Oh. Okay. Well. I—seem to have gone entirely insane over you so I do kind of want to keep you to myself.

This, on the other hand, he is saying specifically because he expects Haru will like it. There are some kinds of being pathetic that are flattering and this is one of them.

Insane! Oh no!

I'm not sure how else to describe how much I started to like you in so little time!

You've known me longer than I've known you, is that not a factor?

...well, it is, I guess, but—even a month is still—it feels too short, still.

How long should it take?

I have no idea but I sure hope it takes you less long than that because I am pining.

How are you pining? We're dating, what are you pining for?

Showing you what these hands can do.

Wait, is that too much, that's too much. —uh, you can take as long as you want to feel comfortable to be clear I don't mean to pressure you it was mostly a joke. Or, not exactly a joke, it was metonymy for, like, Haru liking him as much as he seems to like Haru, which Haru obviously still doesn't.

I think that is not 'pining'. That is - well, fluff-inappropriate content -

Yeah okay he will instead. Not say the thing. Because it would be pathetic. Coming off as horny is a lot better than coming off as pathetic.

I wonder if we can invent our own form of non-fluff-based telepathy. No offence, Kyūbey.

I don't mind either way.

Sounds tricky. Maybe after we save Tokyo we can get nerdsniped.

Yeah.

Yutaka goes to baseball practice that afternoon. Everyone is impressed, including Ashikaga, if grudgingly, and they ask him to join the team. He agrees, because it seems fun, and because it isn't something he's done before, so why the hell not.

But after that, well...

Wish me luck.

Good luck, ganbatte.

Yeah.

Tiiiime to face the music. He expects that Iwasaki-san will already be waiting for him at his place.

He is.

"Yutaka," he says, lifting his gaze but not going as far as standing up from where he's sitting at Yutaka's table, his laptop and some files sprawled on it in front of him. Clearly he brought some of his work with him, to while his time away waiting for his son.

"Father," he says, bowing after he takes his shoes of. He walks over to his dining room but doesn't take a seat, yet. "I was quite surprised to see your message, yesterday."

Iemasa gestures at the chair across the table from him, impatiently. "So surprised it took you hours to respond?"

Thank you, father, for allowing me to sit at my own fucking table.

He sits. "Oh, no, I responded as soon as I saw it. I was merely—busy."

"Busy. On a school evening? What with?"

Ah. Yutaka thinks his father thinks he knows. And he isn't even, exactly, wrong, is he? Yutaka was busy with a boy. Just... not in the way his father's thinking. Actually, that's enraging. Now that. He's stopping and. Thinking about it. Of course his father has no way of knowing this but the thing Yutaka was busy with, last night, was saving people's lives. But his father thinks he was fooling around with a boy.

"Why, father, you've never taken such an interest in my affairs. I'm flattered you were thinking of me, but I shouldn't bother you with the trivial details of a high schooler's boring life." Which is just going to confirm Iemasa's suspicions but at this point he does not give a shit.

"Yutaka, when your betters ask you a question, the polite thing to do is to answer it, not dodge it."