

    "How should I know?"

"Isn't it, like, your job to know these things?"

    "If it is I'm not being paid enough for it."

"Come onnnnnnnnnnnnnn."

    "Well, his name is Iwasaki, and he is male, and of the right age bracket, and he looks similar to some old pictures of Iwasaki-san's kid..."

"Come onnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnn."

    Sigh. "And I haven't heard this at all, I am making this up entirely right as I speak, so I am completely lying to you when I say that there are rumours that Iwasaki-san's kid got expelled from his old school last week..."

"Expelled? Why?"

    "If I were to invent a reason completely at random with no connection to reality, I'd say that there might've been something about Iwasaki-san paying a lot of money so that no one would know the answer to that question."

        One of the people who was definitely not eavesdropping scoffs and says, "Come on, that's the lamest—"

    "And since this is all lies, I will continue to tell you things that aren't true and that actually I didn't tell you at all, like that there's some... other... rumours... about him."

"Why should we pay you money when you're teasing us like that?"

    He grins and pushes his glasses up the bridge of his nose. "Well, I'm not in the business of being sued for defamation, so those are all the lies I'm going to tell you this morning."

"Come onnnnnnnnn—"

    "Teacher's here," he adds, nodding in the direction of the front of the classroom.

Wow, okay. ...who the fuck is Iwasaski Iemasa, anyway, he'll look that up on his phone between classes.

Chairman and CEO of Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group. Extremely fucking rich guy, really old school and traditional, the kind of guy people write fiction about. His many-times great-grandfather was Iwasaki Yatarō, the guy who founded the Mitsubishi zaibatsu in the late 1800s, and his family's male line held the group until it was dissolved by the Allies.

Fancy that.

Oh well. The guy's son, if this is even him and also if it isn't, is: a teenager at Haru's school. Who sits behind him in his next class.

Regardless of the truth of those rumours, it seems like their mere existence has already turned Iwasaki into a local celebrity. On his way to their next class, Haru will be able to spot him in the hallway near the door, in what you could call a "friend group" if there wasn't a whole entire vibe there, as if he were surrounded even though he isn't.

When he spots Haru, though, he lifts a hand in a wave and grins.

Haru is not exactly experienced in maneuvering within a knot of teenagers who are, in his second language, doing some manner of vibe at each other, to accomplish any social end he might conceivably have had. Yutaka gets an acknowledging quick smile and then Haru's getting through the door into his chair.

A few minutes after that, but still before the teacher arrives, Iwasaki slips into the room and takes his seat behind Haru. "Morning, Suwan-san."

"Hello. It sounds like somebody Googled your surname and got very excited."

"It does sound like that, yeah! Speaking of, is 'Suwan' meant to be the pronounceable-by-Japanese-speakers version of 'Swan'?"

"Yeah, that side of the family assimilated enough to have an English name. Here we're spelling it like kugui though."

"That's pretty! You should tell Japanese people to learn to say your name right, 'Swan' is prettier than 'Suwan'."

"I don't really care enough to make demands on random strangers' time."

He really feels like there should be a response here that he could come up with that'd be charming and flirty and cool but he can't come up with one quickly enough. "I suppose some of us do have to be normal about things so that the rest of us can get away with not doing that."

"Sure. I'm creating slack in the system so you can be abnormal about something. Enjoy."

He rests his head on his elbow. "I will."

"Don't spend it all in one place."

"Got suggestions or requests?"

"We've barely met, I don't know what you're abnormal about, even if I were believing all the rumors they're nonspecific."

"I guess maybe we should hang out some more so you can know the ways in which I'm abnormal! Or at least outside the norm, the word 'abnormal' has such strong connotations."

"You could just tell me, if you want me to know."

"Oh but where's the fun in that? You gotta keep 'em guessing, coming back for more."

"How's that working out for you?"

"Pretty well in general, but maybe sometimes I'm the one who needs to keep coming back for more, which is its own kind of fun."

"Enriching."

He opens his mouth to say something but then lifts his eyes and straightens up when he sees the teacher's arrived. So rather than responding he'll just wink.

Yes yes the school part of school. "Do you still need my notes?"

"I don't think so. If I run into anything my old school hasn't covered I'll just ask." Here's Haru's notes from yesterday.

He tucks them into the notebook whence they came and starts notetaking on the new day's material.

Immediately after class ends, though, two girls emerge out of nowhere to come ask Iwasaki something.

None of Haru's business. Off he goes.

Well, it wouldn't do to be incredibly rude to these girls, they've done nothing wrong, they just want to ride on the coattails of Yutaka's fame and maybe make use of his very deep pockets. It's fine. He can humour them. And he knows his face works just as well on women.

"By the way," says one of them, pulling him aside after they've been walking down the hallway for a couple of minutes and acquired some more hangers-on.

"...mmhm?" Hot goss? Does he get the perks of fame already?

"That boy you were talking to, Suwan Masaharu..."

Blink. "Mm...hmm?" He can pretend he isn't suddenly ten times more interested, he can do that.

"He's, uh, I don't know if you knew but he's gay?"

YESSSSSS AHAHAHAH HE WAS RIGHT wait hold on, "Are you outing him?"

"—no! He's, um, he's out and all."

"...okay, so why are you telling me this?" YES YES YESSSSSSSSSSSS

"Just, you know, wanted to give you a heads up and tell you to be careful? People spread awful rumours, and they might..."

...ah.

"They might?"

"...start saying you're gay, too. If you hang out with him too much."

"Might they. Gosh. Well, I wouldn't want people to have the wrong impression about me, would I?"

She nods. "Right! That's why I thought I ought to tell you."

"Well, thank you, that's very useful information to know. Yamada-san, was it?"

"Yeah. But, um, you can just call me Ichino," she says, blushing a bit. "If you want."

"Ichino-san, let me give you something in exchange for this bit of information. It's a little bit of advice.

"You shouldn't make assumptions about other people, especially people you've just met."

"...uh."

"Now if you'll excuse me, I have to go to my next class, which apparently has at least one but possibly multiple gay boys in it. It was nice to chat!"

...bwuh?

But Suwan-san is not in that next class.

If Yutaka asks the translation club people Haru usually sits with at lunch, they say he fell down the stairs "again" and has probably already been taken to the hospital.

...he fell down the stairs badly enough to be taken to a hospital??? Is he okay??????

"Oh, he's always been fine before. He owes me money now though, he was betting it'd be the ice next."

"He... falls down the stairs and slips on ice badly enough to need to go to the hospital often enough that it's unremarkable?"

"He doesn't always need the hospital. But yeah, he falls down a lot."

"Yeah that does sound like a lot. Uh. Alright. Thank you for letting me know, I guess?" Damnit, he kicked his own closet's door wide open and for what?

Well, that's alright. He's got other options. And maybe once it's sufficiently out in the open there'll be the closeted guys who want to do some experimentation on the DL texting him quietly, those are always fun.

Suwan-san is back in school the next week on Monday! He's in a really good mood in spite of the wrist brace.

By the time he comes back, it's become an open secret that Iwasaki's gay; he's not quite as straightforwardly open as Haru, in that if you ask him he won't say yes, but he will also relevantly not say no. Despite all of this, he still has a persistent cadre of hangers-on, courtesy of being really fucking rich, because, oh, yeah, everyone's pretty much sure he's Iwasaki Iemasa's son, even though he also won't say yea or nay about that.

Whether Haru will learn any of this, of course, will depend on how much he'll care to. Iwasaki himself isn't going around announcing any of it, just conspicuously failing to deny it, and when he sees Haru again he lights up. "You're back! How've you been?"

"Convalescent! I'll make a complete recovery. And yourself?"

"I've been alright. I've taken notes over the week, if you want to copy them off me later. Your friends told me you fall a lot?"

"Yeah, I have all my life. We were looking into getting me a wheelchair, back in Canada, but never got around to it."

"—a wheelchair!" he says, inanely, because he's just been blinded by that smile again. Except, also, that smile is throwing errors in his brain. Why is Swan so happy? Surely it can't be just because they're talking again? Yutaka is as full of himself as they come but this would be a bit too much wishful thinking even for him. "And I guess it doesn't get quite as icy here?"

"It actually does but the maintenance is a bit better, most places I go are salted."

He squints. "Forgive me if I'm being too forward here, Swan-san, but did you win the lottery or something?"

"Nope, I'm just in a good mood."

"Oh, it's a seeeecret, I see."

"Maybe I just woke up on the right side of the bed."

"Well, I won't pry any further, then, and just be happy you're happy."

Bwuh. This isn't going right. He wanted to ask Swan out but something in his gut is telling him that that would not be a great idea and he's not sure why. Maybe he's just getting cold feet because it's been a week since they last spoke and Yutaka's feeling intimidated by how hot Swan is. Or maybe it's just that he got his dick wet again recently enough that he's feeling the lack less severely. Or something. Bwuh.

The teacher shows up and Swan, humming to himself very softly, takes notes.

What the fuuuuuuuuuck. This is going to bug him.

Swan goes on seeming cheery and preoccupied. All day, actually.

Ah. Okay. Yutaka understands why it was feeling like he was going to be rejected.

Swan has a boyfriend.

In the span of the week since they met, he met some boy at—the hospital? Or something?? That's the only explanation.

Aw, man. That really, really bugs him. He wanted a shot!

He might ask one of Swan's friends from the translation club, honestly, see if they know. Swan is out, Yutaka might as well be out, it won't be weird for him to ask, right?

"I don't think he has a boyfriend," says one of the translation friends. "Eee, do you liiiiiike him?"

"I, I mean, we've barely met, really, we just talked a little bit, I mean..." Is this the right character to play? He thinks it might be. "Just, I mean, he hurt himself when I was thinking of asking him out but yesterday he was looking a bit..."

"Well, if I really needed to know," says Watanabe, "I'd ask his mother. She teaches at the kindergarten. And she's from Canada too."

"—I can't ask his mother! We're not even on a personal name basis yet!"

"Oh, if you want to be just start calling him Haru - he goes by that, not Masaharu. He doesn't know how to decide when to switch, he'll wait for you to do it."

"I was gonna suggest it when I asked him out!" Okay he's getting a bit too into this character, here. "If he has a boyfriend it'll be so mortifying, though..."

"I don't think he has one. I think he'd say, he wouldn't necessarily say who but I think he'd say."

"Well... okay. I mean... okay. Alright."

Smile.

Off he goes, then, leaving that character behind.

So Swan—Haru?—doesn't have a boyfriend. Hm. But something did change, Yutaka's certain of it. There's some airs, there's a vibe. Swan was just not responding, and that was annoying.

He needs a cig. And maybe a shag. He can go hang out by the shed with the sports materials, it's sufficiently out of the way that people mostly won't bother him if he lights a cigarette, so that's number one. As for number two...

yo

I'm frustrated and I want to take it out on someone

you could be someone

wow

you haven't texted me in two weeks

and this is the first thing i get?

ynm

y obviously

your place or mine?

yours

not in the mood for cleaning up

see you at 5

ciao

Yutaka shouldn't smoke too much right now, though, or people will start complaining. He puts the cig out, brushes his teeth, and goes back to the main building for his afternoon classes.

Happyyyyyy Swan!

Okay seriously wtf.

Well, Yutaka barely has time to sit before the teacher arrives, so he just says, "Swan-san, stick around a minute after class?"

"- uh? Okay?"

And he does.

He haaaaaaaates that smile. By which he means, every time he sees that smile he wants to kiss it and it's frustrating that he can't.

"I'ma cut to the chase. Do you have a boyfriend? And if not, wanna go out with me?"

"- oh. Uh, I don't, and - sure, why not."

"—really?" Wait, no, cool and confident. "Awesome. Are you an after school date kinda guy or a weekend date kinda guy? And—do you want to call me Yutaka?"

"Sure. You can call me Haru. And I don't know, I haven't really dated."

"...really? With a face like yours? I know Japan's homophobic, but..."

"I'm also not very sociable!"

"Well, I hope I won't disappoint, then. So, after school sometime or wait 'til the weekend? And you got some dream date activities or should I just do my best?"

"I dunno - dinner? After school's good, I have a thing but it can wait till after dinner."

If he has a thing that'll wait until after dinner that means they're not fucking on their first date. Which, well, if this is Haru's first date ever, he supposes shouldn't be too surprising. "Dinner it is." And he still doesn't know what the fuck is up with Swan. Nor, really, why it's bugging him so much. He just feels like he's missing something.

"Text me." Number on a notebook corner.

God this boy is attractive. And no one's gone after him? Ever?? Madness. "Yes, sir." But they still have class.

Okay Haru's in a background amazing mood but there is a little blush there. But yes. Class.

change of plans

I got a date

wow that was fast

wait

was that why you were frustrated?

were you pining over some guy?

yep

i still wanna shag, mind you

but it can be after

no respect for a man's time

you saying you don't have time for me tonight?

as a matter of fact i am

i need to sleep early tonight

got a fucking

group presentation tomorrow morning

pray for me

may the Devil fuck you in the ass with His own three-pronged dick

amen

Tra la la la la life is amazing.

Iwasaki Iemasa would really prefer that Yutaka use a driver to take him places rather than drive, himself, but Yutaka does not particularly want Iwasaki-san to know what he gets up to or what boys he takes on dates. If Iwasaki-san wishes to spy on his son, he should do that honestly. And until then, his son gets to pick boys up for dinner dates in his cool car.

Haru provides the address of his apartment building! He's waiting outside.

Here's the cool car! It's electric. "Good evening Haru-san," he says, stepping out so he can open the door for his date like a proper gentleman.

"Is it too early in our acquaintance for me to confess that I've got this nasty allergy to honorifics in full generality?"

"In full generality, really? So Haru-kun wouldn't work, either? How about Haru-sama?" He caught that blush earlier when he said "yes, sir" and he has a small guess that he wants to confirm or disconfirm.

"Are you going to call me that in a public restaurant?"

"If you smile at me like that? I'll use sonkeigo for you all night long," he says, switching to sonkeigo and kenjōgo seamlessly.

"- oh, I'm not sure I can do it on demand, I don't usually pay attention to what my face is doing."

"I was just using it as metonymy, Haru-sama. What's your spice tolerance?"

"Not much, alas."

"Any dietary restrictions? There's this cute yakisoba restaurant I like that I was thinking of taking us to..."

"I won't eat it if it's still alive, but I think yakisoba passes that restriction."

"—is it too early in our acquaintance for me to say that every time you smile at me like that it makes me want to kiss you?"

"Empirically..."

"Then I suppose I'm saying it." He'd also be doing it but something tells him that getting that kiss in while he's driving would not go over the best, and furthermore that their first kiss should not be a quick peck in the car. "Do with that information what you will."

"Keep your eyes on the road. - also the keigo's a little hard to understand actually, it was cute but I'm over it."

"Yes, sir*," he says, then he pauses and amends that to, "I mean, got it*."

* かしこまりました, which is the humble form of "understood", used towards people of a higher station then you
* わかった, which is the informal form of "understood", used widely in most situations

"Thanks."

The yakisoba restaurant wasn't just picked for being cute, it was also picked for being nearby, so they get there reasonably quickly. Yutaka opens the passenger door for his date and looks at his face to see if he can guess if he should go for that kiss now or leave it for later.

Haru doesn't seem to be expecting it and is mostly concentrating on exiting the car without slipping on the ice or aggravating his braced wrist, though he seems to be doing great at that and doesn't wince or wobble.

Yutaka is obviously going to offer a hand? Come on, this isn't his first rodeo.

"Thanks." Hand. Into the restaurant.

Not now. But soon. Soon he will be in Yutaka's grasp.

The restaurant is a little hole-in-the wall place, but the vibe inside is decidedly on the cosy and intimate side. It's not, specifically, a gay place, but the waiter who shows them to their table does not particularly seem to care.

"I'm Kim Geontae and I'll be your waiter tonight. Are you familiar with our selection?"

"Yes."

"Then I'll leave you gentlemen to it, you can press the little red button on the napkin holder to get my attention," he says, offering them menus before leaving.

"What should I be familiar with about the selection?" Haru asks, looking at the menu.

The menu has several standard yakisobas with specific selections of noodles and toppings as well as a "build your own" option that lets him pick his noodles (soba, ramen, udon, or lo mein), a protein (tuna, salmon, pork, beef, tofu, mushrooms, nothing), and a dizzying array of vegetables to mix in.

"I've got some suggestions, depending on what you like."

"Mushrooms are not a protein," Haru remarks. "If I'm going with udon and am not a big fan of daikon, what should I get?"

Yutaka is partial to this here option with tuna and that there option with tofu, personally, and neither of them have daikon.

Haru will order the tuna one.

And he'll get the tofu. He presses the little button so the waiter will come get their orders, and then when he's gone Yutaka asks, "So you never got around to telling me about Twain."

"Oh yeah! So my favorite book of his is Connecticut Yankee, which has been translated into Japanese but not since 1976 as far as I can tell, and it's out of print so I don't actually know if the rendering's any good -" And he can explain the premise of the book for as long as Yutaka seems interested and what Twain does with the prose.

Yutaka can be interested! Boys talking about things that interest them are interesting, he loves the way their eyes light up and they forget themselves when they get lost in the flow.

Yay! And Haru has also read Twain's other well-known novels and stories but has not chased down, for example, the Joan of Arc one, nor bothered with the unfinished fragments of the later Tom Sawyer sequels, nor all the essay collections. And what does Yutaka like to read?

Yutaka will go with stuff they read for literature class, i.e. Japanese lit, which regardless of how much he likes it he's had to write thousands of words about so he can produce the sorts of opinions of someone who does like it if necessary!

"I'm still not quite fast enough with dense Japanese text to enjoy it as directly as I can a story in English, even relatively archaic English, but I'm looking forward to getting there."

"I have to use a dictionary more often than I'd like to admit to read some of these, the standard curriculum kanji just don't cover it."

"Well, at least it's not just me then."

"Are you planning on going to university in Japan?"

"Not sure yet! My plan has been research medicine. I'll probably apply to schools in both hemispheres and see what happens."

"Both hemispheres? You're looking into Australia or something?"

"East and west are hemispheres!"

"...I guess they are. I hadn't... thought about them that way before."

"They're halves of the sphere! Just divided more by custom than by astronomy."

Here's the waiter with their food.

"Itadakimasu."

"Itadakimasu!" he agrees, cheerfully, splitting his chopsticks perfectly. Is that good luck on his quest to get in Haru's pants? Who knows.

Haru's got a few splinters clinging to the one on the left but it's not getting him down. "I was so bad with chopsticks when I was eight. I told Ren 'I can just bring a fork everywhere in my pocket' and she said 'pocket lint is not part of this complete breakfast'."

Yutaka almost chokes on his udon and has to hide his mouth with a napkin to cover his giggles. "A fork! In your pocket! That's adorable."

"They're a lot easier! Especially with dyspraxia*!"

*This is an 18 mora word in Japanese but Haru has memorized it specifically.

"Dys... what?"*

* はったつせいきょう。。。何だって？

"Dyspraxia," he says in English. "Being clumsy enough to need a medical word for it."

"Oh the word in English is so much shorter. Is that the same thing where you fell down the stairs hard enough to need to be off school for a week?"

"That's the one. I could have taken longer but the thing Ren was waiting for before sending me back was for me to say that it didn't hurt much to breathe any more - I had a bruised rib, and that was quicker than expected."

"...you're really blasé about this!!! Uh, and who's Ren?"

"Oh, uh, Mama*. I just call my parents by name when they're not listening, that's what people's names are for in every other situation so -"

*Japanese uses "mama" and "papa" in addition to various other terminology and this one was lowest-friction for Haru to adopt.

"You don't have to explain that one to me, I certainly don't go around calling Iwasaki-san dad. Not even when he's listening, really, but that's because he will accept nothing less than father*."

* お父様, very high register using the -sama honorific

"Oh good. People in Canada found it weird and mostly people here find it even weirder."

"That kind of thing was sort of depressingly common back at my old school."

"...what, finding things weird?"

"Parents demanding their children call them -sama, or referring to one's parents like that."

"Well, I have no idea what Ren would be like if she grew up in a social environment like that one but I never have to find out."

"It's not good for anyone's mental health. If there's anything that old geezer was right about, it's that getting out of that environment would do me good. It's only been a week and the hangers-on kind of wear on me but I can breathe."

"Do I get to know what the content of the rumors are and which ones are true, I don't have a lot of gossip-dispensing friends."

"—well, I haven't kept up with all of them, but yes, Iwasaki Iemasa's my sperm donor, is I think the biggest one."

"...my immediate response was 'I'm sorry to hear that' but actually that's entirely because of things you've said that do not have to do with his identity so I'm not actually."

"He sucks. In quite a lot of ways, really, I wish I could say the homophobia was the worst part but it isn't, even, it was just the straw that broke the camel's back."

"And you're still out? Or, like, out enough to ask me out at school and take me to a restaurant."

"If he's going to hate me regardless then I'm going to be the gayest son he could ever have and give him a reason to hate me. I'm going to get with so many boys in such scandalous ways he has to pull me out of the little elite school he's had me enrolled in since I was born and pay quite a lot of hush money so that no tabloids get their hands on the juicy details of exactly whose bed I was caught in."

"Oh."

"—sorry. Didn't, uh, didn't mean to dump all of my damage on you all at once like that."

"- it's not that, just."

"...just?"

"...it's a stylistic mismatch?"

Blink.

"- it's not a big deal, you had no way to know," Haru shrugs.

"I, uh, don't actually know what you're talking about? What's a stylistic mismatch?"

"The 'so many boys' thing. It's... I'm Canadian. I can get married one day, and I want to, and - I'm not trying to do some weird culty thing where everything has to be aimed that way from the get-go, so like, it's fine, you didn't know, but I don't want to be a bedpost notch."

He blinks a couple of times. "Oh," he says, inanely. "I don't—I'm not thinking of you as a notch on my bedpost." Not in so many words. Not in all the, like, connotations.

"Oh, I didn't think you were, it would've been if nothing else premature."

Great deflection but between Haru and Yutaka he's pretty sure he's the senpai in that particular skill. "I just mean I'm, you know, I guess..." He's what? "...I guess I'm rich enough that if I wanted to travel to another country to get married I could but I don't know whom I'd want to get married to. I don't know my type." Also he just hasn't really thought that far ahead? He's eighteen, for God's sake, that's too young to think about anything long term! But that'd be the wrong thing to say here.

"And that's fine. It's not a big deal. Maybe I should just put off dating till medical school and I've learned a valuable lesson."

How exactly does this guy even plan to get married if he's not going to date first. 

...

Well, Yutaka supposes he had been willing to date first, just with a much stronger presumption of monogamy than Yutaka feels makes any sense at their age. And for their sexuality. Like it's one thing for the straights to do it but them? 

...

Is that the thing where Haru feels like having a normal life is achievable despite being gay. It might be. 

...

He brings his glass of juice to his lips to take a small sip. "Sorry for not clarifying earlier, I guess. ...not 'I guess', just sorry."

"No harm done. I can cover my yakiudon?"

"...no, come on, even if I weren't richer than God I was the one to ask you out, I'm not gonna make you pay just 'cause we're not kissing tonight."

"Thanks. ...I don't think God has money, per se. Like, there's not gonna be a bank account in his name."

"That makes it trivial to be richer than God, then. Anyone can do it."

"No, not people who are on net in debt."

"Who knows, maybe God is in debt, maybe that's why he got rid of his bank account, so they wouldn't find him."

"Find him to do what?"

"Get the money he owes them! Send loan sharks after him, you know, the works."

"Break his divine kneecaps?"

"Exactly! You got the spirit."

They can continue to have a reasonably pleasant chat over their noodles, and Haru doesn't make a fuss about Yutaka paying, but he doesn't want to get into the car after - "My thing isn't too far from here, I can make my own way."

"You sure?" He's not going to assault Haru—

—there are as many as several different reasons why one might not want to be in a car with a guy they just had a kinda bad date with that aren't fear for their safety, Iwasaki get a fucking grip.

Also, like, Yutaka probably knows that but Haru knows it strictly less than him. "I'm sure, but I had a nice time. See you in school?"

Why is he still smiling like that when they're not gonna kiss arghhhhh.

"Yeah, see you. Have a nice evening, Haru."

"G'night!"

And, mysteriously cheerful for mysterious Haru reasons, he proceeds in what seems like it might as well be a random direction into the night.

Arghhhh.

yo

are you awake

no

I need a blowjob

you're good at those

text my brother

i need to sleep

is he done pretending to be straight then

i do not know because our little thing notwithstanding i am not interested in his sex life

figure it out

you're useless

and you're a dick

a handsome dick, but a dick nonetheless

awww you think I'm handsome?

zzzzzzz

ugh you're so annoying

Well, one twin is as good as the other, honestly. Maybe he'll have better luck with Toshiki.

yo Toshiki

are you done pretending to be straight

I'm frustrated and need to take it out on someone and Akira's blowing me off

Haru is in school as usual the next day still chipper as fuck.

Yutaka is also chipper as fuck, because Kobayashi Toshiki is a pretty quick study and really hot and that was a great pick-me-up. He will not at all think about how resoundingly he got turned down and how badly he failed last night, nope, no siree, not him.

Then they can nod politely at each other and there's not much more to be said.

You know what Yutaka needs? He needs to find someone new to fuck here at this school. He's got like three more promising leads, and he needs to know that he hasn't lost his touch. He can too still be some other boy's mistake. Maybe that cute guy in the baseball team who dyes his hair blond, he looks hot in those tights.

The blond guy on the baseball team is convinceable that it's not gay if he's on top if Yutaka turns on enough charm and promises enough discretion.

Yutaka can be so, so charming, and so, so discreet. This is what he's for.

And yet.

Today's a bad day. Yutaka sometimes has those. Days when he doesn't want to get up in the morning, when he looks at his life and his choices and can't see the point. Like, spite is a great motivator, as are hot boys and sex, but what's he gonna do, live on spite? Become a NEET who happens to be extremely rich?

Would his father even let that fly? If he weren't studying or working Iwasaki-san would almost certainly want to put him to work somehow or other. And what would he do, refuse? Refuse for how long? And to do what instead? Just keep finding more boys to fuck, keep wasting his time and energy on absolutely nothing at all, with no plan in sight, no future in waiting? He doesn't even know what he's going to do for university, he had vaguely been thinking about maybe engineering but, like, with what grades?

What's the point?

So he might as well just do what Iwasaki-san wants. Learn how to be a nice suit, how to obey and be obeyed, be in the nice grey corporate structure of Mistubishi UFJ Financial Group and eventually succeed him, because "merit" is a joke and after a short twenty-year break after World War II his family name got back to the top of the group and there's been one or another Iwasaki on the board of one or another Mitsubishi company since.

But this sounds miserable.

So, again, what's the point? If he doesn't want to be another nice cog in the Mitsubishi machine, but he doesn't have anything else in particular he wants, then he might as well die.

He doesn't really know what's triggered him this time, honestly, but he's been in this funk since he woke up, and when he saw fucking Swan Masaharu being incredibly cheerful as he's been every fucking day for like almost two weeks in maths class that just soured his mood even more. Research medicine. Must be nice to care about things and want to achieve them. Must be nice to have a loving family. Must be nice to have real friends who want you to have a nice boyfriend. Must be nice to be smart enough to read Mark fucking Twain and dispositionally lucky enough to actually enjoy it.

Must be so.

Fucking.

Nice.

So, yeah, fuck this shit. He's tired. He's tired of it all. Tired of his fake friends, tired of fucking one boy after another without ever caring about any of them, of accumulating notches on his bedpost. Tired of his obsessive, unloving father who demands to be called "otō-sama". Tired of school, tired of people, tired of life.

He's not sure where his feet are taking him, right now, except that he knows it's "away from that miserable school". He doesn't care that he's skipping class, or about anything else, really.

He just wants out.

"Ah shit," says fucking Swan Masaharu, right in the middle of class, while the teacher's sort of checked out and left them to do their quizzes that look suspiciously like the same ones they got last time. He gets up out of his chair, pulls down a neighboring student's collar, and - yup. He sighs, pulls his phone out of his pocket and sets on his desk, and -

- in a flash of brilliant light that's golder than gold and brighter than sunlight -

- his wrist brace is gone. His school uniform is gone. He's in a traditional Japanese archery outfit, navy blue and white and gold, hakama and sandals and robe and all, with archery gloves the left one of which is backed by a luminous gold cabochon.

He dials the phone and lets it ring.

He materializes a bow, out of absolutely nowhere, and then - unstrings it, and the string keeps replacing itself, over and over again, as he checks oblivious torporous students each one after the other for a mark and ties the ones who have them to their desks, apologizing under his breath as he goes.

The person on the other end of the phone picks up. "In the middle of the day?" asks a woman's voice.

"Yep." He gives the address of the school. "How quick can you be here?"

"Give me ten."

"All right. Meet you at the portal."