***

Akito’s days at school went more or less the same. Each day bled into the next, colourless as a scorched pavement. Heads talked to him about the weather, some dull classroom gossip. One passionless teacher after another droned on and on as Akito tried to extract knowledge from them like moisture from a dry piece of toast. This was followed by cram school, where the same classmates ignored the new teacher spewing old drivel. Akito only attended it because his mother made him. He often got the feeling she liked having him away from home. Whatever the reason, it was another waste of his time. He would have to go home and study it all on his own anyway. And around twelve in the morning, he would fall into a fitful sleep.

Some days, Akito wished he would never wake up again. On other days, he would say something cutting just to get a reaction. 

“You’re too short, don’t tell her, she’ll just laugh.”

“Maybe if you had a bigger chest.”

None of them stood up to him, none of them did anything but cry or run away. The coldness did not hurt his reputation at all, it helped it in fact. He worked hard to stay at the top of his class, and excelled at extracurriculars, and anything he did was celebrated. 

Maybe he would find more intelligent peers at Tokyo University. 

He never stayed at school after classes unless absolutely necessary for things like track practice. It was a waste of time and kept him from his carefully planned schedule. But the school festival was coming up. He had no choice but to manage meagre minds to make the event happen. 

Akito stomped through the hallways in search of a particularly annoying underclassman that he had sent on an errand half an hour ago. There was no trace of him anywhere, and the last place left to look was the classroom. Akito heard muffled noises from the other side of the door and was just about to rip the guy to shreds when an unexpected sight greeted him.

His name was Yoshida Rein, if Akito remembered correctly. 

He had just transferred to their school. And the other guy was Akito’s classmate; his name didn’t matter. The boy had Rein pressed against the window, mouthing along his jaw, uniform shirt open. Rein’s eyes were closed and his lips parted while the other boy ground their hips together, pinning the slender body in place. Rein had to balance his weight on the windowsill and the boy’s shoulders.

Akito took a few steps backward when his brain caught up with his eyes. He hit the door behind him. Rein’s eyes snapped open, and he fixed his gaze on Akito. Akito couldn’t look away.

The other boy hadn’t noticed his presence and moved to kiss Rein’s neck, which he welcomed with a soft sigh and a tilting of his head. Taking that as encouragement, the boy pressed a palm between Rein’s legs, his body arching up, eyes scrunching shut in pleasure.

Akito’s throat went suddenly dry and he turned away from them with all his might, walking resolutely back home. The image burned into his memory.

Even days later, Akito had failed at every attempt to suppress the incident from his memory.  Mostly because it irritated him that something so base could affect him so greatly. He was not one to give in to idle daydreaming about sex like others his age, but for some reason, his mind would drift back to Rein’s face no matter what he did to distract himself. 

Maybe he was just surprised about how brazen the two had been, or perhaps it was because he had never seen two guys going at it before.

“Akito-Kun, please solve problem 4.”

“Yes, Sensei.”

Akito went to the blackboard and began solving the problem with ease. Math was simple, predictable. It would never expect you to say the answer was two, not ten because it felt bad. It accepted facts. Like the fact that he would never be able to forget the look on Rein’s face till he died.

The piece of chalk in his hand snapped in two.

He picked up another and proceeded to finish the problem at twice the previous pace so he could have these appallingly juvenile thoughts privately. Once done, he smiled sweetly at the teacher who, as always, looked pleased with him and returned to his seat, spending the remaining fifteen minutes of class irrationally angry with himself.

He saw Rein at lunch. He was sitting with a girl who was always seen with him. Ayano or something, an upperclassman. She couldn’t be his girlfriend; their body language indicated an undercurrent of hostility. But maybe they were in a relationship and there was some kind of tension between them—like Rein going off and getting fucked by some random guy—or perhaps he was overthinking and they were just friends.

“Oh, it’s the first time I noticed you looking at a girl, Akito.” one of the boys at his table said in disbelief, “And Ayano-San at that!”

Hmm, denying it would only serve to make it more conspicuous. He could pretend he was interested in her, but then he would have to keep up the act and endure the rumors that would undoubtedly spread. But it may help him gain more knowledge about her and then in turn about Rein. 

But…why did he want information about Rein in the first place? He didn’t, really. He couldn’t care less. Right?

“Well, I heard she was not being helpful in the preparations for the festival,” he said. There, a professional concern, “And I don’t remember that Yoshida person volunteering either.” 

“Ah,” the boy said, disappointed, “don’t expect them to. Yoshida is a really cool guy but I heard he has some kind of part time job that keeps him really busy. And Ayano-San, she’s too pretty to work. People like her should not be made to do menial labor.”

“What part time job? Is his family not well to do?” looking at Rein, and the extravagant cars that dropped him off in the mornings, Akito didn’t think he had any trouble with money.

“Who knows? No teachers ask him anything because his grades are excellent, and he looks like that,” the boy jabbed his chopsticks in Rein’s direction, “you sexy people get away with everything.”

Akito watched Rein as he picked at his food, not really interested in eating it. He was still talking to Ayano who seemed to be explaining something very serious to him. 

Their eyes met.

Akito didn’t feel the urge to look away like he had heard was the typical response to this. Instead, he found his eyes glued to the Rein’s all over again. Their blue-grey gleam, otherworldly in the way they caught the light, looked unfairly enticing framed by his dark hair. Rein’s lip quirked very slightly under Akito’s attention, and he picked up a piece of tofu from his box to put it in his mouth, tilting his head in a challenge.

It stirred something visceral in Akito. 

Ayano’s gaze followed Rein’s to him. He had to look away, but he caught Rein laughing before he did so.

Finally, someone interesting.