"I never really got to properly meet her last time, on account of the, uh, fuckboyhood." Though now they're by the school gates so they should be a bit more circumspect about what they're saying.

And there are, check, absolutely people occasionally glancing their way to make sure their eyes aren't lying to them.

Haru does let go of Yutaka's hand when they're off the ice. They're at school, not on a date.

He's never been this out, like, he's been out, there's always been rumours, but he's always been discreet, and now he's not being discreet, and it feels a little bit terrifying to be doing this so brazenly without having sounded people out first, doing it in front of everyone rather than small groups at a time, without any control at all. People will think—things, whatever they'll think, he has no idea, this is his third day here so he doesn't really know that many people yet (or rather they don't know him) and he has zero control over his image and Iwasaki Iemasa will definitely have opinions about his disgraceful son being so openly gay in front of everyone and it's, it's terrifying and it's exhilarating and it's such a rush, he feels a little bit giddy and almost dizzy from the thoughts.

Yutaka used to think that being a fuckboy was the best way to say fuck you to Iwasaki-san and everyone else but this? Being so completely shameless about it, not even caring who sees, kissing a boy in the middle of the school parking lot out in the open, dating him?

This is better. This is definitely, definitely better.

"I could really get used to this."

"Oh good, I'd feel kind of silly if you were bailing on me now."

To class.

They don't share their first class today, but they do share PE.

What's PE been like for you, with the dyspraxia?

I sit out of almost everything except swimming and do, like, yoga and pushups and stuff. I think this is not a standard accommodation but Ren insisted, she hates it when I try to run.

Huh. Last time you were doing stuff like that but you were still pretending to need a wrist splint, I didn't realise they'd just let you off the hook when you weren't pretending. I guess it was mostly like stretches and stuff actually.

It's very useful to have a parent on the faculty, I'd be in and out of the hospital so much more often if I had to try to play sports.

Maybe they'd have gotten the hint after if happened two or three times, anyway.

Maybe but I'm glad I never had to count on it. Maybe after we save Tokyo I'll let on that I've 'grown out of it' and see if sports are fun if you can do them. They don't look it, but who knows. Doing yoga all the time has made him very flexible. Biiiiig stretch.

—oh, wait, it's baseball today, which means—

"Iwasaki! Catch!'

Oh he gets to look so badass now. Without turning, he intercepts the baseball being thrown at his head with one hand. Then he looks down at it with a slight frown, before turning to look at Ashikaga. "This yours?"

"...what the fuck," one of Ashikaga's friends whispers, while Ashikaga himself just blinks.

What was that about??

I never did find out what Ashikaga's problem with me was. There was a lot of homophobia in there but it never felt like that was the whole story. Has he ever been particularly dickish to you?

Yutaka considers throwing back just as hard but he thinks Haru would be sad with him if he did that so he instead will not. "You should be careful with this, someone could've gotten hurt," he says, throwing it back underhand.

He catches it, still looking a bit queasy. "Uh, yeah. My bad. Good, uh, catch." That throw was hard enough it should've hurt to catch without a glove, what the hell.

No, we've never spoken that I recall...

I hadn't really talked to him much prior to this either. He, like, was part of the little crowd I started to attract once the rumours about my father started making the rounds you might've seen yesterday (which Yutaka's mostly dodged this morning so that he could find his way to his beau) but I think this was the first personal interaction I had with him? And it only went downhill from here.

"Yo, Iwasaki, that was a good catch," calls the captain of the baseball team, jogging over to him.

"—thanks." Oh no the consequences of my actions.

Oh no! People might think you can catch balls! - I could speculate about Ashikaga but I'd be making shit up, alas.

If you've ever had a conversation with—you just said you hadn't. Yeah, I dunno.

"You on a team?"