"Oh, um..." And he blushes as his eyes to shiny in nostalgia. "It was love at first sight. He was so brave and strong and handsome, I couldn't help but fall in love~ Then I visited him at his house and gave your gran some cheesecake from that shop you love and..."

Inori has long since stopped paying attention. Useless.

"That's hard to answer," says Kuroji. "I love the way he treats his family, and he's such an attentive guy, and, um." Blush. "I really like how much he loves me..."

Also useless.

So, if his dads can't help, he's gonna try fiction. He's always steered clear of the romance section in the manga store, but it might hold the answer to his plight. And there's a romantic comedy section? He thought romances were meant to be serious, how can they be comedy as well? But that's a good sign, if there's some way in which romance works that he didn't know then maybe it'll be informative.

"Yamada."

He turns to the source of the voice. "Who—oh. Tōkan's shitty alpha friend."

"I want to introduce myself properly. I'm Kageyama Subaru." He extends his hand.

Inori looks down at the hand then back up at Subaru's face, then decides to stop wasting his time and turn back to his manga search.

Subaru suppresses a twinge of annoyance and recenters before lowering his hand back down. "I want to start over," he continues, "without being 'shitty' to you."

"Why?"

"Because I... want to know who it is that finally succeeded at catching him."

Inori throws him a dirty look.

He raises his hands in surrender. "Bad joke, sorry, I didn't mean it that way. Just... you know, heir of the Kokonoe clan, and generally a pretty nice and friendly and kind and attractive person, he's had suitors trying to win his heart for as long as we've known each other."

"And what do you want from me? You two are already fucking, aren't you?"

"—I don't know why I'm surprised he told you that. You're... not... exclusive?"

Inori once again does not deign to reply to a stupid question with an obvious answer.

"Right. He'd obviously not just run around behind your back."

He scoffs and rolls his eyes.

It's taking all of Subaru's willpower to not snap back at Inori, but there's a part of him that wonders how much of it is just... him being unused to people not just sucking up to him all the time. He is not a Kokonoe but he's still in the upper eschelons of society right there. "It's not really... I don't want anything from you. I just want to get to know you."

"Fine. Buy these for me, then," he says, giving a surprised Subaru a pile of romantic comedies.

Okay... Sure, why not.

"And buy me ice cream."

"...uh..."

"You're paying for my time so you better pay well."