Agrippa
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All Right! Fine! I Will Take You! – Chapter 37
🕑 Added 2022-05-14 05:29:49 +0000 UTCExpectations.
Expectations are forged through repeating patterns, either explicit or unstated. We expect the shounen protagonist to pull a power-up out of some anatomically uncomfortable cavity, we expect the romcom haremette to blindly devote herself to a moron with about as much empathy as a cardboard shoebox, we expect the villain to wear cool pauldrons.
We expect Haruno Yukinoshita to be all right.
Because… Because that’s what she always showed. The girl waltzing around and through any societal norms. The beautiful woman uncaring of others’ opinions. The smirk that could be cold and cruel, but always was self-assured.
Except when it wasn’t.
Because I remember that ‘codependency’ speech she gave us. I remember the utter disgust she showed at Yui, Yukino, and me being stuck on a pattern she deemed not genuine enough for my ideals. I remember what it actually took for Haruno not to smile.
And I know how often she hasn’t smiled since this whole thing started.
“Senpai?” Iroha asks from where she’s cuddled against my side, a half-empty box of pocky on my lap that she keeps getting sticks out of.
On Shizu’s sofa.
“Yes?” I finally answer, my hand briefly clutching her shoulder tighter.
“Will they be all right?” she asks, not looking up from my chest, finally stating what we both have been studiously avoiding while waiting in Shizu’s apartment.
I lean down and kiss the crown of her head.
“I don’t know. That’s why we’re here,” I tell her, pulling her tighter against me.
And now there’s a pocky stick halfway inside my mouth.
“You’re as sappy as always,” Iroha half-giggles, holding the non-chocolate part of said stick and capitalizing on my current inability to banter back.
As expected of the foxy junior, really.
So I lick around the slowly melting chocolate until only the crunchy biscuit remains, which I promptly chew on before it gets soggy.
And Iroha doesn’t look up throughout the whole process, she just keeps pushing more of it in my mouth until her fingers meet my lips, and I swallow the rest of the treat before kissing the tips of her fingers as she nuzzles her head on my chest.
“You want to help her,” she mumbles as her hand goes from my mouth to my cheek in a slow, trailing caress.
“So do you,” I answer before kissing the crown of her head yet again.
She sighs at that, a loud, prolonged thing that has quite a bit of exasperation in it.
“You two are infectious,” she grumbles.
I lean down on the still suspiciously gray backrest, pulling her along with me so her weight and warmth are on me.
“Well, you’ve had quite a few chances to get infected,” I finally answer with a rueful smile.
She chuckles at that, her head shaking on my chest.
And then she falls silent.
So I keep staring at Shizu’s ceiling while caressing Iroha’s soft, short hair, and she keeps occasionally nuzzling on me, the rest of the pocky forgotten and discarded on the cushion to my left.
And we, silently, wait.
***
I don’t know when I drifted off, but the sound of jangling keys and a sliding tumbler wakes me up just in time to blink wearily at Shizu coming through the door, still wearing that gorgeous ensemble from our first date.
I should have stuck around to get a photo of Haruno’s reaction.
No, actually, I shouldn’t have. I respect their privacy too much to risk upsetting them just to get some potentially embarrassing memories on camera—that’s what I’ve got Iroha for.
Well, that, and apparently, so she’ll sleep cuddled up to me like I’m the world’s most unsettling teddy bear.
“Is she…” Shizu’s whispered question trails off as she looks down at the girl hugging me.
I nod slowly and without disturbing her, and my teacher lets out a rare, soft smile that still makes my heart race before carefully closing the door to her apartment with barely any noise. Then she takes off her heels and walks on tiptoes until she kneels in front of us, a tender hand raised to brush Iroha’s hair back with a gesture that…
Oh. I got it bad.
For both of them.
Damn it.
“How did it go?” I whisper, trying not to show the worry I’ve been feeling for hours of… not anxious waiting, because Iroha was here, and it was… a peaceful sort of anxiety, if that makes any sense.
Shizu looks up at me, the very tip of her fingers still brushing back Iroha’s errant strands, and her eyes…
I can’t read her eyes.
“I hurt her, Hachi. I hurt her so much and for so long…” she says, looking as lost as I’ve ever seen her.
So I briefly close my eyes, cowardly fleeing from her pain for the second it takes me to compose myself before I look back at sometimes grey eyes that are now azure like a summer sky. At quivering eyes.
Without dislodging Iroha, I manage to get my left arm free enough to cup Shizu’s cheek, to hold her carefully, as if afraid to break her. The truth is that what I’m afraid of is that she’s already broken, that the shards will cut us both—except that’s not a fear. It’s knowledge, and something I accepted before I chased her up those stairs that would have me be recorded by Iroha for the first time.
… This would be slightly more heartwarming if I didn’t get a boner at the memory.
“She… She asked me to hurt you, after the first time I kissed you. Told me to push, to force you to confront your feelings, and your sense of duty, and how irreconcilable they both were. Told me to hurt you, because it would be genuine. Told me to wound you, because it was the best thing I could do for you.”
She closes her eyes, a soft smile erasing the anxious gaze in mere moments as she nuzzles against my hand.
“What did you tell her?”
I hold back a sigh and the urge to lean back on the sofa as I remember Haruno’s hold on me, her hands paralyzing my arms and pushing me against the wall, the beautiful woman looking at me with a demanding intensity I didn’t understand at the time.
“I promised her… that I would do what I thought was best for you.”
Her smile broadens, and she holds my hand against her cheek.
“You did,” she reassures me.
I want to lean down and kiss her, but Iroha’s still lying on top of me, so I just caress her soft skin with my thumb.
“I tried,” I whisper.
And she muffles a laugh that makes my heart soar.
“Hachi… You don’t know how much the last two weeks have meant to me, the things I’ve learned and accepted… If… If you were to leave, tomorrow? If I woke up and this was all a beautiful, confusing dream that just ended? I’d… I’d still be grateful for the rest of my life. I’d… You’ve changed me, Hachi. Healed me. Thank you.”
My heart doesn’t race, my breathing doesn’t stop.
No, the world does.
And that isn’t a Jojo reference.
Mostly because interesting female characters aren’t precisely what the series is known for, and what I’m looking at, the woman who’s become…
I don’t have the words, the quips, or the jokes. I don’t have anything except this raw feeling of awe at Shizu, once again, becoming even more beautiful than I ever expected to see.
Because… She’s open. There are no masks, not even a hint of a façade. Shizu’s here, with me, open, and hurt, and healing. Real.
Genuine.
The word she taught me, the goal she set for me, not knowing she would become it.
Iroha shifts on top of me, and now I find the three of us huddled in a hugging pile on top of a sofa I’ll someday purge of any tobacco smell.
“No ending. Just keep dreaming,” the young girl mutters, and I don’t know whether to laugh or cry in relief as I lean down to kiss first the back of her head and then Shizu’s forehead.
And then I just lie back, enjoying having my two girlfriends between my arms.
And only briefly thinking about the third, absent one.
***
The last time I woke up in Shizu’s bed, it was after losing my virginity while Iroha filmed the two of us. Let’s just say it was a terrible way to set my future expectations.
Because, yes, I’ve got morning wood, and Iroha’s face on my bare chest or my arm firmly lodged between Shizu’s own are not helping matters. Or, well, helping them, from a certain point of view.
The thing is, after the night we’ve had, the muttered, halting conversations as the three of us drifted in and out of sleep, I don’t think either of them would appreciate waking up to me trying to… initiate.
… I blame Haruno’s detective training. Being blissfully unaware of these complications could’ve made the morning far more interesting.
Maybe not funinteresting, but, well…
“You’re a lustful beast, Senpai,” Iroha mutters over the trace of dried-up drool she’s left on top of me.
“Look who’s talking,” I reflexively answer.
“He’s got you pegged,” Shizu’s drowsy, teasing voice adds.
“No, he hasn’t. Can men even peg—”
“We’re not having this conversation,” I interrupt, part of me horrified at Iroha even knowing the meaning of the word, the other parts looking at the first one with the pitiful commiseration reserved for slow children everywhere.
“I mean, I could’ve him pegged—” Iroha pushes on.
“You couldn’t. Not if you want me to cook breakfast,” I offer in hopeful bribery.
Iroha lifts her head to look me in the eye, and Shizu shifts around my arm in picked interest.
“Apron?” the Strongest Junior hopefully asks.
…
‘Expectations. Terrible thing to set.’
Oh, I was wondering where you went, Brain-chan.
‘... I’m going to generously ignore the implicit self-insult at you wondering where your brain was while all the drama went down.’
Oh, you mean you’re an impostor?
‘Sure, let’s go with that. Also, you should probably get out of bed before Iroha starts vibrating in anticipation.’
I’m pretty sure she would like me to be the one who vibrates.
‘I’m pretty sure she’d like quite a few things you don’t know the tags for.’
… Right, and now I’m scaroused. You really are Brain-chan, never mind.
So, making an actual effort to both not mind anything and to forget all the suggestive images now running through my mind, I manage to slide out of bed just to see Iroha promptly latching on Shizu like… Like something far too tender and heartwarming for me to joke about.
Damn it. I need a training arc.
… Other than the current one, I mean. At least Body-kun is no longer plotting my untimely demise.
So I sneak to Shizu’s open kitchen and, after a moment of pondering, decide that, well, they literallyasked for it, so I strip out of the boxers that have been my impromptu pajamas, take Shizu’s white apron, tie it on—
And the doorbell rings.
…
This is a very bad idea.
Still… Well, I can just look through the peephole to make sure I’m not about to thoroughly traumatize a religious proselytizer who will promptly doubt the existence of their god, so…
So I walk to the door and look through the said peephole, and, distorted by the lens, I see a fidgeting Haruno carrying a couple of bags of groceries and a coffee tray.
Which means this is still a terrible idea, but at least it’s now aimed at the proper target.
And well, Self-Preservation-kun—
‘Would tell you to live your best life. However short it will be.’
Thanks, Brain-chan, that’s all the encouragement I need.
‘That was not encouragement! That was not—’
So I open the door while wearing nothing but a white apron that slightly bulges forward due to my morning erection having not entirely receded, and, as nonchalantly as I can…
“Oi, Haruno. Good morning. You’re just in time for breakfast,” I tell her in a very carefully not suggestive manner.
Her eyes widen before traveling down my body, and her fingers slacken enough that the cardboard tray starts falling before she manages to fumble fast enough to catch it with an audible sloshing.
And she glares at me.
“Of course, you realize this means war,” she tells me, her tone entirely frosty as she cocks her hip suddenly enough that her short skirt flares to the side, flashing me entirely too much creamy thigh for my peace of mind.
So I…
Smile.
“I really hope so,” I tell her, stepping aside to let her in.
To welcome her.
Comments
Agrippa
The Deep Voiced Bastard never went away, he even made a brief appearance during the Haruno date (but, even if he did, that is not dead that can eternal lie). I've been pondering about the future of the fic, though. I feel like most of the interesting developments have more or less been reached, and, although I love these characters and want to stay with them, I don't know how to do it without meaninglessly stretching their journey or introducing some time skips that let us focus on future challenges (which seems like something I should do to let the story breathe a bit, at least--the timeline is too compressed). It's something I'll have to keep thinking about, because the last thing I want to do is to have this story end with a whimper when it deserves so much more. (About Hachiman's future career, I also considered having him become a writer, but it felt slightly self-indulgent--I had a gag in mind about Haruno being a rival columnist that recreated Ender's brother's dynamic without Hachiman knowing what she was actually up to, but that no longer seems fitting.)
Pope Yoda I
You write Haruno very, very well. Good lord... I'd like to see the eventual return of Deep Voice (tm). This is the kind gag that I feel can be expanded into a viable, very interesting plot device. Maybe have him start making Zanpakuto jokes/references if a frame of reference is needed. Make it one of his 108 Skills. Hell, team it up with Gym Activities (another 108 Skills candidate) and the observations of sister/mother/father/random passerby noticing that Hachiman appears to be evolving to give a sense of forward progress. Think of it as once having an overweight, messy friend who started going to the gym, lost weight, started dressing well, cleaned their act up and built their own confidence on a solid foundation. People don't cross the street anymore when they see them and start treating them with respect. Friends/family that haven't seen this guy in several months/years are also going to get blown away. I want this, but maybe from the absentee father's perspective realizing his son grew up without him. A sort of bittersweet chapter. I ultimately think Hachiman eventually realizing he's slowly morphing into a Chad/riajuu without noticing would be a pretty funny epiphany. 'Did that chick just call me 'Sir???' Last time I was here I'm pretty sure they called the cops on me...' Don't feel like you have to stop there. Grow the world a bit. The only (good) college-esque varieties of this fandom I've seen all have Hachiman either going into the police or becoming a successful writer. Consider having a scene of him awkwardly planning his future, with perhaps Shizuka submitting one of his creative writing assignments into a contest he then goes on to win (or place well in).
Agrippa
Thanks! I was a bit unsure I captured the right tone, with how my head's still a bit muddled.
Nick Russo
That was so sweet!
