The Power of Friendship.

Yes, we’ve already tackled this subject in our lecture series, but, as pivotal as the matter is to the shounen genre as a whole, as central to otaku culture itself, I fear we may not have delved as deep as it deserves. You see, as we’ve already explained, the Power of Friendship consists, more often than not, in taking power from one’s friends.

It’s just natural for the author, of course. A way to make the narration revolve around the main character while acknowledging the secondary ones, even if just as resources to be expended. As moral support by the campfire before the final confrontation, as dramatic deaths to trigger a superpowered evil side transformation, as stepping stones for an underdog that fools absolutely no one about their destined place in the totem pole.

There are many ways for homicidal rivals, lifelong friends, unsuccessful haremettes, and other friendly acquaintances to contribute to the advancement of a good protagonist’s career, and that is, indeed, a part of the Power of Friendship.

The pettiest, most despicable part, but, well, that’s humanity for you. We thrive in pettiness.

Except when we don’t.

Because as much as I’ve extolled the virtues of keeping a grudge, of having every slight carefully accounted for, of making it an absolute certainty that retribution will come to pass at some point…

The other side of the Power of Friendship are… friends.

Or, well, loved ones in general. People that you trust enough to give them the chance to hurt you. To show them your back, hoping that they will guard it rather than stab it.

And, other than when an Uchiha gets stubbornly tsundere… it can work.

It can let each of you work at things the others can’t, complementing strengths, ameliorating weaknesses, and…

No.

That’s not it.

It just…

It lets you live.

“I love you,” I whisper into a small, round ear as I hug its naked owner harder against me, her back fitting marvelously between my arms and against my chest.

Iroha smiles without opening her eyes, and it makes my heart soar.

“I know,” she finally says. “Keep telling me.”

I can’t help but chuckle, going from her ear to the side of her neck, kissing the sensitive skin until she giggles and kicks with both legs, shifting inside my protective, possessive hug to look up at me with luminous honey that not only keeps taking my breath away but does it faster and with greater ease each and every time.

“I love you,” I say with something between a whisper and a raspy grunt, just because she asked me and not at all because I’m overwhelmed by the sheer need to tell her.

“I love you,” she says, a trembling smile on her lips, hesitating fingers reaching up to my face until I turn aside to kiss the sensitive tips and she then cups my cheek, holding me steady so that eyes that light up her living room can stare at me until I notice my own silly smile.

And so, naturally, I kiss her.

Slowly, deliberately, my tongue only coming out to trace a single line over her lips before retreating as I keep myself from diving in and losing myself in the sheer barrage of sensations that the shorter girl in my arms can so easily bombard me with.

And, despite the gentle intensity of it all, when I manage to pull back, we’re both still breathless.

So we just keep staring at one another, exchanging tremulous smiles and looks of wonder. Saying ‘I love you’ in many ways that don’t need words to convey the implied promise.

Until, finally, my body insists that I stop awkwardly holding myself up over her, and I lie back down on a sofa that may have a bit more of my sweat than many good hosts would think acceptable, Iroha immediately turning over between my arms to rest with her front on top me, crossed hands on my chest, her chin resting on them, her eyes fixed on mine as her bare legs bend to kick back and forth, making her thighs shift too pleasantly over mine and other parts.

“Just a bit more,” she says with that tone that is so hard to resist.

“Iroha, as flattering as that is, I think I should drink some water before—”

“Not that—even if I’d be willing. I just… I just want you to hold me a bit more. Before you go off to right wrongs and save the world. Just… Just hold me. Make me feel loved.”

“I do love you,” I say, automatically squeezing my arms around her waist.

“I know. But… It’s just… It’s been too long since we just had a moment like this,” she says with both a hint of guilt and regret.

“Ah,” I say.

“Not like I blame you!” she says, making me wonder who the cute girl on top of me is, what has she done with Iroha, and how can I make sure it isn’t undone. “I like that you are you—” Oi, “—but I also… I think I needed this. Just a break. Just you, holding me, letting me know that we still have us despite everything else.”

Okay. Now I feel guilty.

‘She just told you she doesn’t blame you.’

I know! Can you believe the sheer nerve? That’s just plain scheming. The level of mind games displayed—

‘Or, hear me out, she could genuinely not blame you.’

That’s so much worse.

‘I know; isn’t it great?’

“You’re having dumb thoughts. I just know you’re having dumb thoughts,” she says, rolling her eyes and unwittingly freeing me from her line-of-sight Mesmer skill.

“If it’s any consolation, this time they didn’t involve you and a kunoichi cosplay—”

“It is, in fact, not any consolation. And when are you ever going to let that go—”

“Never,” I say, my voice about as deep as it can get now that the seals have been momentarily restored via the kind of magic ritual that can only be found in certain kinds of games and their multimillion gacha spin-offs.

“… Okay,” she says, looking…

Small.

Small and cowering in front of my intense stare as her cheeks darken and she bites the corner of her lip before offering me a shy, bright smile that makes me want to squeal at the sheer cuteness overload.

Then I’d likely die of self-induced cringe, but, alas, it would’ve been a life well spent.

‘Doubt.’

I didn’t ask you.

‘Which I think is a perfect summary of almost everything that has gone wrong throughout your entire existence.’

Except the parts where I kept asking you.

‘Well, yes, but that’s on you. After all, who would be stupid enough to ask for my opinion?’

“Eyes on me…” Iroha whispers.

And, really, who am I to disobey her?

To do anything but stare, transfixed as her slight pout shifts into a shy smile before she turns over her hands, part of her warm, soft cheek lying on my bare chest as she nuzzles me, her hands slowly sliding away, her palms leaving warm lines over my body before she pushes them between the sofa and my back.

And then her eyes close.

And I keep staring.

As something inside of me mends.

***

“This is horribly unfair,” she complains.

“It wouldn’t do for the student council president to arrive at school at the same time as a notorious delinquent,” I tell her, straightening the lapels of her uniform while we wait for the traffic light to change just because I need to touch her and I don’t know of a better way to do it while in public and not in a park at night or a secluded alley.

“You’re not a notorious delinquent,” she lies, making my delinquent blood roar at the often repeated scene of the powerful trampling down on the existence itself of rebellion against the system that gives them all their advantages.

“I skip classes,” I politely offer, fussing with a single strand of hair trying to escape from the confines of her bob as she pretends to be displeased with my attention.

“Just skipping classes doesn’t make you a delinquent,” she says, almost grumbling.

“It does if it’s to have sex with a teacher that I have incriminating videos on,” I gently correct her.

She blinks at me.

Takes a moment to process my words.

Flushes.

Heh.

“Please, don’t get a tan and bleach your hair, Senpai. There’s only so much my gentle, maidenly heart can take.”

“I’m pretty sure that you can take everything that I can throw at you. Your couch has been witness to it.”

“You’re incorrigible.”

“I should hope so. It’s one of the traits of a delinquent, after all.”

And she groans, grabs my tie, and pulls me down into a searing kiss.

I guess I’ll tell her at another time how corrupting the student council president is also a very delinquentish thing to do.

‘Sure. You corrupted Iroha. You corrupted the girl who blackmailed you into a threesome. Likely story.’

It’s not blackmail if you end up with saccharine confessions of love, Brain-chan. Josei has taught me so.

Sadly, before Brain-chan can offer her erudite and no doubt insightful riposte, Iroha’s hands settle on my cheeks, and she pulls back to stare into my eyes.

“Good luck,” she says with her smile turning complicated.

And then her hands leave my face as she searches for something in her pocket, only for her to then slide the small piece of plastic into my open hand as we exchange a look that is slightly less pure and lighthearted than what we’ve been enjoying since I woke up with my face resting on her soft thighs.

***

The Power of Friendship.

If I’m being honest, there are many ways to actually show it as something positive rather than exploitative. Super Sentai shows often feature combining robots, the physical and utterly unsubtle metaphor of how the power of each of the characters can turn into something greater when they are united under a single purpose.

Chrono Trigger and other, lesser, RPGs featured combination techniques, attacks in which more than one character acted in unison, each of them taking their own part in a visual display far more striking than what each of them could accomplish on their own.

But, if there’s something that is almost universal, that appears in shows of almost any genre…

That’s the baton pass.

Sometimes, it’s just literal: a relay race during the much-vaunted sports festival, with the whole class relying on the anchor to carry them through, to pull ahead and earn those desperately needed points that each and every member of the race has worked so hard to attain.

Sometimes, it’s a bit more symbolic: a character walking away from something they can’t handle, his hand briefly clapping the offered one of the comrade about to step in.

Sometimes, it’s a mix of both.

Sometimes, it’s a young man walking toward his first girlfriend’s apartment, clasping in his increasingly sweaty palm a USB drive handed to him by his second girlfriend.

Because she already did her part. Because this one baton was handed to me by Yukino, filled with enough information to do something, even if we didn’t know what.

And then I handed it to Iroha, and she…

She’s so damn brave.

Talking with her mother, taking that first step at mending something broken for years, telling her about us.

And getting the reporter to dig up a truth that she would be willing to keep buried.

That’s what I have in my hand: the baton. The baton that carries within it the efforts of people who love Haruno or care for those who love her. Who are fighting for her.

Sacrificing for her.

I wonder how furious she would be at me if she knew. How she would rage at me sacrificing my principles for her rather than her for my principles.

In a way, this is the polar opposite of what I would have done months ago, yet precisely the same thing.

Hachiman Hikigaya, sacrificing a part of himself because of others.

The more things change, you know?

“Hachi?” Shizu says, the door to her apartment opening fully as she stands there, dressed only in grey, calf-length socks and a long, white button-up shirt that reaches down to the middle of her thighs and leaves a shadowed line of her cleavage exposed for me to try and not stare at.

The more things change…

“Hey,” I say with an attempt at a smile that gets her to immediately frown at me.

Then, the unrelenting hand of the one woman who never hesitated to manhandle me grasps my tie and pulls me into her apartment, the door immediately closing behind me to cut off my retreat.

I can barely kick my shoes off by sheer reflex before she carries me to her kitchen counter.

“Why are you skipping classes again?” she says, her back to me, on the other side of the counter, rummaging in her fridge before she turns back to offer me a blessed can of Max Coffee that I immediately take off her hands, drinking from the life-giving nectar with as much need as somebody who doesn’t care that they will end up injecting insulin into an abused organism before they reach their forties.

Of course, when I stop at the point where the can is half-empty, I do so to meet a raised eyebrow and two crossed arms that are unwittingly making it that much harder for me not to stare at that line of shadowed cleavage.

The more things change.

“It’s just a way to establish firmly in the minds of the viewers that my delinquent arc has not been forgotten and is, in fact, ongoing,” I explain as slowly and carefully as she may need me to.

The eyebrow twitches.

Heh.

“I swear, if you end up bleaching your hair…”

“Iroha already begged me not to.”

“Which may only give you a greater incentive to go ahead and do it.”

“You know me so well…”

The eyebrow lowers. Her gaze softens. Her arms uncross before she rests her palms in front of me.

And then, leaning over the counter, she reaches forward to lie a heartbreakingly caring kiss on my brow.

“I do,” she whispers.

“And yet, you still haven’t run away,” I offer with a wry smile.

She rolls her eyes.

I chuckle.

And she takes my lips, soft and tender, the caress of warm skin taking my breath away as she lingers in a single, prolonged touch that doesn’t go as deep as I want it to.

“Can’t run away,” she says. “I already promised to introduce you to my parents.”

I look at her.

Then, after Brain-chan recovers from an apoplectic fit, I manage to blink in confusion.

“What?”

‘What?’

Huh. An echo inside my head. Guess it was as empty as I’ve often been told.

“Don’t worry. After meeting Haruno, they’re gonna think that you’re the sane choice,” she says, her lips quirking with more humor than the immediate threat to my prolonged survival merits.

“Shizu, I’m pretty certain that no father on Earth would think I’m the sane choice for anything other than a quick insurance scam that no self-respecting police officer would bother looking too deeply into.”

“… I mean, that would be one way to take care of the household finances.”

“You drive sports cars. Plural.”

“Please, don’t remind me. I had a job when I got it.”

Damn it.

“It’s going to be all right,” I say.

“I was joking. I’m far from the poverty line, Hachi,” she answers with a dismissive, sweeping gesture.

And I grab her wrist.

She looks at me, and I stare back, something in steel eyes that often look like silver telling me that she’s tempted to pull away.

I don’t let her.

I pull her toward me until she ends up bending over the counter, the can of coffee almost knocked to the ground by the abruptness of it all as I look down at her. At surprised eyes staring wide open.

“I don’t have all the answers,” I say.

“I will never ask that of you,” she answers.

“Good,” I say.

And then I tug on her arm, not forcing her to move but guiding her along until she accepts my lead and turns over the counter, lying on her back, under me.

So that I can take her lips.

So that I can look at her, at wide eyes, at black hair gleaming under the fluorescent lights of the kitchen, supplementing the morning light streaming in from the living room’s balcony behind me.

At a beautiful, disheveled woman who looks as stunning as she ever does, no matter whether she’s wearing her customary long coat or a half-open shirt that a rabid part of my mind insists should be mine, because I’ve already seen her wearing my clothes and the sight is too tempting not to want to see it every day of the rest of my life.

“I can’t solve everything,” I finally say after a long moment of what should’ve been silent communication but was just transfixed admiration. “As much as I want to, as much as I need to… There are some things that I just can’t do on my own.”

“Hachi,” she murmurs, her hand reaching for my cheek in a way that is both entirely too similar and not at all like how Iroha did when we were both naked on her sofa.

“But… I no longer have to, do I? I… I have you. All of you, but particularly you. I have people I trust. People I love. People who know things I don’t, who can do things I can’t. Who can reach where I can’t.”

She looks at me in wonder, as if admiring something unique and fragile that is about to pass, never to be seen again.

I suspect it’s how I looked at her the first few times we kissed.

So I turn and kiss her fingertips like I kissed Iroha’s.

Yet not.

Because she’s Shizu, not Iroha. Because I love them, but not in the same way. Because they mean the world to me, but each one is a different world.

And, sometimes, I’m so damn scared that those worlds will one day drift away.

“What are you trying to say?” she asks me.

Because she knows me.

She did, long before I got carried away and took her lips in the teacher’s room, banging my shin on a traitorous desk when trying to get closer to her than I’d ever been.

She knew me since… I feel since the very start. Since the first time that I stared in shock at a woman who should have been too busy being the main character in a movie rather than walk into my classroom as if being as extraordinary as she showed herself to be with every gesture was a mundane, everyday thing.

Something that I should’ve gotten used to.

I never did.

It’s just… I wish I knew her as well as she knows me. I wish that every little thing that I keep adding to my mental file on Shizuka Hiratsuka let me see deeper than I do, past the steel and silver and into her soul.

Deep enough that I could understand why she loves me, of all people.

But… But I at least see deep enough to understand why she loves Haruno.

It, in some ways, is for the same reasons that I do.

So I think about the hand that I haven’t used at all since I came here. Not to grab a can of coffee, or to take her wrist, or do anything but keep anxiously sweating around a piece of plastic.

I take her right hand, slowly opening each slender finger by itself with tugging caresses.

And I drop the weight that Iroha entrusted to me.

“Baton pass,” I murmur with a tired smile.

She blinks at the neon blue drive, the container of blackmail. Maybe the piece of the puzzle that we need.

And then looks at me.

“You need to stop reading sports manga,” she says, rolling her eyes.

“I don’t want to hear that from you,” I answer.

And then, before we can get mired down in explanations, and planning, and everything else that will go down today, she takes my tie yet again and drags me down on top of her, the sounds of giggles and kisses filling her apartment like they always should have.

 

 

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This work is a repost of my second oldest fic on QQ, where it can be found up to date except for the latest two chapters that are currently only available on Patreon. Unless something drastic happens, it will be updated at a daily rate until it catches up to the currently written 104 chapters (or my brain is consumed by the overwhelming amounts of snark, whichever happens first).

Also, I’d like to thank my credited supporters on Patreon: aj0413, LearningDiscord, Niklarus, Tinkerware, Varosch, Xalgeon. If you feel like maybe giving me a hand and help me keep writing snarky, maladjusted teenagers and their cake buffets, consider joining them or buying one of my books on Amazon. Thank you for reading!