Subaru bites his lip. "Aoki, I don't, don't want to lead you on again and end up disappointing you—"

"We'll just be grownups about it, then. Take it slow, not jump to any conclusions, that shit."

"Why?"

"'Cause I have feelings for you, numbnuts. And you have feelings for me, too, you may be totally in love with your boy but you don't not zero like me."

Subaru grimaces. "I'm not, I'm, I want to get over him."

"...okay that makes this sound a little bit more like a bad idea."

"Yeah."

Aoki harrumphs but the waiter chooses this moment to ask them what they'll want for dinner. They scramble to look through their options on the menu, which they've been ignoring so far, and eventually Subaru picks for both of them since Aoki sucks at making choices.

When the waiter's gone he says, "Nah, let's do it anyway. We're teenagers, now's when we get to fuck up and pick up the pieces afterwards if we break. Which is not to say we shouldn't still be smart about it, obviously, like I dunno maybe you do need a big fat knot to get sexually satisfied—"

Subaru chokes on his spit and starts coughing.

"—but if that's the case that doesn't mean we can't still be friends. Ride it, figure out who we are, you know?"

After coughing some more and drinking some of the complimentary water to clear his throat he says, "You know, I think I know what my type is."

"Your type?"

"Yeah."

"And what, pray tell, is it?"

"Dominant, emotionally intelligent, straightforward people."

Aoki snorts. "Well thank you. My type is clearly dumbasses."

"Ouch."

"You deserved that and you know it. I got a whole year of payback stored up."

Subaru smiles a bit. "Alright, I can take it."

Aoki smiles back. "I know you can."