Unfair.

It’s an accusation often heard of in anime, usually thrown around by sulky, younger girls who may as well be tugging on somebody’s sleeve while a slow blush creeps up their cheeks.

But let’s (for once) not talk about Iroha.

What is, indeed, fairness? Is it fair for the heroine and her power of friendship to gang up on the poor villain of the week after the blonde, twin-tailed, furthest possible thing from an ojou-sama delivers a cringy lecture on justice and the power of the moon? Is it fair for the harem protagonist to hound all women of (legally un)marriageable age around him? Is it fair for the isekai protagonist to get a literal cheat power?

The answer couldn’t be any clearer:

Yes, it is.

Because if there’s one thing otaku know, it’s that the world isn’t fair. That bullying exists, and so do social outcasts. That, to those who seek refuge and solace in fiction, reality itself has shown its ugliest, most unfair self.

But in fiction, there’s order. There’s a reason for things to happen, even if that reason is a morally bankrupt author writing shameless power fantasies in a desperate bid to get rich quick while trying to avoid getting sued over his totally original characters, do not steal.

So it is unfair for somebody to be shamed for his hobbies, for having a somewhat heterodox approach to socialization, or for showing a perfectly valid amount of public gushing over his cute younger sister. That is, without a doubt, unfair.

But for that person to find laughter or pounding adrenaline in the action on the other side of the screen? For him to cheer on the twin-tailed blonde in her doomed quest to find a suitor who isn’t a cryptic, rose-throwing deadbeat with no redeeming qualities whatsoever?

That couldn’t be any fairer.

It is with these undisputable facts at hand that I can decree a final judgment. One that nobody with a shred of empathy and goodwill could object to:

Shizu ironing my shirt while wearing an apron and nothing else is absolutely, utterly, indisputably unfair.

“We just had sex,” she comments with a grin and a dismissive eye roll thrown over her shoulder.

“You know perfectly well what you’re doing to me, woman,” I say while staring at two perfect globes minutely shifting side to side under a narrow waist that is a struggle not to grasp.

“Making sure you don’t go to school with evidence of having had an eventful morning?” she answers with a confused eyebrow raise.

She dares.

‘We’ve have already had sex with two women this morning. Two and a half, if you count Iroha’s mom.’

We’re not counting Iroha’s mom.

‘Well, that will confuse the catering at the wedding.’

If the only thing that confuses them is a mismatch in the number of guests, I’ll count myself lucky.

‘Unlike Iroha’s mom. Who won’t be counted.’

You’re impossible.

‘Praise me more.’

“You’re doing the thing again, aren’t you?”

“I’m trying very hard not to show precisely why the naked apron is a secret, forbidden technique that should not be employed other than on days where nothing at all is on the schedule.”

And now she blushes.

“I mean… What is on the schedule?” she asks, making my pants awfully uncomfortable as her eyes travel over my bare chest.

I wet my lips while trying not to show any other hint of nervousness.

And I step forward.

My hands go to her waist, resting over her hips as she shivers for a single moment before I come closer, pressing against her, showing her precisely why my pants feel so constraining as I breathe harshly over the side of her neck.

She tilts her head, offering me more of the bare, pale skin. Of the stretch of her neck that I’ve already kissed and suckled on, where a hickey prominently stands in stark contrast.

My cock throbs.

She rubs back against me.

And my fingers tighten on her toned flesh.

“I could take you. Right here and now. Bend you over the ironing board and push inside of you until we got tired of the rattling, and you just got on all fours on your living room floor,” I say, my own vividly conjured images making me even harder. Even more willing to go ahead and just do it.

“Or, hear me out, we could go to my bedroom,” she comments, the only corner of her lip I can see lifting up in something more amused than aroused.

So I bite her.

She moans, rubbing back against me with that ass I was just admiring as I run the point of my tongue up and down along the stretch of flesh lightly pinched between my teeth, and I’m tempted to add a second hickey, one that won’t be as easily concealed by her regular shirts.

The iron resting upright beside my shirt lets out a puff of steam.

And I push just a bit harder against her.

“Hachi…” she murmurs, her eyelids fluttering.

“Shizu,” I growl over wet skin before licking into her ear.

And she turns around, grabbing the sides of my head before shoving her tongue inside of my mouth, pushing me back and around until I fall on her still suspiciously grey sofa before she climbs on top of me, one soft thigh on either side of my legs, her hot sex over mine.

She pulls back, her eyes blazing like the moon did over Tokyo Bay that night when Iroha and I told her that her plan was over and we were… together.

Us.

“You’re so incredibly sappy,” she says as her eyes soften and a smile that still makes my heart ache blooms.

“I just nearly ravished you over an ironing board. How is that sappy at all?”

The smile widens, and her eyes shine brighter even as they narrow at the corners with her mirth.

“I just know you too well,” she says.

And then she leans forward to lay a tender kiss on my brow before standing up and walking back to the ironing board set between her kitchen and living room.

***

At times, when witnessing the walking disaster that is Shizu’s private life, it’s hard to remember how highly she rated in that ludicrous wife contest.

… And now I’ve got her wearing a wedding dress stuck in my mind. Great.

“Why are you blushing?” she asks, sitting beside me on something that she swears has been perfectly vacuumed and giving me a weird look that will never be as weird as either of us.

“It’s nothing,” I mutter, still staring at the recently-ironed shirt in my hands.

“Are you looking for wrinkles? Because that would both be rude and somewhat offensive, given how much practice I have,” she says, clearly referencing her frequent usage of impeccably ironed suits, shirts, and NTR-preventing vests rather than previous boyfriends bending her over an ironing board.

I hope.

‘Stop thinking about previous boyfriends. That way does lead to NTR.’

I’m in her harem. Pretty sure that would just lead to me being forced to explore any hypothetical bisexual leanings, hopefully with Saika.

‘Does it really count as bisexuality if it is with Saika?’

Are you objecting?

‘Now, now, no need to be hasty…’

“Are you done?” a somewhat miffed Christmas Cake says.

So I decide to placate her ire via liberal application of my manly charm and debonair worldliness.

‘Please. Please, don’t.’

“I’m sorry, but this is a work of artisanry. I won’t wear it. I won’t desecrate the fruits of your labor. Rather, I’ll remain bare-chested and in your apartment for the rest of the day—”

“I never taught you boxing, did I?”

“Is boxing something that you do bare-chested? Because I could be persuaded to learn.”

Shizu looks at me.

Then down at the cleavage peeking above the straight cut of a regretfully non-frilly apron with a raised eyebrow that suggest pondering contemplation.

“I think I’d rather have some support,” she mutters.

“I can be very supportive,” I generously offer.

“I know,” she says with a tone that suggests a depressing lack of appreciation for the goodwill of others after a lifetime of accrued cynicism.

“By which I mean that I would support you. Specifically, your breasts. With my hands,” I clarify, just to get the message across and past the barrier of her jaded worldview.

“You just did,” she says, still not blushing cutely like she did when I praised her cooking skills and she acted like a schoolgirl offering a lunchbox to her crush while wearing that goddamn wedding dress, thus triggering a staggering amount of gap moe that—

“You’re impossible,” she mutters.

And then she takes my shirt and stands up, grabbing my hand to shove it down one sleeve before repeating the process on my other side, only to then drop to her knees to do each of my buttons, starting from the lowest one.

“You’re doing this on purpose,” I repeat as I stare down into milky cleavage and bare thighs.

“I do a lot of things on purpose, contrary to what you all seem to believe,” she answers, not meeting my eyes and devoting more concentration than one would think necessary to the button between her fingers.

“Is making me mind-meltingly aroused one of them? Because you do that with worrying frequency.”

“You read too many doujins.”

“You’re wearing a naked apron,” I counter, perfectly sensible.

“It’s a bad idea to iron clothes while naked. The steam can hurt.”

“… Please tell me that’s not you talking from experience.”

“That’s not you talking from experience.”

I stare at her with a reproachful glare until her fingers reach up to the second to last button, and she fiddles with it nervously. And only then does she turn up to look into my eyes.

“This is it, isn’t it?” she asks.

And I drop the glare and the humor as I smile at her with all the tenderness I can offer, even if it doesn’t amount to what she deserves, before I cup her cheek just to hold her. To give her some of the warmth she allowed me to feel when she mended me. When she set me on the path to heal myself.

“I trust you,” I say.

“I know,” she whispers.

“So does Iroha,” I insist.

“I know,” she says, closing her eyes and leaning on my touch.

So I take a deep breath.

“So do your parents. And Komachi. And Iroha’s mother, even if she, thankfully, hasn’t met you yet. So does everyone who’s ever met you. We all trust you because you deserve it. Because you’re extraordinary. Because if there’s someone, anyone at all, who can save Haruno… that’s you. That’s you, Shizu. And you’ve already done it before.”

Her eyes open, and I’m once again reminded of the moon shining down on Tokyo Bay when we finally became boyfriend and girlfriend and girlfriend.

But that was also the day that she had her match with Haruno. The day I was forcefully kissed by the sister of the girl I had just let go of by setting her up with the other girl I will never be with.

The day that I looked into Haruno’s eyes and learned that I could see her pain.

“I’ve messed up before, Hachi. With too many things. With her.”

So I close my eyes, seeking a brief respite from the blinding light coming at me from a woman who shouldn’t be wearing a naked apron if she expects me to be coherent and sensible during a serious talk.

I wet my lips.

And, trying to imitate the wise tone of the woman who kept changing my life with intimate, close talks that a teacher shouldn’t have had with a student she didn’t intend to fall in love with her, I speak.

“We all mess up. That’s human. That’s just… just what humans do. And it’s also human to hide from it or to fear it. To stop doing things just not to add to the pile of mistakes. It’s human to fall into safe routines and stop questioning what seems to work even if it no longer does. Even if it never did,” I say, remembering a teenager stuck in his room, reading one manga after another just so he wouldn’t have to think. “It’s human… But that’s not what you do. You take responsibility, Shizu. You look at your mistakes and act on them. You are… admirable.”

“Not always,” she says, turning over my hand to kiss my palm. “I’ve done plenty of hiding, Hachi.”

“You have,” I admit, knowing that one doesn’t get the title of Dark Sensei just because of a late-stage chuuni phase. “But will you?” I ask.

And I don’t add: ‘Will you when it’s about Haruno?’

Because I don’t need to.

Because, when I open my eyes, I know I’ll find not silver, but steel staring up at me.

And not even her naked apron can distract me from what I see in her eyes.

***

“So…” I say as the traffic light turns pedestrian green.

“Go,” she says.

“I could wait for you,” I offer.

“I know. Thank you. Go,” she insists, actually pushing me toward the zebra crossing and the few not-quite-jaywalkers making use of it.

“I feel like you’re trying to stop my inevitable metamorphosis into my glorious, yet not final, delinquent form,” I rightfully protest.

“You’re dangerous enough already,” she mutters as she grabs my shoulders and turns me around, with her at my back and white stripes over black tarmac in front of me.

“That’s quitter talk. Haven’t you heard about power creep? What kind of shounen fangirl are you?”

“The kind that personally knows your school principal,” she says, actually walking to push me forward.

“That’s not a kind. That’s, unless I’m gravely misjudging Inoue’s social circle, a single individual. A single individual doesn’t qualify as a kind of anything, otherwise, there would be a Hachiman kind, and that would be terrible. Source: me.”

“Will you quit it with the sophistry and go to school already?”

“I mean, I would, but the traffic light is now red.”

The hands on my back thankfully stop pushing before the first car crosses over where I would’ve been if Shizu was a bit less considerate of holding back against untrained opponents. Regretfully, that’s just because those very same hands are now wrapped around my neck, showing how little Shizu cares for holding back against untrained opponents.

“Do you have to turn everything into a sketch?!” the woman throttling me like we’re in a romcom sketch asks with a tragic lack of self-awareness.

“Glargh!” I answer with about thirty percent of my usual eloquence.

‘You’re flattering yourself.’

Well, someone has to do it!

“Go to school! Stay in school! Don’t bleach your hair!” the representative of authoritarian oppression yells.

“Gwomlan!” I yell back.

Mostly.

“And don’t fuck Iroha there!” she, for no reason at all, adds.

Before a suitable amount of people waiting for the traffic light to go green with envy at my masterful handling of a Christmas Cake turn to stare at us.

… This would be a great moment for Security-kun to make his second appearance of the day. What? We didn’t budget for his voice actor to record more lines? What kind of horribly managed studio is this, Gainax?

“Iroha is his girlfriend,” Shizu bashfully explains to a woman carrying a bag full of groceries and looking like she’s pissed off at the delay in her getting stolen from her handsome, overworked husband by a skeevy, unemployed neighbor or an anatomically unlikely shota.

“Hmmm,” Wife-san comments.

“A very respectable girl. She would never do anything like that. It’s only this boy I’m worried about,” Shizu says, lying as naturally as she Hayasakas.

“I see,” the woman understandably irritated at her lack of ahegaos remarks.

“It’s not like I’m actually worried, you see. It’s not like that would ever happen. Not in a respectable school.”

“Of course.”

“… The traffic light is green.”

“I’m just curious to see what you’ll come up with next.”

It is at this point that I, despite the hands still grabbing my neck, slap my forehead.

***

“Hate you. So much,” a sulky woman comments.

“Love you too,” I answer.

“Go. To. School,” she repeats.

“Can’t make me.”

“I, in fact, can,” she says, cracking her knuckles like rule sixty-three Ryouga.

“Okay, you won’t make me.”

“Hachi, I swear to whatever mélange of made-up chuuni deities that you believe in—”

“This is religious discrimination!”

“Go to school!”

“Promise me you’ll be all right!”

She blinks at me.

And then the look of exasperation that’s been brewing over the past ten minutes finally melts into a silly smile, and she…

Almost kisses me before realizing that we’re still in public, turning the gesture into an awkward shoulder pat at the last minute.

“I’ll be all right,” she says.

And I look up into her eyes. Into the steel once more fully there. Up at the woman who is a mess. Who is emotional, and childish, and too prone to rambling outbursts.

To the brave, courageous, wise woman who’s never failed me before.

Who never will.

“All right,” I say with a voice that comes out tinier than I intended before I grab her hand and kiss the back of it, the most intimate gesture I can get away with as the light goes green one last time.

“Give her Hell,” I say rather than goodbye as I turn back just so I won’t be tempted to come up with another excuse to stay by her side or follow her to where she’s going.

“Thank you, Hachi,” her parting words reach me from behind, and I can’t resist the prompt to wave back at her with two fingers over my shoulder like the hip and cool character I’ll never be.

And then I finally cross a street that may as well have been named Rubicon (damn it, Zaimokuza), and walk toward my school to meet with Inoue and do something Shizu still hasn’t guessed I’m about to do.

***

Shizu’s Side

He’s ridiculous.

Ridiculous, over the top, childish at the most unexpected times, shockingly mature at others, more handsome than his slouched posture and sour look lets others see, corny, sappy, caring, loving, able to make me moan with a brush of the back of his fingers, thrillingly possessive, an otaku, sarcastic to an unhealthy degree, sharp, witty, and…

And too many things for me to make sense of.

Damn it, Hachi, did you have to muddle my head this much now of all times?

I can almost hear his answer. The words he would tell me after my rambling complaint:

‘It did get you thinking about something other than what’s about to happen, didn’t it?’ he would say with that mix of his smug, punchable face and a caring, concerned tone.

And yes. Yes, you did, you cocky bastard.

So I smile. I smile knowing that I have someone to rely on. To pick up the pieces the next time I fall apart.

And then, clutching the miniature baton entrusted to me, I walk toward the one place where I likely will.

 

 

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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!