Sato Ruri just stood there, staring at nothing, lost somewhere behind her own eyes. Then Yūto Shō leaned in close, his lips brushing the shell of her ear, and murmured, "Come on. Date time."
His breath ghosted warm against the tender pink curve of her ear. The girl shivered head to toe, color blooming high on her cheeks. She turned to look at him, hesitated for one long, defeated heartbeat — then gave a small, deflated nod.
Yūto Shō's mouth curved into a smile.
To dodge anyone Sato Ruri might know, Yūto Shō steered her toward a small food street a few blocks farther out. Evening had settled in; vendors were cranking open their stall shutters, and clusters of office workers drifted in from the surrounding buildings, the whole alley humming with that low, lived-in slice-of-life energy you'd find in the opening shot of a Makoto Shinkai film.
Sato Ruri glanced at him, confused. She didn't get it — wasn't a date supposed to be dinner, a movie, the usual route?
Yūto Shō smiled. "Eat first. Can't run a date on an empty stomach. You've gotta be hungry too."
"I have no appetite," Sato Ruri said flatly. If it weren't for him, she'd be at her own dinner table right now, warm rice steaming under her chopsticks.
Yūto Shō didn't even flinch at the chill in her voice. He shrugged, completely shameless. "Doesn't matter. I want to eat."
Sato Ruri seethed quietly. She'd never met a guy like this — saying that kind of garbage on a date. No wonder no girl ever crushed on him in secret; the dude was textbook straight-man cancer, pure stage-four.
She kept the spiteful little judgment locked behind her teeth and asked, helplessly, "Then what are we eating?"
Yūto Shō thought about it. "This isn't really a sit-down spot. Just something to fill the gap. There's a milk tea place right over there — go grab a cup and a couple of skewers."
Sato Ruri nodded, expression cloudy as a rainy-day OP, and trudged toward the milk tea shop. A couple of steps in, she realized Yūto Shō hadn't followed. She turned back, puzzled.
"What's the first rule of a date?" Yūto Shō asked with a grin, and held out his hand.
Sato Ruri's brow knit hard. Yūto Shō didn't budge an inch.
She sighed, mentally smashed the jar to pieces, marched over, snatched his hand, and dragged him toward the shop like she was hauling a Pokémon to the daycare — the tips of her ears glowing red the whole way.
"What can I get you two?"
Behind the counter, the female clerk beamed at them.
Sato Ruri looked at Yūto Shō, who turned to the clerk. "What's the house special?"
The clerk glanced between them, smile widening. "You two must be a couple. We just rolled out a new couple's milk tea — that's the one. One cup, two straws, you sit down and share."
Sato Ruri awkwardly dropped Yūto Shō's hand like it had bitten her, but Yūto Shō's eyes lit right up at the clerk's pitch. He nodded. "We'll take that. Plus a stick of fish balls and a stick of beef meatballs."
Sato Ruri frowned hard. Yūto Shō kept ignoring it like it was a side quest he had no interest in accepting.
"Sure thing. That'll be forty yen total." The clerk smiled warmly.
Yūto Shō made no move for his phone. He simply turned and looked at Sato Ruri, signaling — with all the silent expectancy of a cat staring at an unopened can — for her to pay.
Sato Ruri's face went blank. She'd never seen anyone this shameless in her life. Making the girl pay on a date — what kind of unhinged behavior was this? Absolute disgrace.
Tch. Scumbag.
Her chest rose and fell in sharp, indignant little waves. She took a deep breath and told herself not to sink to his level. Forty yen was basically feeding a stray dog — beneath her notice. Even as she thought it, she fumed, yanked out her phone, and scanned the QR code with stiff, vengeful fingers.
The clerk took it as banter and chuckled. "You two really do get along."
Sato Ruri rolled her eyes hard enough to see her own brain. How exactly did you come to that conclusion.
Having just been fleeced, Sato Ruri sat down at the small plastic table feeling about as cooperative as a brick. She didn't say a word, just looked at Yūto Shō with thinly-veiled disdain.
Of course, this was the whole point. Spending money on a date would've ruined his scumbag aesthetic, so Sato Ruri's withering glare didn't bother him in the slightest.
The sky was darkening; the street wasn't crowded yet. Their order came out fast — one fat couple's-sized cup of milk tea, two straws angled toward each other like crossed swords in an opening title card.
Sato Ruri turned her head away stiffly. "I'm not thirsty. If you want it, drink it yourself."
Yūto Shō tutted. "Actually, I ordered it for you. I don't really drink milk tea — caffeine wrecks me, I'll be staring at the ceiling till sunrise. If you don't drink it, all my consideration goes to waste."
Seeing that infuriatingly shameless face, Sato Ruri knew arguing was a losing fight. Sullenly, she picked up the cup and closed her lips around one of the straws — and in that exact instant, Yūto Shō leaned in and clamped his mouth onto the other.
They both pulled in a deep sip at the same time.
Sato Ruri spat the straw out and shot him a look that could've curdled milk. "Pervert!"
That was when she noticed his other hand — phone raised, camera screen glowing. On it: a still photo of the two of them, heads tilted toward each other over the same cup, straws between their lips. Frozen in pixels, they looked alarmingly, sickeningly couple-coded.
Sato Ruri's brain blue-screened.
Yūto Shō said breezily, "Sato Ruri, if I drop this in the class group chat, how many 'congrats you two' stickers do you think we'll get?"
Then, still smiling, he wrapped his lips back around the straw and kept sipping, motioning for her to keep up. Sato Ruri's face went through five different stages of grief in two seconds. Terrified he'd actually post it, she flushed deep red and leaned forward, biting back down onto her straw.
Gulu gulu —
After more than half the cup was gone, Yūto Shō let the straw slip from his mouth and announced, "I'm hungry."
Sato Ruri had officially clocked out of resisting. Face blank as a paused screen, she picked up a toothpick, speared a fish ball, and brought it to his mouth. Yūto Shō opened up and ate it clean off the stick.
"Now it's my turn to feed you."
Yūto Shō grinned that mischievous grin, plucked up another toothpick, skewered a fish ball, and waved it toward her, signaling her to open wide.
Sato Ruri stared at the fish ball hovering an inch from her lips, her face a knot of conflict. She didn't want to eat anything he'd fed her — that kind of mutual feeding was strictly a real couple move, the climax beat from some sugary rom-com. As for why she'd been willing to feed him, well — obviously, she'd been coerced. Different ledger entirely.
But if she refused, Yūto Shō definitely wasn't letting this go. He had her dead to rights on the backpack incident, and now he had a fresh, intimate photo of the two of them to weaponize. Even one person seeing that picture would unleash a problem she couldn't dunk back into the box.
She weighed it for a beat, steeled her spine, and slowly parted her soft little mouth.
Yūto Shō deliberately drew it out. "That's way too small. It won't fit. Open wider."
Sato Ruri's irritation spiked, but as the old saying went — once your bottom line gets crossed once, it's already gone. She hesitated, then opened her mouth wide.
From Yūto Shō's vantage point, the pretty girl's lips parted to reveal a row of small white teeth, the soft pink curl of her tongue, and the glossy inner walls of her mouth.
She seemed to be getting nervous under his stare; her cheeks flushed an awkward shade of peach. Yūto Shō noticed her breathing had gone shallow and quick, little puffs of air slipping out from between her parted lips, the contrast of all that pink against her flushed face producing a strange, astringent tension that pulled at something low in his stomach.
The quick, ragged breaths had opened her throat a little, and the small soft uvula hanging at the back was visibly, almost translucently pink.
Yūto Shō's pulse kicked up. Carefully, like he was handing in a final boss item, he slid the fish ball into her small mouth. He watched her lips close, watched her chew, watched her pretty face stay flushed all the way through — and felt a peculiar, possessive satisfaction settle in his chest, the kind of pixel-perfect achievement-unlocked feeling that only comes from a successful S-rank in a dating sim.
"Now it's your turn to feed me."
Yūto Shō tossed the used toothpick aside and fixed his burning gaze on her.
Sato Ruri blanked, then — face hot — picked up a fish ball and brought it toward his mouth. But Yūto Shō opened up and instead caught her pinky finger between his lips, and slowly, deliberately licked it.
The girl felt the ticklish heat shoot up her finger, instinctively tried to yank her hand back — and got gently bitten for the trouble. She stared at Yūto Shō with a deeply complicated expression, the strange sensation creeping out from her pinky and spreading through her, her pretty face glowing all the way to her ears.