Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Jun Sazanami is used to being mistreated by this point in his life.

Sure, it sucks, but there’s not really much he can do about it, is there? Some people have talent, an inherent worth to them, and he’s not one of those people. That’s okay. It just means he’s had to get used to the consequences of being worthless. Sometimes that means being ignored, sometimes that means being talked down to. A lot of the time, it means being used as a punching bag, as stress relief, by people with more worth than him. Which is fine. It’s what he deserves.

He’d been hoping, when he came to Reimei, for a break from this way of life. He’d never been bullied at school, and he’d been stupidly starry-eyed when he enrolled in a boarding school. Finally, a break from his dad. Finally, a chance to live a normal life, and a chance to be a real idol.

Except there’s nothing normal about Reimei, something he learned almost immediately. Sure, he’s away from his dad now, but the special students are almost worse. They don’t single him out, sure, but there are so many of them.

One good thing his dad taught him, though, was how to not react when he’s getting the shit beaten out of him. It takes some of the fun out for the special students, probably, which is a plus.

And he gets used to it.

He always gets used to it eventually. And the nice thing about the special students is they’re looking for a reason to beat him up. If he doesn’t give them a reason, he can just blend in and not draw any attention to himself. It takes him a while, because he’s never really learned etiquette before, but eventually Jun figures out how to be polite enough that he stops being a target for the special students, at least for the most part.

It doesn’t mean that his life is any easier, though. He’s just as worthless as he was when they were still beating him up regularly, just as worthless as he was when he lived with his dad. He’s not talented enough to be a special student, so he has to make up for it with his work. It sucks to do chores for them, yeah, but he doesn’t have a choice.

He never has a choice.

And then, when Kaname and Tatsumi get hospitalized, everything gets weird for a while. They both have a lot more worth than him. Even if they weren’t both special students, they’re good people with good intentions who still got hurt worse than Jun ever has.

Is that his fault? He’d said ad nauseam that he wasn’t interested in their stupid revolution. He didn’t want any part of it, so please stop asking. But still, he cared about them, and they got hurt. Could he have protected them if he’d joined? Maybe he could’ve been a shield of sorts, taking the hits so they could keep on doing the good things they liked to do.

Jun really is good at taking hits.

But that’s wishful thinking. He’s useless, isn’t he? He wouldn’t have been able to protect them.

Jun Sazanami, try as he might, can’t save anyone.

⟡⟡⟡

The new school year is much the same as the last.

Jun had been hoping that the ordeal at the end of last year would change some things, but that seems to have been too much to ask for. He’s not even a week in, and his life still sucks just as much. It might even be worse, actually. The only two people who ever spared him a second glance are in the hospital right now, and he’s completely alone.

On the one hand, it’s great that no one tries to touch him anymore. That was the biggest thing he hated about Kaname, really. The holier-than-thou attitude was something he could get used to, but the touching wasn’t. It wasn’t often; they didn’t even spend that much time together, if Jun really thinks about it, but still. Tatsumi, at least, didn’t touch him. And that’s where the bad part lies. He really did like Tatsumi. It’s hard to tell if Tatsumi actually liked him back, but he’d at least had someone to talk to during the darkest parts of the year. He’d at least had a companion.

But it’s fine. Jun can’t drop out, as much as he’d like to some days. He’s already paid this year’s tuition, and besides, his dad would absolutely kill him. Never mind the fact that he’s not actually learning how to be an idol in this stupid school. He has to be enrolled at an idol training school, or else. He’s still not talented enough to even dream of getting into Shuuetsu, even if he could afford their painfully expensive tuition. And Yumenosaki is out of his price range, too. And, from what he hears, Yumenosaki might be in an even worse state than Reimei, and that’s saying something.

So Reimei’s his only option. All he can do is work and work and work and pray that someday, it’ll pay off.

Jun glances up at the clock and realizes that he’s late. He’s not supposed to be using the practice rooms in the first place, but he’s figured out the times when he can sneak in and work on his singing, trying to at least keep up a semblance of real training since the teachers here refuse to do it for him. But he zoned out, and he missed the first bell. The next one rings in just two minutes, and he has to get all the way across the school. He slips his bag over his shoulder and all but sprints out of the room, just barely taking the time to flip the light back off as he slips through the door.

Jun rushes through the halls. He really can’t afford to be late to another class, even if it’s just a stupid math class and not anything to do with being an idol. He’s making okay time, because no one’s paying him any mind. One of the small perks of Kaname and Tatsumi being gone: no one ever pays him any mind, in the hallways or anywhere else. He just does his assigned chores and blends into the crowd of non-special students. Just another face in the sea of nobodies.

A hand reaches out and grabs Jun’s shoulder. He flinches. No one touches him anymore, so why the hell is someone touching him? He turns around, and the thought of being late because someone decided to single him out for the first time in months makes him forget the manners that were beaten into him for the briefest of moments.

“Who the hell d’you think you—” he starts, but before he can finish his sentence his eyes fall on the striped tie. A special student? What does a special student want with him? He lowers his gaze and bows. Better to be overly polite than beat up. Or worse, suspended again for daring to raise his voice at a precious special student. “Sorry, I didn’t realize who I was talking to.”

He doesn’t know who he’s talking to, still, but if this special student is anything like Kaname used to be, he probably thinks he’s a big deal and would be less angry at Jun if he just pretends. The boy laughs.

“Oh?” he says. “You already know who I am? It’s only my first week. My, word must travel fast around here. That’s to be expected though, since I am the most beautiful and talented idol in the whole world!”

There it is. There’s that self-centered mindset that all of these assholes seem to have. At least this one seems to be a little bit nicer.

“Right. Do you, um, need something from me?” Jun asks. He glances around at the steadily emptying halls around them. “I have to get to class. I can’t be late.”

The boy looks at him appraisingly. “This place is hell, isn’t it?” he asks.

Jun glances to the side and nods.

The boy smiles, wide and almost mischievous. “Would you like a way out?”

“What?”

He holds out a hand. “Come with me, and I’ll save you from the gutters. I’ll make you a real idol.”

A real idol? This has to be a joke. Jun shakes his head. He’s not going to get his hopes up anymore. “I don’t even know you. How would you even—” The bell rings. “And now I’m late. I have to go before I get in even more trouble. Thanks a lot.”

The boy cocks his head. “Oh, were you under the impression that you had a choice in this? That’s really cute!”

“Seriously, I need to—hey!” Jun’s grabbed by the hand and pulled forward. He freezes as he feels the touch burning into him, but the boy doesn’t slow his pace even a little. Jun works his hand free. “Please don’t touch me.”

“Will you follow me if I’m not dragging you?”

Jun looks at him. “Do I have a choice?”

The boy smiles. “Nope! Come on, come on, follow me!”

Jun sighs, but follows along. He knows better by now, knows not to disobey a special student. Whatever happens to him for missing class will be better than leaving his fate up to the whims of some rich asshole who isn’t getting his way. And besides, in spite of himself he’s really curious about where they could possibly be going. What did this guy mean when he said he would save Jun? If Jun’s learned anything from Tatsumi, it’s that there is no salvation at Reimei. 

“What’s your name?” the boy asks, interrupting Jun’s thoughts.

It takes everything in Jun to not turn around and walk away. He’s dealing with all of this, from someone who doesn’t even know who he is? What’s the point of stopping him, grabbing him, making him late to class, and making all these weird grand claims if he doesn’t know who he’s doing it to?

But Jun doesn’t say any of that. Instead, he says, “Jun Sazanami,” and nothing else.

“Oh, Jun-kun! I like the way that sounds!” is all the boy says. He doesn’t introduce himself. Belatedly, Jun remembers that he already acted like he knew who he was speaking to, so he’s not going to get another chance at introduction without him finding out Jun was lying about knowing him. He’s also not very fond of the way he was instantly given an overly familiar nickname, nor does he particularly like the cutesy sound of it. But he’s not about to correct a special student, and before he knows it, they’re entering the teacher’s lounge.

“Excuse us!” the boy says cheerfully. Jun’s starting to think that he does everything cheerfully.

“Ah, Tomoe-san,” one of the teachers says, and right away Jun latches onto that name. Tomoe? As in the Tomoe foundation? “I trust you’re adjusting well to Reimei? What can I do for you?”

The boy—Tomoe something—points at Jun. “I want you to promote him to be a special student.”

Jun’s head whips up from where he’s staring at the floor. “What?”

The teacher looks just as surprised. “I beg your pardon, Tomoe-san?”

“His name is Jun Sazanami,” Tomoe continues, ignoring the reactions. “Is it something you have to change in his file? Or can you just give him the new uniform and have him follow me around?”

“May I ask why you wish for…Sazanami-kun to be promoted?” the teacher asks. Jun pretends not to notice the way his name falls off the teacher’s tongue with disgust. “I assure you, we do rigorous testing before admission to ensure students are placed where they belong.”

“Well, I’m going to be forming a unit with him, of course!” Tomoe says, like it’s obvious. “And if he’s going to be performing with me in my unit, he’s going to be a special student. That’s how it works here, isn’t it?”

A unit? Tomoe must be crazy. That’s the only explanation for someone of his rank showing up and picking Jun out of the blue. There’s no way the teachers would agree to this. Jun doesn’t like it, either; he has to prove himself before he can make his debut. He has to be good enough to deserve to be on stage, and he’s nowhere near ready for that yet.

“I—yes, that’s technically how it works,” the teacher says, looking flustered. “But, generally speaking, one would only be promoted after they’ve debuted, so we know they can handle the more advanced coursework.”

Ha. Jun sees through the lie easily. It’s yet another excuse, an explanation for why no non-special students ever end up debuting or being promoted. He wonders if Tomoe will believe it.

“Well, that just won’t do, will it?” Tomoe says with a look of disapproval. “If he’s going to perform with me, he needs to be doing something worthwhile at this school. What good is it for me if I have a partner who spends every day doing chores? Bad weather! No, he needs to be promoted right away!”

So he isn’t falling for that lie. That’s good, at least; if Jun’s fate is apparently up to this boy’s impulses, at least he doesn’t believe the Reimei fairy tale. Jun can’t help but wonder what weather has to do with anything being discussed.

The teacher looks overwhelmed. Jun can relate. “I’ll…go see if the principal is free. This request really should be going through him, as there’s not much I can do.”

Tomoe looks annoyed. “Is all of that really necessary? Just give him a new schedule and put him in my dorm room with me. It can’t be that hard, can it? You know, I doubt I would be having this issue if I’d transferred to Shuuetsu instead. Maybe Reimei isn’t the best school for me after all.”

“There’s no need to be so hasty!” the teacher says quickly. “I’m sure we can approve your request. There’s just a good deal of paperwork that needs to be filled for a student to be promoted. Let me take you to the principal’s office right now, and we’ll get it sorted out today. Is that acceptable?”

“Hm.” Tomoe thinks for a moment. “I suppose that’s fine. Let’s go, Jun-kun!”

Again, he grabs Jun’s hand. Again, Jun yanks it out of his grasp. But still, he follows the teacher and Tomoe out of the teacher’s lounge and up the stairs to the principal’s office. He can’t help but notice that he still hasn’t had a say in any of this. Doesn’t anyone care what he thinks, whether or not he actually wants this? Sure, being in actual idol classes would be nice, and not having to work himself to the bone every day is an upgrade, but being a special student? Being lumped in with all those assholes? Not only that, but spending more time with this weirdo who talks to and about him with an annoying overfamiliarity and won’t stop touching him sounds like it might be a hell worse than the one he’s currently going through.

They arrive at the principal’s office, and Tomoe is ushered into the seat across from the desk, leaving Jun to stand awkwardly behind him. He starts speaking to the principal, reasserting that he intends to start a unit with Jun and that as such, he has to be promoted to special student status. The principal nods along, either unwilling or unable to refuse, and Jun’s forced to come to terms with the fact that this seems to be really happening. He just stares at the ground the entire time and nods each time Tomoe turns to him and goes “Right, Jun-kun?” because there’s really not anything else he can do, is there? Even if he’s about to be a special student himself, he still can’t disobey one, especially one who’s so… Well, Jun can’t quite figure out how best to describe him yet. 

Jun’s ushered forward, and a pen is pressed into his hand. He has to sign a lot of papers, it seems, for this to be official. First he signs something acknowledging his promotion, and then a dorm agreement, since he’s going to have to move, and last he has to fill in his half of the unit paperwork. Already written on the paper are the names “Hiyori Tomoe” and “Eve.” That explains the weather comment earlier, he supposes.

Trying not to feel like he’s signing away his life, Jun adds his name next to Hiyori’s. He’s then handed a striped tie and a key and told that he doesn’t need to attend any more classes for the day, and promised that by tomorrow they’ll have his new schedule sorted out and he can start attending the special classes. Then their business is done, and Hiyori once again tries to grab Jun to pull him out of the room. This time, Jun reacts quickly enough to avoid the touch entirely.

“Oh, this is just so exciting, isn’t it?” Hiyori says as they walk through the halls. “No more of that deplorable labor camp for you, right? You’ll have to go get your things, and then I want you to come straight to my dorm! Well, I suppose it’s our dorm now, isn’t it? I’ll have to get used to thinking of it like that! I’m not quite used to sharing, not since Nagisa-kun stopped staying with us. So this’ll be a very exciting opportunity for me as well!”

As Hiyori chatters on, Jun can’t stop staring at the striped tie, the proof that he’s really a special student now. Despite his hesitations, it still seems almost too good to be true. Sure, Hiyori seems like perhaps the most annoying person in the world, and incredibly full of himself, but this really might be Jun’s chance to be a real idol, to make a name for himself. This is a blessing, one he should be grateful for.

They come to a stop, right outside the door that leads to the labor camp, and Hiyori finally stops talking. He watches Jun, studying him for a brief moment, before opening his mouth again. “Well, go on and get your things so you can move into our dorm. I doubt that’ll take too long, right?” Jun nods silently and turns to go, but Hiyori stops him. “Oh, and Jun-kun, don’t forget that I’m doing this out of the kindness of my heart. I’ve picked you up and saved you from your old life because I wanted to, not because you’re anything terribly special. So make sure you work hard to keep up with me, okay? I can send you back to the labor camp any time I want to if you’re not good enough.”

The words send a shiver down Jun’s spine. But then Hiyori grins again, weirdly bright after what he just said. “Alright, Jun-kun! Have fun saying goodbye to all your little friends! I’ll see you in a bit!”

And he’s off, leaving Jun alone to wonder what on earth he’s just gotten himself into.

⟡⟡⟡

Two weeks later, things are going both better and worse than Jun expected.

His new life as a special student is almost scarily luxurious. He always has enough food, he sleeps in a real bed, and he gets to take actual classes and learn about the things he came to this school in the first place for.

His new unitmate, on the other hand, is almost impossible to deal with. Jun has to cook for him, clean their room by himself, carry all of Hiyori’s bags, and do everything he doesn’t want to. He’s more or less Hiyori’s personal servant, it seems, and there’s nothing he can do about it. As cheery and personable as Hiyori acts most of the time, he’s also unbelievably bossy and is constantly reminding Jun that he was picked up on a whim, that none of this is permanent. It’s impossible for Jun to relax when he’s around Hiyori, which is almost all the time. 

And, to make matters worse, Hiyori touches him constantly. He grabs Jun’s hands, pulls him by the arm, is always pushing him into different poses when they start to train together. It’s absolute hell. But he can’t do anything about it. He avoids the touches when he can, and if he can’t then he just accepts them for as long as he can stand and then carefully and politely extracts himself from the situation, and prays that Hiyori will get the hint and stop doing it. 

Hiyori, of course, doesn’t get the hint. He’s either unaware or uncaring that Jun can’t stand to be touched. He’s never asked, and Jun’s just a little too scared of him to say something. But they haven’t even known each other for a month yet. Forward as Hiyori is, he doesn’t touch Jun in any way too personal, and Jun’s been used to this for long enough that he can handle someone touching his hands for a few moments.

Until, of course, Hiyori decides that they’re close enough to start being more touchy.

The first time Hiyori drapes himself over Jun’s shoulders comes suddenly, without warning. Jun doesn’t see it, doesn’t expect it, can’t prepare for it at all. He has to stop himself from hitting Hiyori on instinct. Instead, he flinches and jerks away from the touch as if burned. 

“Please don’t hurt—” He stops abruptly, shocked at the realization of what he was about to say. Tears spring to his eyes, but he fights them back. He hasn’t been touched like that in so long, and now his brain is freezing, and he feels weak and he needs to get out of this situation right now so he can calm down before he actually freaks out in front of Hiyori.

“Don’t what?” Hiyori asks, not really paying attention as Jun takes a careful step back.

“Please don’t do that, Tomoe-senpai,” he almost begs.

Hiyori gives him a quizzical look. “I didn’t do anything wrong, Jun-kun.”

“Right, you’re right, I—” Jun, panicking, trips over his words. “Sorry. You’re right.”

“What, do you not like being touched or something?” Hiyori asks. Finally, he’s acknowledging it. Jun wishes he were calmer so he could handle this better, so he could straighten everything out in a way that doesn’t make him look quite so pathetic.

Jun stares at the ground, feeling his face grow hot as tears blur his vision. “Something like that.”

A look of annoyance flashes across Hiyori’s face. “Well, you should do something about that. Our choreography in Eve is going to have a lot of touching. And I told you to stop calling me Tomoe-senpai, it’s way too formal. Bad weather, Jun-kun!”

Jun bows reflexively. “Right. I’m sorry, um, Tomoe-senpai.”

Hiyori rolls his eyes. “We’ll work on that later. I’m going out with Nagisa-kun now, so go on and do whatever it is you do when I’m not here.”

Hiyori takes his leave, and Jun drops to his knees. He can still feel the echo of Hiyori’s touch burning on his shoulders. He rolls them out, over and over and over, hoping to get the sensation away from him. It doesn’t work. He crawls over to his bed and pulls his gym bag out from under it. All he needs to do is exercise until his arms are shaking and his lungs are burning and then he’ll be too physically exhausted to care about being touched. He slings the bag over his shoulder and heads out the door himself.

He pushes himself to the limit at the gym, like he used to before he moved to the Reimei dorms. He pushes slightly further, doing two extra reps when he really shouldn’t. The pain feels good. He almost forgot about this type of pain, the screaming of his muscles and the ragged shallow breaths he takes that never quite fill his lungs. He stands up from the leg press machine and feels his knees almost give out, and knows he’s done his job. He packs up his things and leaves the gym to shower in the comfort of his dorm. Each step back takes effort, feels like it shouldn’t be possible for him to take. But he takes them, and finds himself standing outside his dorm once again, feeling…better than he did when he left. Not perfect, but better. A shower will get him back to normal.

Jun slots his key into the lock and turns, but finds no resistance. Hiyori must be back already. He sighs to himself. His life is so much easier when Hiyori is out. 

“Oh, Jun-kun, Jun-kun! Welcome back!” Hiyori exclaims cheerily as soon as Jun crosses the threshold.

“Tomoe-senpai,” Jun says, dropping his gym bag next to his bed and resisting the urge to collapse onto it. “I thought you went out?”

Hiyori pouts, sticking out his bottom lip and crossing his arms. “How many times do I have to tell you to stop calling me that?”

Jun really doesn’t want to get into this right now. “I don’t know what else you want me to call you.”

“No matter,” Hiyori says, waving his hand as if to dissipate his annoyance. “My time will come. Anyways, where were you?”

“The gym.”

Hiyori wrinkles his nose. “For three hours?”

Jun looks confused for a moment. Three hours? Was it really that long?

“Some people like working out, Tomoe-senpai,” Jun says, deciding that it’s fine, actually, that he exercised for that long. Besides, a good amount of that time was him getting ready and walking to the gym, and then walking back. So it really wasn’t too long at all. Never mind that he’s not quite sure how he’s still standing right now. 

Hiyori’s look of distaste deepens. “Gross.”

Jun rolls his eyes. “If you’ll excuse me, I have to shower.”

“Aren’t gyms supposed to have showers?” Hiyori asks. “Why didn’t you shower there?”

Jun hesitates, only for a moment. “I wanted to shower here, that’s all. I thought you would still be out.”

Hiyori stares at him. “Why does whether or not I’m out have anything to do with it?”

Jun curses mentally. Why did he have to go and say that? “It doesn’t,” he says quickly. “I just didn’t want to bother you.”

“Seriously,” Hiyori says. “What’s up with you, Jun-kun? This is weird behavior, even from you.”

“You barely even know me,” Jun mutters under his breath.

“What was that?”

“Nothing.” Jun turns away from Hiyori and walks towards the bathroom. Once inside, he grips the counter and feels his knees begging to give out. Everything that’s happened today has been far too much. Just once, he would love for his life to be easy, to make sense. Clearly that’s not an option.

He should be used to this by now, he thinks to himself as he starts the shower. It’s already been almost a month. He’s adjusting to Hiyori’s way of acting pretty well, all things considered, and he’s learned how to respond to his demands in a way that minimizes conflict. And, for all the shit that Hiyori does, he doesn’t hit Jun. And that’s more than Jun can say for most of the people who have touched him in the last decade. So he’d honestly kind of thought that he would’ve adjusted to Hiyori touching him by now, that it wouldn’t be as bad as it used to be. But no, it’s just as bad, maybe even worse.

He takes his time in the shower, trying to scrub away every single stupid thing that’s happened this afternoon. It works; by the time the water stops he feels a lot better. He doesn’t feel good, per se, but he feels about the same as he usually does. He’s no longer on the verge of losing it, and that’s about as much as he can ever really ask for.

Ugh, Jun really doesn’t want to go back out there. He hates having to deal with Hiyori. He shouldn’t have wasted his precious few hours of alone time by going to the gym. But what choice did he really have? He wouldn’t be nearly this calm if he’d stayed here. The gym was a necessity.

Jun pulls a clean shirt over his head and stares into the mirror. He should really stop being ungrateful. Hiyori may be the most self-centered person he’s ever met, but it’s not like doing all of the chores for one special student is much worse than doing all of the chores for the whole lot of them, right? And he gets to actually attend real classes now, and he gets the bathroom to himself when he showers, and he’s finally starting to train with Hiyori. Jun just has to deal with the whims of a stupidly prissy noble in exchange for this new life he’s been given. It’s not so bad, really. Right?

There’s a knock on the door. “Jun-kun,” Hiyori calls out. “Haven’t you been in there long enough? I need to start my skincare!”

Jun rolls his eyes. “Be out in a second, Ohiisan.”

Silence.

“...What did you just call me?” Hiyori asks.

Anxiety starts gnawing at Jun. “What, Ohiisan?” he says, trying to sound uncaring despite the fear that Hiyori will have a problem with this, that this is too disrespectful for him to let slide. “You act like a princess, that’s all.”

Another moment of silence. “Open the door,” Hiyori finally says, his tone completely unreadable. 

Jun has a split second to be grateful for the fact that he really was almost done in the bathroom, that he isn’t still in just a towel, before that relief is overshadowed by the fact that Hiyori is probably about to hit him as soon as he opens the door. But he earned it, and he knows that if he doesn’t open the door he’ll be in for a lot worse, and he knows how to take a beating by now, so he tries to calm his nerves as he cracks the door open. 

Hiyori pushes the door open so they’re fully facing each other. “Call me that again,” he demands. 

“…Ohiisan,” Jun says again, staring at the ground and bracing himself.

Hiyori claps suddenly, and Jun flinches at the sound. “Oh, perfect!” Hiyori exclaims, sounding gleeful. “That’s it! That’s the one, Jun-kun! No more of that ridiculous Tomoe-senpai nonsense from now on, okay?”

“I—what?” Jun looks up, and Hiyori’s got a big grin on his face. His brain is short-circuiting, working overtime to recover from the emotional whiplash he’s currently experiencing. “You—you want me to call you Ohiisan?”

“Well, that’s what I just said, isn’t it? Keep up, Jun-kun!”

Jun’s heart starts to relax as the overwhelming certainty that he was about to get hit finally dissipates. “Okay,” he says, letting out a breath that he hadn’t realized he was holding in. “Okay, I can do that.”

Hiyori pushes the door open the rest of the way. “Perfect! Now that that’s settled, get out of the bathroom so I can get ready for bed, okay? Skin this perfect takes work, you know!”

“Whatever you say, Ohiisan,” Jun mutters, gathering his things and stepping back into the main room. He tries not to notice the way Hiyori seems to light up at the new nickname.

Chapter Text

Hiyori doesn’t just stop touching Jun.

Of course he doesn’t. Someone this selfish isn’t just going to be nice to Jun for the hell of it.

But now that Jun’s given him a nickname, Hiyori’s been weirdly cheerful, and he still hasn’t tried to hit Jun, so Jun’s been a little bolder with asking him to stop. Hiyori more or less knows now, since Jun was basically forced to tell him, that Jun can’t stand to be touched, so it’s only a little embarrassing for him to constantly be pulling away and asking Hiyori not to do that anymore. Hiyori mostly rolls his eyes, but he’ll generally stop touching Jun until he forgets about the last time Jun told him to stop.

It doesn’t get any easier to deal with, of course.

It still hurts just as much, it still makes Jun’s skin prickle and makes him want to shut down. But he’s good at dealing with it, so it’s okay for now. Eventually, Hiyori’s got to get the idea and stop, right?

Not on his own, he doesn’t.

Not even a week later, Hiyori ambushes him outside his classroom right as lunch is starting.

“Jun-kuuuuuuunnnnnn,” he sings, dropping his arms around Jun’s shoulders again. “Let’s eat lunch together!”

Jun’s whole body freezes, and it takes every ounce of self control he has not to cry out and shrink down in the hallway. Instead, he wordlessly shrugs Hiyori off and takes off down the hall as quickly as he can. His entire body trembles and the only thing he can think of is how to get away from everyone else so he can lose it by himself.

“Jun-kun,” Hiyori whines, his voice somehow right behind Jun. “It’s rude to ignore me, you know!”

Jun doesn’t respond. He can’t right now. If he opens his mouth he’ll yell, or cry, or do something that’ll only embarrass him and make Hiyori change his mind about picking Jun up.

Jun’s eyes fall on a door that will finally give him some privacy, and he makes a beeline towards it. He opens the door to the supply closet and slips inside, then promptly slams the door in Hiyori’s face and drops onto his knees.

For a second, all he has is this panic that’s slowly taking over now that he’s alone. And then, he hears Hiyori’s voice on the other side of the door.

“You know,” he says. “If you don’t want to have lunch together, you can just say that instead of bringing me along on this wild goose chase! Bad weather!”

It almost makes Jun laugh, how absurdly clueless Hiyori is right now. It’s just barely enough to pull him back, stop him from losing it entirely right now. Instead, he focuses on breathing, in and out, in and out, filling his lungs entirely and paying attention to how it feels. He doesn’t have the privilege of freaking out like that at school. He has to calm down, and soon.

Breathing works, but just barely. He absolutely cannot let anyone else touch him today, no matter what it takes. He checks his phone when he feels okay enough to head back to class, and breathes a tiny sigh of relief. He’s only missed half of lunch, not any actual class time.

Jun stands up, dusts his uniform off, straightens the striped tie that he’s still not used to, and cracks the door open. Hiyori, thankfully, is nowhere to be seen. Neither is anyone else, really; at this point in the day, the hallways are pretty much empty. Everyone is either in their classrooms or in the cafeteria, so no one is around to see him slip out of the supply closet.

He walks back to his classroom like nothing’s happened, and only a couple of his classmates look up when he walks back in. It’s fine. They don’t say anything to him. To them, he’s still an outsider, an unworthy non-special student who’s infiltrated their ranks through sheer luck. They’re right, of course, but it doesn’t make their judgemental stares any easier to endure.

At least they don’t try to beat him up anymore. Small victories.

The rest of the day goes fine. It’s not great, because thanks to Hiyori, he’s on edge the entire time, but it’s not as bad as it could be. It’s just...fine. Until it ends, and then Jun has to go back to his dorm. Back to where Hiyori is. Ugh.

Of course Hiyori’s somehow already back and waiting for him when he opens the door. Jun doesn’t know why he expected anything else. But there he is: Hiyori Tomoe, standing in the middle of the room with his arms crossed and a big frown on his face.

“Jun-kun, I’m not happy with you right now!” he says.

Jun holds in a sigh as he drops his bag onto the ground and kicks his shoes off. “That’s unfortunate.”

Hiyori gasps, looking affronted at the fact that Jun isn’t dropping to his knees and begging for forgiveness. “What bad weather! You should apologize for how rude you were to me earlier!”

“I told you not to touch me,” Jun says. “I’ve said it like fifteen times now.”

“You shoved me off of you,” Hiyori complains. “You at least could’ve been nice about it.”

“That was me being nice,” Jun says tersely.

“You really couldn’t respond in any way other than that?” Hiyori asks. “Couldn’t you just ask politely like you usually do?”

“Not when you ambush me like that.”

Hiyori sighs, dramatic like he always is. “I still don’t get why you won’t let me touch you.”

Good, Jun thinks. It’s none of your business, asshole.

“I just don’t like it,” he says instead. “That’s it. So please stop trying.”

Hiyori steps forward, within range of Jun. “Come on,” he says. “It can’t be that bad.”

He reaches forward, towards Jun’s arm, and Jun knows that if Hiyori touches him, he’s going to freak out. Jun pulls his arm back quickly, trying to avoid it, but Hiyori moves too fast. Just the tips of his fingers brush against Jun’s arm, but the damage is done. Jun flinches, biting back a whimper as the contact burns, and he tries to step back, to get away, but he’s clumsy in his haste so he trips over his feet and falls backwards.

He lands hard, and it takes everything in him not to black out. Hiyori didn’t actually hurt him. Hiyori didn’t push him to the ground. He’s okay. He’s fine.

Jun looks up at Hiyori, and his eyes burn with tears that he’s not strong enough to hold back anymore.

Hiyori’s expression flickers for a moment, twisting into something that can only be pity. “Jun-kun—”

Jun swipes his palm across his cheek, furiously rubbing away the single tear that managed to fall. “I’m fine,” he mutters, getting to his feet. He picks his bag back up and pushes past Hiyori, then drops down onto his bed and pulls random papers out so he has an out from any further conversation.

He must have done something in a past life. This has to be some sort of divine punishment. There’s no way his life can actually be this shitty for no reason. This is worse than last year by a mile. It’s not even close.

Any other special student would’ve been better. Hell, why couldn’t Tatsumi have been the one to decide Jun was worth saving? But no, Jun had to go and catch the attention of the single person in this entire school who’s most likely to make him miserable.

How on earth is his way out of hell worse than the actual hell itself?

“I’ll stop,” Hiyori says abruptly.

Jun looks back up at him. “What?”

“I’ll stop touching you,” Hiyori says, pointedly avoiding eye contact. “If it means that much to you, I’ll stop.”

Jun has no idea what to say to that.

“…Oh,” is all he can manage, after staring at Hiyori in silence for far too long.

Hiyori almost looks like he wants to say something else. But he doesn’t, instead choosing to nod and then turn away, towards his own bed where his own homework awaits him.

They sit there in silence for the rest of the evening.

⟡⟡⟡

Unfortunately, Jun has to hand it to Hiyori. He really does stop touching Jun this time. 

Well, mostly. Hiyori’s not perfect about it, but Jun doesn’t have to remind him a single time. He still reaches out a lot, because Hiyori Tomoe is still probably the touchiest person in the world, but he almost always catches himself before his hand actually makes contact. On the (admittedly) rare occasions he messes up and does touch Jun, he always fixes it immediately, retracting his hand with a little shake of his head.

He doesn’t apologize, but that’s to be expected. Hiyori isn’t the kind of person who would apologize to anyone, much less someone as unimportant as Jun. What matters is that he’s actually keeping his word, and he’s actually trying.

The whole thing makes Jun hate him a little less, if he’s being completely honest with himself. It’s a shame, because Jun doesn’t particularly want to hate him less. He’s still the same ditzy, selfish, rude, pushy, cocky asshole he was a week ago. The only difference is now Jun doesn’t have to allocate half of his brain power at any given moment into being ready for Hiyori to touch him so he doesn’t react.

But it helps, whether he wants it to or not. Hiyori becomes less of an enemy and more of a nuisance. Things start to even out. Jun starts to feel normal, if even a little.

Another week goes by, and then Hiyori comes up to Jun after school with some papers in his hand and a look of pure joy on his face.

“Jun-kun! I have the most incredible news!” he says, practically overflowing with excitement.

Jun doesn’t miss the way Hiyori reaches out but quickly stops himself. The enthusiasm doesn’t waver at all, and it strikes Jun just how quickly Hiyori’s adapted to not being the absolute worst. 

“What’s up?” Jun asks, a little warily. Good news to Hiyori could easily be terrible news to him.

Hiyori bounces a little and shoves the papers towards Jun. “Look! It’s our first song!”

Oh. That is great news. Jun’s heart kind of flutters a little as he takes the pages and turns them over to see the notes printed on the other side.

Trap For You. Huh. Interesting name.

But it’s a song, and it’s their song. Jun is one step closer to being a real idol.

He looks up at Hiyori, and he finds his face matching Hiyori’s as a spark of joy hits him. “That’s awesome,” he says honestly.

Hiyori tilts his head to the side and his smile softens a little as he keeps staring at Jun.

“What?” Jun asks, suddenly self-conscious.

“I think this is the first time I’ve seen you smile,” Hiyori says simply. 

Jun’s cheeks go hot and he fights a sudden urge to hide his face behind the sheet music in his hands.

“Don’t get embarrassed, it’s a nice smile!” Hiyori says. “You should be smiling more so you don’t have to fake it in front of our fans, right? It’s no good to look so gloomy all the time!”

Putting aside the fact that Hiyori is the reason Jun is so “gloomy” all the time, he has a point. Jun should at least figure out how to look happy between now and when they debut. Which is another good question, actually.

“When do we debut?” he asks.

“At the end of this term!” Hiyori says cheerfully. “Right before summer break. Nice, right?”

Right before summer break? Jun counts the difference in his head. “Three months from now? Isn’t that a long time to be working on a single song?”

Hiyori gets a thoughtful look on his face. “Well, maybe a bit, but you’re new to this! I wanted to make sure you had enough time to perfect it. We don’t really need to debut until then, so I figured I’d give us a little extra time to nail the details. Go on, praise me for how considerate I am!”

Jun just looks at him.

Hiyori pouts. “Fine, be that way. Are you ready to start rehearsing this?”

“We get to start right now?” Jun asks, the fluttery feeling of excitement coming back.

“Unless there’s something else you’d rather be doing.”

Jun shakes his head quickly. “I really want to start,” he says, feeling something close to desperation now that he knows he’s only three short months away from finally proving himself.

Hiyori grins at him again. “I thought so! Come on, follow me, okay? I’ve reserved a room for us in the main part of the school.”

Jun follows Hiyori out of their room, through the halls, and into the center of the school. Hiyori pushes open the door to one of the rehearsal spaces, and Jun realizes with a strange jolt that this is the same room he would always sneak into to practice his singing. It’s been forever since he’s been in here, it feels like. That was a lifetime ago, now that he’s in actual vocal training classes.

“Okay,” Hiyori says, setting the pages onto the music stands in front of them. “I’ll put the demo CD in so we can listen to it in a second, but I do have a question for you first. Do you know how to read sheet music?”

Jun’s almost offended. “Duh.”

Hiyori frowns. “You can’t fault me for asking! You’ve only been a special student for a month. I don’t know how quickly they teach these things here!”

“I knew how to read sheet music before I came here,” Jun says, feeling weirdly defensive.

“Oh, that’s impressive!” Hiyori says. “I wouldn’t have thought you had the money to afford private lessons.”

Jun pointedly ignores Hiyori’s roundabout way of calling him poor. “I’ve been training to be an idol since I could stand, pretty much. I could read notes before I could read kanji.”

“You started that young?” Hiyori asks. He looks genuinely surprised. “That’s longer than I’ve been training. Why on earth did you start so early?”

Jun hesitates. He has to tread carefully about this. “My...dad always wanted me to be an idol,” he says, averting his eyes. “He wanted me to...follow in his footsteps. So he started teaching me really young.”

“Do you want to be an idol?” Hiyori asks.

“Of course I do,” Jun says quickly. “Idols are the best. He had me watch a lot of old idols on tape, too, and I fell in love. I’m not just here because he wants me to be. It’s my dream too, it just...didn’t necessarily start out that way.”

It’s weird, talking about his dad almost positively like that. And it’s weird that Hiyori doesn’t know anything about his dad, other than what Jun tells him. He hopes that’s enough, that Hiyori won’t pry further. He just wants to get to the song.

“Well,” Hiyori says. “The long story short is that Jun-kun can, in fact, read sheet music! So make sure you’re following along while I play the demo, okay? We’ll listen to it twice before we start trying to sing.”

Jun lets out a breath he didn’t realize he’d been holding in and nods. Hiyori inserts the CD into the sound system, and the music starts.

The song is fast. It starts with a fairly long instrumental, and then Hiyori is the first to sing. Jun manages to keep up with where the lyrics are placed in the song, and as he reads through them, he realizes what type of song this is.

Oh. That kind of trap.

The backing is almost hypnotic, too. That’s probably the point, based on the tone of the lyrics, but it’s still more than a little shocking.

There’s another fairly long instrumental break in the middle. That probably means a lot of dancing. That’s fine, though. Jun can keep up.

As the song draws to a close, Hiyori looks at Jun expectantly. “Well? What do you think?”

Jun hesitates, trying to figure out how to put it into words. “I like how it sounds,” he tries. “But—are we allowed to sing something with lyrics like this?”

Hiyori laughs. “Who would stop us, exactly?”

Jun’s cheeks burn a little. “I don’t know, the principal, or something?”

“Sex sells, Jun-kun,” Hiyori explains, not even pretending to dance around the issue. “A song like this is guaranteed to sell tickets to lives, and to make us incredibly popular. If we’re all anyone’s talking about, that looks good for COS PRO and even better for Reimei. Who do you think wrote the lyrics in the first place? As talented as I am, it wasn’t me. It was someone at the agency.”

“Okay,” Jun says reluctantly. He’s not about to argue with such concise points. He’ll just have to get over the embarrassment he feels from the idea of singing words like these.

Hiyori plays the backing again, and it’s a lot easier to follow along this time. The song is really catchy, and he’s starting to get excited again, thinking about the possibility of not only being a real idol, but of being a popular one. With someone like Hiyori, that actually might be possible.

“Okay,” Hiyori says once the song draws to a close again. “So we’ll go slower than that to start, obviously. Let’s just go through it once without stopping, if we can, and then we can go part by part. Ready?”

Jun nods, and as Hiyori starts the music, probably a third slower than the actual song, he realizes he’s never actually heard Hiyori sing. Surely he’s good, if he’s a special student, but Jun can’t help but wonder what he sounds like.

Hiyori starts singing, and Jun very quickly realizes that Hiyori is very qualified to be a special student. His voice is clear, and sweet, and confident, and even more hypnotizing than the song itself. Jun very nearly misses his own entrance, focused as he is on Hiyori’s voice.

He doesn’t, luckily. He comes in right on time and he sees Hiyori’s approving nod as he starts to sing. As he keeps going, he can’t help but notice a soft and genuine smile coming to Hiyori’s lips. It returns every time Jun sings on his own, and it’s kind of starting to weird him out.

They hit the instrumental break, and Jun can’t stand it anymore. “Why do you keep doing that?” he asks.

“Doing what?”

“You’re looking at me funny,” Jun mutters.

All of a sudden, all of the emotion drops off of Hiyori’s face, and he almost pointedly looks away. “You just sound nice, is all,” he says. “I’m happy that I made a good decision.”

If Jun didn’t know better, he’d say that was a compliment.

“...Thanks,” he says hesitantly.

Hiyori glances at Jun then looks away, back down at the sheet music. “Come on, we have to finish the song,” he says.

Jun nods, and Hiyori starts the slowed-down music again. The instrumental ends, and they start singing again at the second chorus.

Their voices actually go together pretty well, which is surprising to Jun. He’d always kind of assumed that his voice wasn’t anything special. He’s not tone-deaf, or anything, but he’s not a great singer. He can’t be, or he would’ve had a chance at being placed as a special student. He would’ve been punished less during singing lessons if he was talented.

But his voice fits with Hiyori’s. And Hiyori kind-of-sort-of complimented his singing, right? So maybe he’s not as talentless as he thought.

The music ends, and they look back up at each other.

“That wasn’t bad!” Hiyori says. “For sight reading, it was pretty good. We’ve got a lot of work ahead of us to perfect it, of course, but we’re on the right track!”

“I like the song,” Jun admits. “Even though the lyrics are…a lot, I like how it sounds. It’s fun to sing.”

Hiyori grins at him. “I knew you would,” he says smugly. “I wouldn’t let our first song be bad, of course! Now, come on, let’s pull it apart a little.”

Hiyori leads them through a full rehearsal of the song, taking it section by section, and they finish by running it again from start to finish, slightly faster than their first try. Already, it sounds noticeably better.

“Okay, we’ll call it there for today!” Hiyori says, pulling his music off the stand. “I asked when we got the music, and we should get the choreography in about a week. So until then, we’ll prioritize the music during our rehearsals, but we’ll still do some physical training on a couple of days! Our goal will be to have it memorized by then, okay?”

The week goes by in a blur, practically. Jun finally feels like he has a purpose, and it drives him to spend all of his free time listening to or practicing their song. It plays in his headphones while he works out, and he hums it absentmindedly as he does his classwork. Before he knows it, Hiyori’s coming up to him after school is over again, smiling even wider this time as he announces that he’s just been given their choreography.

“You’ll love it!” he proclaims. “It fits the song perfectly.”

As soon as they’re in a practice room, Hiyori shoves his phone into Jun’s hands and hits play on a recording of two people modeling the choreography for them.

It’s like the air leaves the room as soon as Jun sees even the first pose. There’s no way this is real.

You’ll love it!

The video ends. Jun stares at the black screen, then looks up at Hiyori incredulously. “You can’t be serious.”

Hiyori looks back at him, unwavering. “Serious as I’ve ever been, Jun-kun. The choreography fits with the lyrics. You know it does.”

“But this—” Jun runs a hand through his hair. “Ohiisan, I don’t think I can do this.”

“Of course you can,” Hiyori says, rolling his eyes. “I don’t see what the issue is.”

Jun shakes his head, thinking back to their supposed final pose, to everything before that. “I really don’t think I can do this.”

“Oh, come on, Jun-kun, it’s not even a real kiss,” Hiyori says, looking exasperated. “Don’t tell me you’re that prudish that you can’t even pretend.”

Oh. Hiyori’s misunderstanding it.

Well. Mostly, at least. The fact that the choreography is so...bold isn’t exactly exciting to Jun, but it’s not what he’s worried about right now. Not in the slightest. He’s worried about the fact that in order to pretend to kiss Hiyori, he has to touch him. But Hiyori doesn’t know what the issue is, because Jun never told him anything other than that he doesn’t like it when Hiyori touches him.

Hiyori doesn’t know how bad it really is. Jun never really wanted him to know, but he’s going to have to explain it if he wants to have any chance of changing this. And he has to change this, because there’s no way he can get through a song like this without losing it.

“That’s not the problem,” Jun mutters, staring down at his hands.

“Is this about the touch thing?” Hiyori asks. “Not liking it isn’t an excuse, you know.”

“It’s not that I don’t like it,” Jun tries. “I—I can’t do it. Not this much.”

Hiyori sighs. “You’re going to have to be okay with being a little uncomfortable, then. It won’t be that bad once you’re used to it.”

“I can’t get used to it,” Jun says, feeling a growing desperation to get Hiyori to understand without him having to know. “It—it won’t get easier. It never does. It never has and it never will.”

“Is it really that big of a deal?” Hiyori asks. “You told me you just didn’t like it.”

Jun’s not winning this one, and it’s becoming clearer by the minute. Even if Hiyori did get it, it wouldn’t matter. He’d still make Jun do this.

Still, he tries. “I didn’t think you needed to know. I didn’t think the song would be like this. Why would I tell you if it wasn’t relevant?”

“Jun-kun, even if it is more than just not liking it, it’s too late to change anything. If we scrapped the choreography now, it would take over a month for them to give us a new version.”

That doesn’t sound half bad, actually. “We still have almost three months until the debut, can’t we just—”

“Absolutely not,” Hiyori interrupts.

Jun has a look that borders on pleading. “I can’t—Ohiisan, I can’t do this. This is too much.”

“Well, then, we’ll just have to practice until it isn’t too much anymore,” Hiyori says stubbornly.

“Ohiisan,” Jun finds himself begging, “Ohiisan, please don’t make me do this.”

Hiyori softens a little. “I know you hate it, and I’m sorry, but you’re just going to have to deal with it. You’re a professional now.”

There’s only so long Jun can protest before Hiyori starts getting mad at him. He’s honestly surprised that point hasn’t happened yet, but he knows it’s close. And, as much as he hates to admit it, Hiyori has a point. If this is all it takes to stop him from being able to debut, he’s not fit to be an idol. So he’s going to have to...get over it, somehow.

Jun sighs, resigned to his fate. “I’ll try,” he says.

So they do try. They project the video onto a screen in the practice room to watch as they start to learn the choreography themselves, and Jun has to refrain from backing out and leaving the room as they start to set up for the beginning. He doesn’t want to do this. Not at all. But he doesn’t have a choice.

Hiyori ever so confidently crosses his arms over his chest and waits for Jun to place his hands on his hip and shoulder. Jun steps closer to him, closing the distance. He reaches out hesitantly and hovers his hands right above where they’re supposed to be. 

“Jun-kun, you have to actually touch me,” Hiyori points out, rather unhelpfully.

“I’m getting to that,” Jun grumbles. “Gimme a sec.”

He takes a deep breath and tries to prepare himself for the contact. He lowers his hands and allows them to rest gingerly on Hiyori. He hates it. There’s a strong sense of wrongness in the touch and all he wants to do is release, back up, leave this situation. Instead, he slowly lets out the breath he’s been holding and tries to convince himself that he’s fine. 

“Okay, that’s better than nothing,” Hiyori says. “We’ll work on you not looking like you want to die later. Let’s see, next we just lean in? Both to our right.”

Jun does as directed, tilting his head right and leaning forward, like he’s about to kiss his unitmate. He keeps his eyes wide open, and is startled to see Hiyori letting his own fall half-shut. They both continue leaning in, and Jun feels like he’s in a game of chicken, one he’s about to lose. He falters for a moment, afraid of moving any closer. Hiyori keeps going, and suddenly he’s only a few centimeters away, and oh god, is he actually about to try to kiss Jun?

Jun backs away, raising his hands in the air and stepping away rapidly. “Goddamn, Ohiisan, what the hell was that?”

Hiyori, stubborn and clueless as ever, points a finger at the video still being projected. “Look how close they are, Jun-kun. The whole point is so the audience thinks we’re about to kiss. I wasn’t going to actually do it.”

Jun subconsciously wipes his hands on his sweatshirt, trying to get the lingering sensation off. “Could’ve fooled me.”

Hiyori looks annoyed. “Then I did my job. Keep up.”

“I’m not doing that again today,” Jun says, wiping his hands off one more time before letting them fall to his sides. “I want to move on to the rest of the song.”

Hiyori rolls his eyes, but allows it. They move on, and the practice goes much better. For all his faults, Hiyori is an incredibly capable dancer. And more than just that, he seems to have no difficulties leading Jun into the correct choreography, guiding him to the right moves and making him feel a lot more graceful than he probably should feel, considering this is the first time he’s ever had to learn choreography for something that wasn’t a decades-old song of Jin Sagami’s. They work together surprisingly well as their steps weave them in and out of each other’s space while not actually being in contact. They make it to right before the first chorus before they have to touch again. Jun reaches a hand out in front of him and Hiyori places his own on top.

The movement is sudden, quicker than Jun was expecting, and Hiyori accidentally places far too much force into the contact. On instinct, Jun yanks his hand back as he feels Hiyori’s touch burning into his skin. 

“Sorry,” he says quickly, embarrassed at his knee-jerk reaction. “Sorry. I’m fine. We can keep going. Sorry.”

He puts his left hand back out, and holds his breath while he waits for Hiyori to place his back on top. Hiyori does so, but in an uncharacteristic act of kindness he hovers his hand just above, not actually touching Jun. Jun exhales slightly, surprised but relieved. He glances over at the screen that’s playing the next move in slow motion, and resists the urge to hang his head. Great. Another stupid kiss bait. Hiyori’s arm goes up, Jun’s goes down to rest on Hiyori’s waist again—he does not allow himself to think about how terrible it feels—and they both lean in. Jun pointedly refuses eye contact, but notices that Hiyori starts to close his damned eyes again, like this is real. Luckily, this one doesn’t last nearly as long as the last one, and they pull away from each other and make their way into the chorus.

Jun counts himself incredibly lucky; there’s not a single part where they touch in the chorus. They take it slowly, and he starts to see how the lyrics coincide with the choreography. It’ll be fantastic once they get it down and can actually start singing, he knows, but he doesn’t know how he’ll ever get to a point where the touches are as seductive as they’re supposed to look—and that’s if he’s able to get it down at all. He can’t see his own face while they rehearse, of course, but judging from Hiyori’s comment earlier he’s an open book with how much he hates it. He realizes he’s getting distracted and tries to clear the unnecessary thoughts from his head as they make their way out of the chorus and into the instrumental break. He and Hiyori move away from each other and spin, then make their way back together. Jun feels dread growing in the pit of his stomach as he realizes what’s coming next. 

“Okay, Jun-kun, this next part’s complicated, so we’re going to take it step by step to make sure we learn it in the correct order,” Hiyori says, staring at the screen with a look of concentration on his face.

Hiyori calls out each step, and Jun moves as directed, stepping in front of Hiyori and raising one arm, then the next. He turns around to face Hiyori, then they each stick out an opposite arm.

Jun hesitates at the next step. All he has to do is cross his left arm over his chest and stick out his right. That’s not a problem. The problem is what Hiyori has to do. Hiyori opens his mouth, probably to complain, so Jun moves his arm before that can happen.

Hiyori makes direct eye contact with Jun as he slowly moves his hand forward and onto Jun’s shoulder. Jun tenses as the hand makes contact and fights the urge to shrug it off. Hiyori’s other hand comes up to Jun’s waist and Jun anticipates the next move, turns his body before Hiyori even has the chance to add any pressure to his touch. But still, Hiyori is touching him with both hands and they’re on either side of him, and he feels so boxed in and trapped, and why is it so hard to breathe?

But then, just like that, Hiyori releases him, spinning him away. He can still feel every single place Hiyori’s touched him, as if his hands were hot iron, branding Jun’s skin. His throat is still far too tight and his stomach is churning.

“Can we take a break, please?” he asks in a pained voice. “I feel like I’m about to throw up.”

Hiyori nods. “We’re making good progress. We have time for a break.”

Jun grabs his water bottle and sinks to the ground, pulling his knees up to his chest and resting his chin on them. “Goddamn, this sucks,” he mutters under his breath.

At these words, a look of genuine hurt is visible on Hiyori’s face for a fraction of a second before he rearranges it into a much more controlled look of offense. “You know, Jun-kun, there are hundreds of people who would do anything to be in your position right now.”

“Maybe you should go call one of them up,” Jun retorts. “At least then I wouldn’t have to touch you.”

“Maybe I will,” Hiyori says, his voice higher than normal. “Need I remind you you don’t need to be here?”

Jun stares at him, trying to decipher his tone. It’s always so hard to tell when Hiyori is being serious. Most of the time when he threatens to kick Jun out it’s a challenge, and it’s clear that no matter what, Jun’s the one who loses. But there’s something different about this. Hiyori seemed...actually upset for a moment, and even now it feels like he’s just barely concealing his true feelings. 

But still, Jun can’t take any chances. “Please don’t kick me out,” he says softly. “I’ll figure it out, I promise I will.”

Hiyori looks at him with an unreadable look on his face, then shakes his head. “No, I didn’t mean it,” he says, more to himself than to Jun. “I’m not going to kick you out. Not for something like this, anyways.”

Jun breathes out a sigh of relief. He’s safe for now, at least. But he still needs to do something about the weird way Hiyori’s acting. “I’m sorry, Ohiisan, I know I’m being ungrateful. I just…really hate being touched.”

“Is it that bad?” Hiyori asks, sitting down next to Jun.

Jun nods and takes a sip from his water bottle. “I really wish it wasn’t.”

Hiyori meets his eyes, looking at him strangely. “What does it feel like?”

Jun’s never been asked that question before, and for some reason, he can’t find it in him to lie. “It’s like—It feels like it burns, almost. I know it shouldn’t, but it hurts, especially when I’m not expecting it. If I’m the one doing the touching it’s a little bit better, but it still feels really uncomfortable and I hate doing it. It doesn’t stop just because the touch stops either. It’s like it gets stuck to my skin and I can’t get it off.”

“Oh,” Hiyori says softly. “I didn’t know that.”

“You couldn’t have,” Jun says, looking over at him. “I never told you.”

Hiyori meets his eyes, and neither says anything. Jun fights the urge to break this weirdly intense eye contact, and he wishes he had any idea what Hiyori is thinking. But Hiyori has never been easy for him to read, not even after over a month of living together and training together. Two bodies, one soul sounds great on paper, but Jun still hasn’t been able to get the one soul part down. Hiyori is the first to look away, staring down at his own water bottle and fiddling with the cap. 

“Well,” he says abruptly, “Let me know when you feel okay to keep going. After we get through the song once, we can stop for the day.”

Jun nods and looks down at his hands. He closes them and digs his fingernails into his palms, focusing on the sharp sensation. It’s something he knows he shouldn’t be doing anymore, but he can’t stand the idea of holding Hiyori back and wasting time right now, and this’ll help. He slides his eyes shut as he waits for the all-over discomfort to subside. It slowly fades away as Jun stubbornly focuses his thoughts on the workout he’s going to do at the gym when they’re done with rehearsal. He unclenches his fists and takes a final sip of water.

The feeling of Hiyori’s touch isn’t gone; he can still feel his skin crawling every time he thinks about it. This echo probably won’t go away until tonight, but it’s...manageable now. The thought of Hiyori having to touch him only makes him want to cry, rather than making him nauseous. He can at least get through the rest of the song now, even if it sucks. 

“Ohiisan,” he says. Hiyori looks at him. “We can keep going now.”

“Oh, perfect!” Hiyori says brightly. “Come, come, Jun-kun, let’s finish this song.”

“How many more times do we have to touch?” Jun asks. He figures if he knows, he can start preparing now, so hopefully they won’t be quite so bad. He half expects Hiyori to shrug off this request and make them just start, but something about their conversation seems to have softened Hiyori a little. He makes his way to the laptop displaying the video and scrubs through the rest.

“Hmm, looks like three?” he says. “Some of it’s a little fluid. I grab your hand, then you touch my face and I pull your hand away, then we kind of hold our hands out and hold hands like that? And then at the very end we repeat the move we just did, but the song ends with me holding onto you.”

Three-ish times. That’s worse than Jun was hoping, but better than he expected. They take their places again, facing away from each other, and Jun takes a deep breath. He can do this. He can get through three-ish more times. Hiyori counts down, and they continue from where they left off.

This is the easy part. Spinning and a high kick to get them into the final chorus, and then all Jun has to do is stick his left hand out in front of him. Easy.

And then Hiyori puts his hand on top of Jun’s, and Jun very quickly realizes that he’s not okay, actually, and the rest of the song is going to go terribly. His hand jerks a little, but he somehow manages to wait to pull away, only barely timing it right. His heart is pounding in his chest all of a sudden, and he can’t keep going but he has to.

He turns at the same time as Hiyori, and they’re facing each other now, and Jun’s right hand moves as if it’s not attached to the rest of him. He brushes up against Hiyori’s face and he wants to scream at how awful it feels, but before he can even blink, Hiyori places his hand gingerly on top of Jun’s and starts to guide it away from him. Jun pulls his hand away faster than Hiyori pushes, and he really expects Hiyori to have something to say about that. But Hiyori allows it for now at least, choosing to move on to the next move, which is still them touching. Hiyori puts his right arm out in front of him and waits for Jun to do the same, but Jun can’t make his arm move. He’s frozen, staring at Hiyori’s hand like it’s a weapon.

“Jun-kun,” Hiyori says, sounding impatient.

Jun swallows. “I’m trying,” he says, shutting his eyes for a fraction of a second.

He doesn’t have a choice here. He has to touch Hiyori again. Slowly, reluctantly, Jun stretches his right arm out towards Hiyori’s, ghosting his hand across it and looking back up, waiting for Hiyori to move so he can stop touching him as soon as possible.

Hiyori pulls his arm back and then only their hands are touching, but it’s only for a second before Jun can finally pull away entirely. The touch is finally gone but it’s stuck to him still, and he’s really not anywhere close to being okay right now, but they keep going.

Luckily, the second half of the final chorus is the same as it was during the first chorus, so Jun can rely a little on his muscle memory as his brain is starting to shut down from how overwhelmed he is. The outro instrumental starts, and it’s mostly recycled from earlier, too. Jun floats through it, practically, barely aware of what he’s actually doing, until they get to the very end. Hiyori calls out the moves as they go again, and it’s just the same as it was in the middle of the song, except they have to stay like this.

Jun stands, frozen in place as Hiyori’s hands burn on his waist and shoulder. He can’t move until Hiyori lets go, even if the song is technically over. His eyes squeeze shut involuntarily and he only barely stops his whole body from shaking as the touch goes on and on.

Hiyori finally releases him, and Jun very nearly falls to the ground now that he’s not being held up. He forces his eyes open and steps away from Hiyori slowly, taking deep and mechanical breaths to try and calm himself down.

“Jun-kun, are you okay?” Hiyori asks, looking at him weird.

“Fine,” Jun forces out.

Hiyori doesn’t look convinced. “Are you sure?”

I don’t have a choice, Jun thinks but doesn’t say. He nods instead.

Hiyori frowns a little. “Have some more water. We’ll talk about the song in a minute.”

Jun’s hands are numb as he sits down and picks his water bottle up. It feels like his entire torso is on fire, and his eyes itch with tears he can’t possibly cry right now.

That was awful.

There’s absolutely no way he can do that again. He doesn’t even know how he got through it this time. It half feels like he didn’t get through it. Not on his own, at least. Hiyori dragged him through it, and it was maybe the most exhausting thing he’s done since his dad stopped being able to force him through twelve-hour training days.

Hiyori sits down next to Jun. “So, how do you think that went?”

Jun almost wants to laugh. What an idiotic question. If he was any further from a meltdown he probably would laugh, but as it stands right now, even just speaking to answer the question seems far fetched. But Hiyori’s absolutely not going to let him not respond, so he opens his mouth and hopes that the words that come out won’t be a mistake.

“Like shit,” he says, staring down at his water bottle so he won’t have to look at Hiyori.

“Oh, come on, it wasn’t that bad,” Hiyori says. “Other than the touching, it was quite good for a first run, actually. You’re a quick learner! The next time we rehearse, I’m sure it’ll go a lot better.”

“Please don’t make me do that again,” Jun all but begs, his voice almost pathetically small.

“I won’t make you try again today, but we’re going to have to keep learning it,” Hiyori says.

Jun’s heart sinks. Of course it doesn’t matter that Hiyori now knows exactly how horribly broken Jun really is, how much he cannot do this song. None of that matters in the end, because Hiyori picked him to be an idol, not to be a friend. Hiyori doesn’t care about him one bit, and that means that he’s going to be put through hell for the next three months.

If he even makes it that far.

Jun tries one more time. “Ohiisan, I—I really don’t think I can do this. Is there really no chance we can change it?”

Hiyori sighs. “Look, Jun-kun, we don’t have a choice. Whether you like it or not, this is the song we’re going to debut with, and this is the choreography we were given for it. We have plenty of time to work on it, so by the time July rolls around, you’ll be able to do this easily.”

“But—”

“If you can’t, then I might have to reevaluate your position in this unit,” Hiyori says. There’s not even a trace of his earlier softness in his voice now.

This isn’t like when he said it during their break. Hiyori really means it this time. This isn’t a challenge, it’s a threat.

“I’ll work on it,” Jun says, trying not to let any of the misery he feels creep into his voice. “I’ll get it eventually.”

They’re just empty words. There’s no way he’s going to be able to get this song down. Even if he can manage to get through the song without physically reacting to all the touching—which is extremely unlikely—he still has to figure out how to not look like he hates it. And that’s the part he’s never been able to get down for more than a few seconds.

But Jun has to make these empty promises to Hiyori if he wants to have any chance of not being kicked out and sent back to his old miserable life. Somehow, this is the best his life has ever been, and he can’t risk losing this.

“Good!” Hiyori says cheerily. “I knew you’d come around. Just keep working hard, and it’ll be easy!”

Jun can’t take any more of this. “Are we done?” he asks.

Hiyori nods and stands up. “Yep! All done for the day. I’ll be going back to our room to change and then having dinner with Nagisa-kun, so that means you get to spend the evening however you choose!”

It’s crazy how much relief Jun feels knowing Hiyori won’t be with him for a couple of hours. It’s not even like he hates Hiyori anymore, but he’s certainly had enough Hiyori to last him the rest of the week. A break is more than welcome.

Jun stands up, too, and he follows Hiyori out of the practice room. All he has to do is get back to their dorm, wait for Hiyori to leave, and then he can shut down. He can do this.

Once they get back, It’s like Hiyori doesn’t want to leave. He lingers in their dorm, “almost forgetting” thing after thing and, for some reason, looking at Jun when he thinks Jun isn’t looking at him. Jun just sits on the edge of the couch, very nearly holding his breath and waiting for Hiyori to go so he can finally try to relax.

After an eternity, Hiyori doesn’t have any more reasons to stay back, and he heads out with the promise of being back in a couple of hours.

Immediately, Jun exhales and curls in on himself, leaning over until his cheek rests on the armrest. This is maybe the worst day he’s had since starting at Reimei. This sucks. He wants to cry, wants to get in bed and hide under his blanket, wants to stop feeling like this.

He wants to go home.

But as soon as that thought crosses his mind, he knows it isn’t true. He doesn’t miss home, not one bit. There’s a reason he hasn’t gone back. He just…misses the simplicity of it, maybe. His life has gotten so stupidly complicated. At least back home it was a simple matter of actions and consequences. At least he got to sleep in his own room.

Being home would be worse than this. Hiyori doesn’t hit him, and he has to keep reminding himself of that fact. Yeah, Hiyori touched him over and over and then made him feel like shit for hating it, but that’s all he did. It was just a few touches. Jun is being dramatic. It’s not that bad. He must’ve gotten softer since being here, or at least since being promoted. This is fine, because he needs it to be.

But Jun’s skin is still crawling with the feeling of Hiyori’s hands on him. Going to the gym would help, probably, but he doesn’t want to go to the gym. Not right now. He settles on a shower, hoping the hot water will scald off any remaining discomfort.

It doesn’t work. Not really, anyways. It helps a little, but he’s still exhausted and he’s certain that if anything else happens tonight, he’ll lose it. So he just changes into clean clothes, trying to pretend the fabric doesn’t feel like sandpaper on his skin, and climbs into bed.

After probably an hour of lying unmoving in his bed, Jun feels almost halfway normal. Close enough that he can do something now, instead of just hiding under the covers. And he really doesn’t want to be doing nothing when Hiyori gets back, so he sits up and grabs a manga from next to his bed, and starts reading. It’s a good distraction, too, and it pulls him further away from the edge of losing it.

Nearly two hours later, when there isn’t even a hint of daylight left outside the window, Hiyori comes back. “Hi hi, Jun-kun!” he says cheerily, shutting the door behind him. “Nagisa-kun and I got to talking, so I’m a little bit later than I thought I’d be!”

Jun glances up at him, then looks back down at his manga. “It’s fine,” he says, and he’s thankful to note that his voice seems to be back to normal.

Hiyori chatters at Jun excitedly while he meanders around the room and gets ready for bed, and Jun’s able to just nod and make a few noises of agreement to keep the conversation going without having to actually pay attention. He just wants the lights to be turned off so he can lie down and give in to the exhaustion that’s hanging over him.

Finally, Hiyori shuts off the lights and gets into his bed. Jun closes his manga and sets it on his nightstand, then lies down and closes his eyes. Almost immediately, he can feel himself drifting off to sleep, and he longs for an easy and dreamless night.

“Hey, Jun-kun?” Hiyori’s voice is soft again, in the darkness. 

Jun rolls over to face the direction of Hiyori’s voice, just barely awake. “Hm?”

“How long has your…touch thing been going on?”

“That’s a weird question, Ohiisan,” Jun mumbles. “Why do you care?”

“I just want to know,” Hiyori replies. If Jun didn’t know better he would say Hiyori sounds defensive. “If we’re going to be partners, we should know everything about each other. So when did it start?”

Jun sighs. “I don’t know, a long time ago. It’s not like I woke up one day and suddenly couldn’t do touch, it was more gradual.”

There’s silence for a moment. Hiyori’s voice is gentle again, and hesitant this time. “Why did it start?”

“Because my deadbeat dad used to hit me,” Jun says before he can stop himself. He’s fully awake again, and his voice has an unexpected sharpness to it. “If the only time someone touches you is to beat you, you stop expecting good touch. Doesn’t matter if it’s gentle anymore. It all feels the same.”

“Oh,” Hiyori says.

Jun waits for more, but no more words come. He sighs and picks at a loose thread on his blanket. 

“You know,” he says, unsure of why he’s still talking. “Before you had me promoted, the only good thing about Reimei was that I’m too far away from my dad for him to hit me anymore. At least I could avoid getting beaten up by the special students as long as I was polite enough.”

Hiyori doesn’t respond at first. His silk sheets rustle as he shifts in bed, and Jun starts to regret his vulnerability. Why did he say anything in the first place? He’s never admitted the truth about his dad to anyone, and he never really planned on changing that. So why is Hiyori, of all people, the one who gets to know this? It’s not like Jun trusts him. Hiyori’s probably just going to use this against him.

“Jun-kun,” Hiyori says finally. “I’m sorry.”

“What?”

“I’m sorry,” Hiyori repeats. “I’m sorry that your father did that to you. And I’m sorry that I’ve been so dismissive about this all for so long.”

Now it’s Jun’s turn to let out a soft, “Oh.”

Neither of them speaks for what feels like an eternity. Jun starts to wonder if Hiyori fell asleep.

“Goodnight, Ohiisan,” he says softly, breaking the silence. 

“Goodnight, Jun-kun,” Hiyori whispers back. 

Jun rolls over and stares at the wall. Hiyori definitely acted weird today, but he can’t figure out why. It’s not like this is the first time he’s found out Jun doesn’t like to be touched, so why is he suddenly so interested in it? And for the life of him, Jun cannot think of a single other time Hiyori has apologized to anyone—let alone him, of all people—in the time that they’ve known each other. 

He tries to chalk it up to just one of Hiyori’s weird moods that he gets in sometimes. Of course, this is unlike any mood he’s ever been in, so it’s hard for Jun to convince himself of this, but he can’t think of a better explanation. There must’ve been something in the air between them with today being the most times they've ever touched each other, with the almost kisses. This false intimacy is strange, but maybe it gave way to real intimacy for a brief moment and that’s what’s making Hiyori talk so gently to him. 

So Jun closes his eyes, expecting tomorrow to be back to normal.

Chapter Text

Jun wakes up first like always, rising with the sun.

Of course, the human sun in the room is still sleeping peacefully, snoring softly in the next bed over. His eye mask has shifted overnight, allowing one of his eyes to peek out from under it. A deeply calm expression rests on his face, and Jun almost never gets to see him looking like this. Hiyori turns on his side, sniffling and sticking an arm up and out from under his comforter. If only Jun could sleep that soundly.

Jun realizes he’s been staring for far too long and shakes his head to pull himself back together. He stands up quickly and changes to get ready for a run, hoping to be back in time to shower before Hiyori wakes up and takes ownership of the bathroom for at least an hour to get ready for the day.

He’s feeling a lot better today. It’s maybe a cop out to say, but now that he’s not actually in the situation, it feels like he was being a little melodramatic yesterday. They only have to touch seven times in the entire song, and it’s only three minutes long. He can learn how to be okay with seven touches in three minutes. He knows what to expect now, so he can work on his reactions. It’ll be okay.

His run is great, actually, and he gets back to the dorm right as Hiyori’s waking up.

“Morning, Ohiisan,” he says, surprising himself. But he’s in a good mood today, so it’s easy to talk to Hiyori.

Hiyori seems pleased by the greeting. “Good morning, Jun-kun! Were you out doing your exercise thing?”

It’s almost annoying how funny Hiyori is when he’s not even trying. Jun swallows a laugh as he picks out a clean set of uniform pieces and heads towards the bathroom.

“I went on a run, yeah,” he says. He steps into the bathroom and turns back towards Hiyori, who’s finally sitting up. “I’m gonna shower really quick, and then the bathroom’s all yours.”

Jun’s in and out of the bathroom in ten minutes. He only had to rinse off and change, really, and he knows that Hiyori needs the time to do whatever million things he does to his face and hair every day. It’s kind of admirable that he’s able to stick to such a time-consuming routine, honestly. Hiyori strikes Jun as the type of person to get bored of things easily. He just hopes he’s exempt from that.

As Hiyori gets ready, Jun can hear him singing Trap For You through the bathroom door and he smiles a little. The song really is infectious, isn’t it?

He drapes his tie around his neck and ties it loosely, then throws his mostly-unfinished homework into his bag. It’s fine that it’s not done, because special students can really get away with pretty much anything, he’s learned. He still tries, of course, but yesterday was…yesterday, and he’s not going to beat himself up for not getting his homework done.

The bathroom door opens, and out comes Hiyori looking polished and perfect like he always does. He zeroes in on Jun and walks over to him, stopping about a foot away.

“Jun-kun!” Hiyori exclaims, his eyes sparkling with excitement. “I had the most wonderful idea while I was in the shower!”

Jun resists the urge to sigh and roll his eyes. Whatever this is can’t be good. “What was your idea?” he asks, playing along for his own sake. 

“So you don’t like it when I touch you,” Hiyori states. 

Jun feels a tinge of heat rising to his cheeks. “Right.”

“And we need to touch a lot for Trap For You.”

“I’m not hearing an idea, Ohiisan,” Jun mutters.

“If you would let me finish, I could get to my idea, Jun-kun. Bad weather!” Hiyori lets out a hmph and crosses his arms. 

Jun can’t suppress his sigh this time. “Right. Sorry. Continue.”

“So, like I was saying,” Hiyori continues, the excitement creeping back into his voice. “We just need to get you more used to me touching you! And then the song will be perfect when we have to perform it!”

“I’m still not hearing a new idea,” Jun says. “We were already going to rehearse until I can do it.”

Hiyori shakes his head enthusiastically. “Oh, no, Jun-kun, I don’t mean just practicing. I mean full on immersion. We’re going to work on this during our free time too! Isn’t that a fantastic idea?”

Jun feels a knot of anxiety forming in his stomach. “You’re going to start touching me again?” he asks, trying not to sound as nervous as he is. “I don’t see how that’ll help. All it did before you stopped was freak me out and make you mad at me.”

“Well you see,” Hiyori explains patiently, “I’ve come to realize that before I wasn’t being very good about it. I was throwing myself at you without any warning and when you couldn’t see me and with so much force. Very bad weather on my part, of course, but worry not! I’ve learned from my mistakes and I know how to do this the right way now.”

“Ohiisan, I don’t think there is a right way to do this. I don’t think this is going to work at all.”

“Give me one week of actual effort for this,” Hiyori says. “If nothing changes, then we’ll just work on changing your reactions in the song. But I really think this’ll work! Every idea I have is a brilliant one, you know that.”

Jun closes his eyes and takes a deep breath. He’s fighting a losing battle with this one. Just because he knows this will never work, it doesn’t mean Hiyori has any reason to actually listen to him about this.

When Jun opens his eyes again, Hiyori is looking at him expectantly. “Fine,” he says, hoping he won’t regret this. “One week.”

Hiyori claps his hands and has an obnoxiously pleased expression on his face. “Oh good, Jun-kun! I knew you’d love my idea. Now hold out your hand for me.”

“Goddamn, we’re starting already?” Jun asks.

Hiyori nods and beckons for Jun to stick a hand out. Jun does so, reaching forward slowly and wishing he wasn’t at the mercy of someone who, up until yesterday, has shown absolutely no interest in his touch aversion. His hand is out in front of him, palm up. Hiyori reaches his own hand out, then looks up at Jun. Again, there’s an unexpected softness in his eyes.

“Okay, so I’m going to touch your hand,” Hiyori says. “Tell me when I can. I won’t move until you say so.”

Jun stares down at their hands, trying to prepare himself for the contact.

“Promise you’ll be gentle?” he asks. Hiyori nods. “Okay. I guess you can go ahead and do it.”

Hiyori slowly lowers his hand down, and Jun does his best to suppress the flinch he feels coming on from the anticipation. He resists the urge to close his eyes, knowing it’ll be worse if he can’t see what’s happening. He watches as Hiyori’s hand makes contact with his, and immediately he feels discomfort radiating from the point of contact. His hand prickles and he has to stop himself from pulling away.

“What now?” he asks, his voice cracking. “You’re touching my hand, it sucks, so what am I supposed to do about it?”

“I don’t know, rationalize it?” Hiyori says. “You can see that I’m not hurting you, so try and associate it with positive things, or something.”

“I can’t believe I let you talk me into this,” Jun mumbles. His hand twitches and he has to fight to stop it from trembling at Hiyori’s overwhelming touch.

“Well, of course it’s not going to work the very first time,” Hiyori says all patiently, as if he’s doing Jun some great favor. “It has to be bad before it can get better. Just hang on for another minute, then we can stop for right now.”

A whole minute? That’s asking way too much of Jun. But Hiyori’s the one asking, and that means Jun doesn’t have a choice. So he takes a deep breath and starts counting down. After thirteen seconds, he can’t stop his hand from shaking, and he’s only barely refraining from yanking it out of Hiyori’s reach. He’s sure by now that Hiyori won’t hit him, so when his eyes squeeze shut from the effort he’s putting into not freaking out, he lets it happen. It doesn’t make this any better, but it doesn’t make it notably worse, either. But the sensation is getting worse on its own, and he can feel his body begging to shut down as time ticks by agonizingly slowly.

It’s too much. This is too much to deal with.

“I can’t,” he says suddenly, pulling his hand back. “I can’t do this.”

“Jun-kun, that was hardly any time at all,” Hiyori says. He sounds annoyed. “You really can’t even stand to be touched for a minute?”

Jun’s hand hurts. He shakes his head, eyes still closed. “I don’t know what you want me to say.”

“Look, let’s just try again, and see if you can do it for a little bit longer. Here—”

Jun’s eyes snap open, only a moment before Hiyori’s hand makes contact with his hand again. He takes a full step back.

“Don’t do that,” he says, his words coming out harshly before he realizes who he’s talking to and how Hiyori will take his rudeness. But then Hiyori’s expression shifts ever so slightly at Jun’s tone, in a way Jun can’t quite decipher, and the venom leaves Jun’s voice completely. “Please don’t ever touch me when my eyes are closed,” he amends, trying to keep the tremor out of his voice as Hiyori’s touch still lingers. “It’s so much worse when I can’t anticipate it.”

He expects Hiyori to push back, to complain, but instead, he nods. “Only when you can see, got it. Now, let me try again, okay?”

“Ohiisan, we have to go to school,” Jun protests weakly. “You’re not finished getting ready, and I don’t want to be late.”

Hiyori looks at the clock on the wall. “We still have a bit of time,” he says. “Come on, just one more try.”

Jun bites back a plea for mercy. He knows it would just fall on deaf ears, so he might as well save his breath. All his optimism from not even an hour ago is completely gone. He could just get used to the song, eventually, but if Hiyori’s touching him all the time? Not a chance. His threshold for keeping himself together will be so low by the time this week is up that he’ll be surprised if he doesn’t have a full-on breakdown in front of Hiyori.

But that’s not anything that Hiyori cares about. So Jun takes a deep breath in, holds it, and sticks his hand out one more time.

It’s even worse this time, because Jun can still feel the imprint of Hiyori’s fingers from before, and it’s combining with the feeling of Hiyori touching him again to create a sensation so awful that Jun almost starts crying. He doesn’t dare exhale, suddenly certain that if he does, it’ll turn into a sob. He just bites his lip, digging his teeth in to try and divert even a little of the horrible feeling to a different part of his body, and he stares at Hiyori’s hand and wills him to take it back and let Jun breathe.

A tiny bit of air escapes from Jun’s mouth, and as he bites down even harder on his lip, Hiyori’s fingers turn into tiny daggers stabbing at his hand, and he can’t do this anymore.

Jun backs away fully, taking several steps backwards and shaking his head.

“I can’t,” he whisperers, dangerously close to tears. “I can’t do it again. Please don’t make me.”

“That’s enough for now,” Hiyori says in a tone that Jun can’t decode. “We’ll try again after school, before rehearsal. Just remember to think of positive things when I touch you! Your brain will start to make better associations soon enough. Now, are you ready to go?”

Jun can’t believe he has to go to school right now. He honestly doesn’t think he can, not feeling like this.

“I need…a minute,” he says, sitting down on the edge of his bed and willing his body to stop shaking. “Maybe two.”

“You’re the one who didn’t want to be late,” Hiyori reminds him.

You’re the one who started this stupid thing in the first place, Jun wants to say. But he can’t. He can’t say anything.

“You have until I get my belt and my tie, Jun-kun, and then we really do have to go,” Hiyori continues, not even sparing a second glance at Jun.

Despite his annoyance, Hiyori seems to be taking longer than usual to grab his things and finish putting on his uniform. It’s almost surprising, but Jun’s sure that he’s only stalling so he can make Jun carry his bag for him.

Hiyori finishes gathering his things, and finally he looks back at Jun. “Are you ready now?”

Not at all. But Jun hates the idea of making Hiyori wait even longer for something as embarrassing as this, so he stands up even though he doesn’t actually feel any better.

He’s used to this. He’s not going to freak out. He’s going to be fine.

Jun picks Hiyori’s bag up without asking, slinging it over his shoulder with his own bag and walking to the door. Hiyori follows close behind, and they walk out of the dorms and over to the main building for the school day.

“Are you feeling better?” Hiyori asks.

Jun doesn’t look at him. “I’m fine,” he says.

“That’s good!” Hiyori says. “See? You’re already getting used to it!”

Jun doesn’t grace that with a response. He can’t believe he was in a good mood earlier.

Well, he can, actually. Hiyori’s inconsistent and selfish mood swings are good at ruining his day, and this isn’t close to the first time something like this has happened. He’s just mad that he was thinking anything even remotely positive about Hiyori earlier.

Hiyori is the worst. Always will be. The sooner Jun comes to terms with that, the easier it’ll be to deal with him.

Still, Jun walks all the way up to the third floor with Hiyori, escorting him to the door of his classroom and passing off his bag. Hiyori waves cheerily at him as he heads inside, and Jun waves back. It’s just…easier to go along with him for things like this. Less headache for Jun.

With Hiyori properly seen off, Jun goes back down to the second floor where his own classroom is. He sits down in his seat, in the second to last row next to the window, and he can finally start to relax. At least he doesn’t have to worry about being bothered in class. He can just focus on his work and recover from how overwhelming the morning has been.

Homeroom is fine, and his first two classes go without incident. They’re harder than the non-special classes, but a lot of that is because he just isn’t used to the idol-oriented classes. His entire schooling, up until about a month ago, was just the standards—math, science, literature, history. But now he learns about music theory, and gets vocal training, and takes dance, and he’s even starting to learn English.

The exception to the difficulty of his new classes, though, is idol history. As much as Jun hates to admit it, his dad really gave him an edge in the subject. He knows everything there is to know about the idol industry from his dad’s time, and that’s the most important time period to be familiar with. So, of course, it’s his favorite subject, because he actually knows more than most of his classmates.

Not that he’d ever brag about it, of course. He may be a special student now, but he’s not full of himself like the rest of them. But still, his homework and quizzes have been getting top marks, and he’d be lying if he said he wasn’t proud of himself for it.

So, in the break between his second and third classes, Jun pulls his idol history homework out to start working on it early. He’d love to get it done before the school day is over, because he knows he has rehearsal with Hiyori afterwards, and Hiyori’s going to continue with his stupid plan, too. Jun doesn’t want to count on having the evening to do all his homework, because there’s every chance this afternoon will go just as terribly as yesterday did.

“Sazanami-kun,” someone calls out in a light and pleasant voice.

Jun glances up. Three of his classmates are walking over to his desk. This is certainly a first.

“Yes?” he responds, looking at the one who seems to be the leader of the group. He recognizes, distantly, that this is one of the special students who beat him up towards the beginning of last year. Jun doubts he remembers that.

“We were just curious,” the boy—Ishikawa, Jun thinks he remembers his name being—says, keeping his tone casual. “You’ve been in our class for a month now, right? And, well, usually, a special student would’ve debuted by this point, but we haven’t heard anything about your debut yet.”

Jun knows exactly what they’re trying to do, and it won’t work. Whether he deserves it or not, he’s the same rank as them now, so that’s why they’re approaching him with this air of camaraderie instead of going about it directly. But he’s had a year’s worth of practice dealing with assholes like these, and living with Hiyori has given him enough confidence that he’s able to respond without having to acquiesce.

He makes direct eye contact with Ishikawa, keeping his face nice and open. “That’s because it hasn’t happened yet.”

The boys look between themselves, and two of them hide snickers behind their hands.

“Oh, well, that’s a relief!” Ishikawa says. “We were worried that we missed it.”

Ishikawa should really work on his acting. Jun had thought special students were supposed to be more skilled than this. 

But Jun isn’t particularly interested in playing this game. He just wants to be left alone, especially after the horrible morning he had.

“Don’t hold your breath,” he says, turning his attention back to the idol history assignment he was trying to work on. “It isn’t for a while.”

“Oh, really? That’s a shame,” Ishikawa laments. His dramatics are rivaling Hiyori’s at this point. “If I were you, I wouldn’t want to wait very long.”

Jun holds in a sigh. “It’s not up to me.”

Ishikawa doesn’t even pretend to hide his snicker this time. “That’s right, I forgot you weren’t going solo. Your unit leader must like you a lot if he’s going this easy on you.”

Ha. What a funny assumption to make.

“Sure,” Jun says. “Did you need anything else from me? I was trying to work on some homework during this break.”

The boys look between themselves again, and then Ishikawa shakes his head. “Nope! Just wanted to extend our friendly concern. You know, us classmates have to look out for each other. See you later!”

As he finishes talking, Ishikawa pats Jun on the shoulder, and then walks away with his entourage.

Jun’s breath catches at the touch, but he was looking before it happened so he was able to anticipate it enough to not react outwardly.

That doesn’t stop him from reacting inwardly, though. Inwardly, he’s right back on the precipice of losing it, right where he was after Hiyori touched him this morning. He’s not going to lose it, not unless someone else touches him right now, but he can’t help but notice that he’s been at this tipping point a lot lately.

Jun forces himself to keep breathing, and he tightens his grip on his pencil as he stares blankly down at the worksheet in front of him. As he starts to calm down, he’s able to start thinking through the interaction he just had.

It was a hard pat, but it wasn’t anything that could be mistaken for violence. He unfortunately has to hand it to the three. They definitely planned this out beforehand, sat down and made sure there was no way Jun could do anything about it. To any outsider, Jun would look crazy if he called this bullying. Ishikawa’s words were perfectly innocent, and if they were repeated, he would look like a kind classmate. But Jun knows their intentions. He’s just grateful that it didn’t really work. If he’s lucky, they won’t bother him again.

The rest of school goes by too quickly, in Jun’s opinion. He’s grateful that there aren’t any other incidents, and that no one tries to bother him, but the end of the school day means rehearsal is next, and he’s really not looking forward to seeing Hiyori again. He feels okay right now in theory, but in reality he’s been dreading Hiyori trying to touch him again so much that he almost feels sick. He tries to tell himself that it isn’t going to be that bad, but he’s not very convincing.

When he meets Hiyori in a practice room, Hiyori grins and cheerily asks how his day was. Jun’s almost, for a moment, tempted to tell Hiyori about the boys who tried to pick on him earlier. But then he remembers that Hiyori doesn’t actually care about him, so he shoves that weird impulse down.

“Fine,” he says instead. “How was yours?”

“Oh, it was incredible!” Hiyori exclaims. He then proceeds to launch into a dramatic retelling of his day, one that Jun doesn’t recall asking for. But he sits and listens and nods along, because every second Hiyori wastes is a second he isn’t touching Jun.

Hiyori finishes all too soon, and then he tilts his head as he stares at Jun. “Would you rather we continue the experiment before or after rehearsal?” he asks.

“I’d rather you didn’t touch me at all,” Jun mutters, knowing it’s futile.

Hiyori giggles. “That’s funny! But you’re not here to be funny, Jun-kun, you’re here to be an idol, and that means you have to do as I say so the song is a success. So, before or after rehearsal?”

It’s going to be horrible no matter what. Rehearsal is going to suck, and it’s going to leave him exhausted. But if he even wants a chance at it not going terribly, he has to be as okay as possible when they start, which is right now. It’ll make Hiyori touching him again afterwards even worse, but that’s just something that’s going to have to happen. Having an okay rehearsal is more important than not feeling awful.

Jun tries not to look as defeated as he feels. “After,” he says.

“Okay, sounds good!” Hiyori says. “So, our focus today will be the first half or so of the song. At least up to the first chorus, and we’ll work on the chorus as well if we have time.”

Jun nods. They set up the room and take their places at the beginning of the song, and Jun shuts his eyes for a second. He can do this. It’s not that bad. They only have to touch three times before the bridge.

He can do this.

He opens his eyes and sees Hiyori looking expectantly at him, already in his starting pose. Jun lifts his hands, moving to put them on Hiyori’s shoulder and waist, but he pauses.

“Are you gonna start the music once I touch you?” he asks. “Or are you gonna make me wait?”

Hiyori rolls his eyes. “Does it matter?”

“Yes, it matters,” Jun says. Irritation is starting to slip into his voice because Hiyori still doesn’t care enough to get it. “I don’t want to touch you for longer than I have to. If we’re not ready to start then I’m not putting my hands on you yet.”

“We’re supposed to be working on that,” Hiyori reminds him. There’s a weird undertone to his voice, one that Jun isn’t used to hearing.

“After rehearsal,” Jun says. He looks down at the floor between them. “You said we could rehearse first. I don’t wanna push it before I have to.”

Hiyori’s quiet for a second.

“Okay,” he says. “I won’t push anything until after rehearsal. But that doesn’t mean you don’t have to try during the song.”

Jun feels something close to relief as he looks back up at Hiyori. “I know,” he says. “I will.”

“Good,” Hiyori says, nodding. He pauses again, and then meets Jun’s eyes. “So just…whenever you’re ready, get into position. And I’ll start the music once you’re touching me so we can start right away.”

It’s weird. Hiyori almost seems…softer right now. It’s not like yesterday, but it’s different from how he normally is. It doesn’t make it any easier to touch him, but it’s…almost nice. But Hiyori isn’t nice, and he hasn’t been nice this entire time. His kindness seems to be nothing more than a lapse in judgement, like he forgets for a moment that he’s always been awful. This strange softness will go away again, and soon, but for now, Jun would be a fool not to appreciate it while it lasts.

There’s no point in putting it off any longer. Jun takes a slow breath in and holds it, then moves his hands carefully onto Hiyori’s shoulder and waist. It’s bad, but Jun’s dealt with worse. He’s dealt with worse today, so this much is manageable. And Hiyori stays true to his word, starting the music only a couple of seconds after Jun touches him. Next is the lean in, the fake kiss, and Jun tries to go into it with more confidence today. Hiyori isn’t trying to actually kiss him, and it got closer than he would’ve liked yesterday, sure, but it wasn’t close enough for there to be any actual risk. So he leans in, keeping his eyes wide open still, and doesn’t hesitate like he did yesterday. Sure enough, even though Hiyori’s still shutting his eyes like it’s a real kiss, they both manage to lean in the perfect amount, and then the guitar starts and they pull away, and he finally gets to let go of Hiyori.

The steps are still being projected onto a screen for them to reference, and Jun glances over at the screen regularly to make sure he’s moving in the right way. Annoyingly, Hiyori seems to not be looking at it at all; his movements are perfect and it looks like he isn’t even trying. Jun’s keeping up for now, but just barely.

Hiyori stops them after the intro, and they run it again. He calls out little tweaks for Jun, telling him to move this way or that, and Jun does his best to follow the directions. Every time they restart, it gets a little bit harder for Jun to convince himself to touch Hiyori again, and he starts feeling bad. His chest is starting to ache and his breaths are shallower than they should be for the amount of effort he’s exerting on rehearsal right now. His stomach hurts, too, and it’s getting harder to ignore these weird physical symptoms and focus on not making any mistakes.

His only saving grace is that they only have to touch the one time at the very beginning of the intro. The others don’t happen until the end of the verse, and they’re not at that point yet, so he’s okay right now. But even as Jun repeats it to himself, that he’s okay, dammit, his words are unconvincing, and they don’t do anything to quell the unsettled feeling he has right now. 

Hiyori stops the music. “Pause,” he says.

Jun freezes, his heart thudding in his throat.

“Don’t move,” Hiyori says. “But look at the screen.”

For one horrible second, Jun expects to see Jin Sagami on the screen when he turns his head.

But it’s not, because this is Hiyori, and this is Reimei, and this is his song, not one of Jin Sagami’s. It’s just the choreographers, and he’s fine. But his heart won’t stop pounding and he almost doesn’t dare breathe, suddenly terrified of Hiyori.

“Do you see how the way you’re posed is different from what it’s supposed to be?” Hiyori asks.

“Sorry,” Jun says quickly. He does see, and he fixes it immediately, praying he won’t be punished for the mistake. “I’m sorry, I promise it won’t happen again.”

Hiyori’s brow furrows as he looks at Jun. “You don’t need to apologize, I’m not mad.”

“…You’re not?”

“Why would I be?” Hiyori asks, seeming genuinely confused. “We’ve had the song for a day. Of course it’s not going to be perfect yet.”

Jun resists the urge to apologize again. He’s already embarrassingly close to tears, and it feels like his brain is stuck in how things were two years ago, when he had to practice until he could barely stand and he would get punished mercilessly for making mistakes like this. He just nods, unable to meet Hiyori’s eyes, and waits for whatever Hiyori wants to do next.

“Why are you still posed?” Hiyori asks, still sounding confused. 

Jun’s eyes slide shut and he forces himself to breathe. “You didn’t tell me I could move,” he whispers.

Hiyori doesn’t speak for a second, and when he does, his voice is gentler. “You don’t need my permission to move, Jun-kun,” he says. “As long as you know how it feels to do this move correctly, you don’t have to stay like that.”

Jun slowly moves his arms down to rest at his sides and opens his eyes back up. “Okay,” he says, wincing as his voice breaks. “Sorry.”

Hiyori looks at him, and Jun feels exposed. “Do you want to take a break?”

Jun shakes his head quickly. “I’m fine,” he lies, his voice almost pathetically small. “I can keep going.”

He should be fine. There’s nothing even wrong right now, except for the fact that he keeps having to touch Hiyori. But that was true yesterday, too, and his only issue yesterday was the physical part of this. So why is he scared right now? Why was he so sure that the video would be one of Jin Sagami? That was before. That was his dad, that was how he learned choreography before. That’s over now, so why does he feel like he’s back there?

“Okay,” Hiyori says doubtfully. “If you’re sure. Let’s reset and take it from the top again.”

Jun has to calm down. His feet take him back to the start and he forces himself to breathe, to put away this stupid fear that is going to make him mess up more if he doesn’t get a handle on it. There’s nothing wrong, so he’s just got to calm down. This isn’t even bad, and Hiyori’s starting to look at him funny so he has to stop acting like this before he makes a fool of himself and gives Hiyori a reason to kick him out.

The rest of rehearsal would be bad, if Jun were allowing himself to actually think about it. But he manages to disconnect his brain from his body just enough that it’s tolerable. It’s what he used to do, years ago when he had no choice but to let his dad push and pull him into the correct poses during practice, when daring to react to touch—no matter how painful it was—would only make things worse for him. It’s not really what he wants to be doing, but if his choices are keep feeling like he’s going to cry during rehearsal or go back into survival mode, survival mode doesn’t sound so bad.

The only problem is that before, Jun at least got a little bit of a break from being in survival mode when the day was over and he was allowed to retreat to his room for the night. He had a space where he was able to breathe, to exist without having to be on alert all the time. But rehearsal ends, and then once they get back to their dorm, Hiyori touches Jun’s hands, his arms, and yeah it’s still gentle and Jun’s dealt with worse, but he has to keep pretending that it isn’t awful and that he’s okay. And it just keeps going, because there isn’t going to be a break from Hiyori. They have to exist in the same space, so Jun has to keep this up until it’s finally time for them to sleep.

And, because apparently nothing can ever go Jun’s way, of course he’s startled awake by a nightmare less than an hour after he falls asleep. He doesn’t even bother trying to sleep again.

When Hiyori wakes up, the morning goes the same as yesterday. They both get ready, Hiyori makes Jun hold out his hand, and then he touches Jun over and over, acting like he actually believes this is going to work. Jun does a pretty good job of holding himself together today. He flinches as Hiyori reaches out to him, but when Hiyori’s actually touching him he manages to not shake at all, and he’s able to detach himself from the feeling enough that when Hiyori stops and they start to head to their classrooms, Jun isn’t on the verge of crying like he was yesterday.

Of course, that means Hiyori thinks his plan is working, but Jun’s willing to let that slide for now. He’s finally away from Hiyori, and he can finally try to relax for a couple of hours, at least until the school day ends and they have to rehearse again. No one’s going to bother Jun because no one here cares about him, so while he can’t let his guard down, he can at least breathe a little easier for now.

“Sazanami-kun,” Ishikawa says, walking towards Jun with an innocent smile on his face.

Jun holds in a groan. Is this really the week that this has to happen? He’s already so on edge from Hiyori, and now he has to deal with people trying to pick on him for the first time in two months? But he can’t let them know that he knows what they’re trying to do. He can’t show any weakness.

“Ishikawa-san,” Jun says, trying to keep his tone even.

The two others sort of jostle Ishikawa, gesturing for him to say whatever stupid thing they thought to bother Jun with today. “Well, you see, we were just curious,” Ishikawa starts. “You told us you weren’t debuting for a while, right?”

“Right.” Jun looks back down at the book on his desk. He’s really not trying to engage any more than he absolutely has to.

Ishikawa takes two steps forward so he’s right next to Jun’s desk, right next to Jun. Jun’s instantly on alert, but he keeps his eyes fixed on his book. Ishikawa looks left, then right, then leans forward and lowers his voice.

“You know, it’s okay if you don’t have a confirmed debut yet,” Ishikawa says, his voice dripping with sickly-sweet fake concern. “We’re friends, right? We wouldn’t judge you for being promoted and not accomplishing anything. Definitely not.”

They very clearly are judging him for being promoted and not accomplishing anything. At least now, it’s abundantly clear why they’re doing this. He doesn’t belong, and they’re making sure he knows it. But this is something he knows how to deal with, especially since they’re going about it in such an indirect way. A few more well-timed responses and they’ll leave him alone, hopefully for good this time.

“My debut is confirmed,” Jun replies, trying to keep irritation out of his tone. “It’s just not for a while. Like I said.”

Ishikawa laughs, this time not trying to hide it. “Well, that’s great news! When is it, then?”

If they were trying to trip Jun up, they’ll have to try harder. “July 24th,” he says, not hesitating.

That trips them up for a second, and Jun glances up to see matching looks of surprise on the boys’ faces.

Leave me alone, Jun begs silently. Just let that be the end of it.

“Oh,” Ishikawa says, recovering from his shock enough to respond. “Look at that, will you? Sazanami-kun is going to be a real idol after all!”

The words are accompanied by another hard shoulder pat, one that reads as congratulatory. Jun expects this one, because he’s been on high alert since the second Ishikawa walked up to him, but everything has been compounding so much in the last 24 hours that he can’t stop himself from jumping a little bit as the hand makes contact with his upper back twice.

Jun still has to talk to get the boys to go away, and right now he’s afraid that his voice will betray him. He shuts his eyes for a fraction of a second and pulls his brain as far away from the rest of his body as possible, shoving the pain and the fear and the memories and the overwhelm down and forcing himself to be okay.

“Right,” he says, and he’s relieved when his voice is even and sounds calm to his own ears. “Is that all you were wanting to talk to me about?”

The boys glance at each other.

“I guess that’s it for now,” Ishikawa says. “Talk to you later, Sazanami-kun!”

Jun doesn’t like the fact that he said for now. But the boys are gone, and he can’t worry about the next time they bother him when his priority really needs to be calming down so he can get through the rest of the school day.

He manages to keep himself steady for the rest of the day, and through his rehearsal with Hiyori afterwards. He’s pulled his brain so far away from the connection to his body that he barely even feels Hiyori touching him for the first half of it. But they keep having to run the bridge, and there’s just so much touch in that one specific part that the awful feeling of it still breaks through his protective barriers and his hands start to burn and itch and even though he’s able to not get upset he’s getting agitated instead, and it’s just getting worse as time goes on.

Jun thinks he’s doing an okay job of not letting it interfere with rehearsal, and Hiyori’s not really acting otherwise. This rehearsal is, on the surface, actually a really good one. Jun doesn’t really mess up at all, and he doesn’t physically react to the touches so they don’t have to stop for him. But just below the surface, Jun can’t shake the feeling that he’s slowly but surely getting closer to something, that he only has so many more times of letting Hiyori touch him before he loses it. He hasn’t ever actually lost it in front of Hiyori, and he’d really rather not change that. Jun has shed exactly one tear in front of him, and while yeah, he’s flinched plenty of times in front of Hiyori, Hiyori’s never seen him when he’s shut down completely and pathetic and weak. That can’t change if he wants to stay in Eve, if he wants to stay a special student.

But how much longer can Jun keep this up?

“What’s for dinner?” Hiyori asks as they’re leaving the practice room.

“Dunno,” Jun mutters. “Something easy.”

Hiyori gasps. “Ooh, how about salmon quiche!”

Jun rolls his eyes as he pushes the door open, not holding it for Hiyori. “I’m not in the mood to cook for an hour for you.”

“For us,” Hiyori corrects from behind him.

“For you,” Jun repeats.

He knows he’s being rude, but Jun is annoyed right now and he doesn’t want to cook for Hiyori at all, much less make something that Hiyori loves. It may be petty, but if Hiyori’s going to torture him like this, Jun has to get even in whatever ways he can.

“Fine,” Hiyori says, sounding perfectly and dramatically disappointed. “You can just make whatever, then. But it’d better be delicious, or I’ll be complaining!”

You’ll be complaining regardless, Jun thinks but doesn’t say.

The next two days pass exactly the same. Jun’s barely aware of anything that happens other than the fact that this is apparently just how his life is now. He’s bothered by Ishikawa and his entourage during an arbitrary break in their day, he gets through the encounter with as little interaction as is physically possible, and then when school ends he heads to a practice room where Hiyori and Trap For You await him. He floats through it in what he could probably best describe as a bad mood, but other than the fact that the horrible feeling stays stuck on his skin for hours afterwards, he manages. They can get through the song from start to finish without stopping, and it’s not awful. And there’s eventually a point in the night, after rehearsal, usually once Hiyori’s started on his nighttime routine, where Jun can finally crawl into bed and know that no one is going to touch him until the next day starts.

But each time someone touches him, Jun feels himself getting closer and closer to a breaking point, and he has no idea what’ll happen if he actually reaches it.

The fifth day of Hiyori’s experiment is finally a weekend, and that means Jun doesn’t need to worry about Ishikawa. They also don’t have rehearsal for a reason that Hiyori didn’t see a reason to share with Jun, which means that Jun gets the day off, technically, for the first time since they got the song almost two weeks ago.

Of course, that doesn’t mean Jun gets to actually relax. Nothing to do means being in his dorm, but that’s where Hiyori is. And being around Hiyori with nothing to do means Hiyori is going to touch him, and it’s only been four days so Jun has to pretend to go along with it for another three.

So Jun doesn’t particularly want to be in his dorm right now. It’s unavoidable eventually, but Jun wants to stall for as long as he can. He decides to take a walk instead of a run, so he’s able to stretch his regular workout into a good hour and a half. The walk would be a little relaxing, if Jun didn’t have to deal with the feeling of dread growing in the pit of his stomach at the thought of Hiyori touching him so casually for who knows how long.

And that’s the problem, really; Hiyori’s gotten so casual about it in the last day or so. Yeah, he was nice at first, and he was attentive and careful and acted like he actually cared about making sure he was doing it in the correct way, whatever he thinks that may be. But now, he barely even looks at Jun when he does it. He just makes Jun stick out his arm and he touches Jun’s hands and his arms and it’s just awful. It feels dehumanizing, somehow, like it doesn’t matter what Jun’s doing or how he actually feels about this. All that matters is that he obeys, that he doesn’t complain or act up.

Nothing ever changes.

Hiyori doesn’t care about him enough to pay attention when he touches Jun. Hiyori doesn’t care about him, and he’d really thought he’d be used to it by now.

Jun wants nothing more than to just be able to write Hiyori off as an asshole. Life would be so much easier if Hiyori was just a terrible person who was consistently awful to Jun. But he’s not, and Jun doesn’t know how to deal with that.

His dad is a shitty person. Plain and simple. It’s easy to hate him, because he routinely beat the shit out of Jun and was nice to him so rarely that Jun could probably count the times on one hand.

Hiyori isn’t like that, and not just because he hasn’t hit Jun. He’s different because sometimes he’s gentle, and sometimes he’s kind, and he smiles and laughs and he enjoys Jun’s cooking and he even apologized last week. Hiyori’s different because despite how rude and inconsiderate he is, Jun can’t help but want for Hiyori to be nice to him. He wants Hiyori to care about him, and that frustrates him to no end. It’s impossible to hate Hiyori, no matter how much Jun tries.

All too soon, Jun’s walk is done, and he finds himself outside his dorm again. He hesitates. He really doesn’t want to go in. But maybe Hiyori will take pity on him. Maybe no rehearsal means no touching. Maybe he can get even the slightest break from everything that he’s drowning in right now. There’s only one way to find out, so he says a quick prayer to whoever will listen and slowly pushes the door open and steps inside.

Hiyori’s on the couch, not paying attention at all. Maybe he didn’t notice Jun…? Jun shuts the door quietly, hoping this means he’ll get out of this one unscathed.

“Jun-kun, hand,” Hiyori says, holding his own out and not bothering to look up from the magazine he’s reading.

Of course.

No hello. No waiting for Jun to take his goddamn shoes off, not even the courtesy of a single glance in Jun’s direction.

Hiyori doesn’t care about him. Hiyori doesn’t care about him. He doesn’t, he doesn’t, he doesn’t.

Hiyori doesn’t give a shit about him, and Jun would love to say that it doesn’t kill him that Hiyori won’t even look at him. But Hiyori won’t, and he can’t do anything about that. But it just sets Jun even more on edge, and he is beyond positive that if Hiyori touches him it’s just going to get worse.

He shakes his head, forcing himself to still be polite. “Not right now.”

Hiyori looks up. “Jun-kun, you promised me a week. Give me your hand.”

“Not right now,” Jun repeats, shaking his head again. “Please.”

What he doesn’t say is that he hasn’t been able to stop thinking about the way Hiyori’s touch feels, the horrible itching burning sensation that lingers and lingers and lingers and refuses to go away. He doesn’t say that school is supposed to be his break from Hiyori, but because his classmates won’t stop bothering him, now he doesn’t get to relax at all. He has to be on alert from the moment he wakes up until the time he finally closes his eyes. He doesn’t bother trying to explain that his nightmares have been getting more frequent again, that he hasn’t had a good night’s sleep since Hiyori started this stupid plan. And he definitely doesn’t tell Hiyori that this plan is a failure, that it’s doing nothing but ruining Jun’s entire life, that if he has to let Hiyori touch him one more time he’s going to go insane.

Jun is officially at his limit, and he’s suddenly acutely aware of that fact. If Hiyori doesn’t stop touching him, he’s going to do something terrible, and he can’t afford to reach that point.

“Jun-kun,” Hiyori says, and Jun can tell he’s getting annoyed. He closes his magazine and stands up. “This isn’t up for debate. Give me your hand.”

Jun takes a step back as Hiyori gets closer to him. “I don’t want to,” he says, a pleading note making its way into his voice. “Please don’t make me.”

“You’ve been doing fine up until now, so I don’t see what the issue is,” Hiyori says, taking another step forward and reaching out his hand. “If you won’t give me your hand, just stay there and keep an eye on—”

Hiyori’s hand just barely brushes against Jun’s arm, and something inside of Jun snaps. He’s filled with a white-hot anger that blocks everything else out, and all of it is directed at Hiyori.

“Don’t fucking touch me,” he spits, yanking his arm back out of Hiyori’s reach. “I said I didn’t want to, so leave me the fuck alone.”

Hiyori stops dead, a look of shock on his face. “Jun-kun, I—”

Jun turns on his heel and heads for the door. “Forget it.”

He slams the door behind him and walks aimlessly, still fuming. There’s really nowhere for him to go, nowhere that he belongs more than in his dorm, but he keeps his feet moving. He just wants to get away from Hiyori. He makes it out to the front lawn of the building, and then he hears Hiyori’s voice calling out to him.

“Jun-kun, wait!” 

Jun doesn’t wait. He doesn’t even slow down. He’s tired, so fucking tired of listening to Hiyori and he tells himself that this time he’s not going to listen, no matter what. If this is what gets him kicked out, so be it. He’d rather be expelled than have to spend another minute dealing with Hiyori’s spoiled princess shit.

“Jun-kun, please come back,” Hiyori says, his voice raised almost to a shout as Jun continues to get as far away from him as possible.

“No.” Jun’s voice is short and he still doesn’t bother turning around.

He hears Hiyori panting behind him, slowly but surely getting closer. “Jun-kun, please stop,” he begs.

Jun turns his head and sees Hiyori right behind him, running to catch up. He side-steps and looks forward again. He’s not doing this, not now and not ever. “I told you to leave me alone.”

“I’m sorry, okay?” Hiyori says. Jun stops dead. “I’m sorry, Jun-kun. I shouldn’t have pushed it that much. If you come back, I promise I won’t touch you again until you tell me I can.”

Jun’s anger had started to calm down a little, but Hiyori’s words stoke the fire and this rage that should be foreign to him is poisoning his brain. He can’t think anymore, can’t worry about the consequences of his words, so he spins around to face Hiyori. “Why are you doing this?” he demands.

“Doing what?” Hiyori asks, looking confused.

“Nothing you’re doing makes any fucking sense,” Jun snarls. “You spend every day treating me like your personal fucking servant, you make my life a living hell, you touch me and expect me to just get over the fact that I haven’t let anyone touch me since I was like eight, and then you just go and apologize to me?”

“Jun-kun, I—”

“And that’s what makes the least sense!” Jun continues, for once uncaring of how rude he’s being. “Since when do you fucking apologize? I could brush all of it off and deal with it if you were just being an ass like everyone else is. Like you are to everyone else. I just—I can’t keep doing this. I can’t. I need you to start making sense.”

Hiyori is stunned speechless. He opens his mouth and closes it again, but no words come out.

“Forget it,” Jun mutters. “I don’t know why I thought you might have been different.”

That makes Hiyori find his voice. “Jun-kun, please,” he begs. “Just come back to the room with me. We can talk about this. I want—I want to fix this. Fix us. I didn’t realize I was being so terrible to you.”

“Of course you didn’t,” Jun says. “It’s not like I flinch every time you come near me or anything crazy like that.”

Hiyori doesn’t have anything to say to that.

“Why’d you even pick me, anyways?” Jun asks, his voice icy. “Did I look the easiest to take advantage of? You needed some poor, miserable, desperate fucking idiot to order around, and I fit the bill? Is that it?”

Hiyori looks upset. Good. “Jun-kun, that’s not—”

“Who cares, though, right?” Jun interrupts, laughing even though none of this is funny. “None of that matters anymore. All that matters is that you picked me, for whatever stupid fucking reason, and now I’m stuck with you. Because no matter how much it fucking sucks to have to do everything you say, to have to let you touch me every goddamn day, it’s still better than being thrown back into the hell of the labor camp.”

“You never told me any of this,” Hiyori says, his voice breaking in desperation. “Why didn’t you ever tell me?”

“Because I was scared of you!” Jun shoots back. “Because at least once a week you threaten to kick me out of Eve if I'm not good enough! I can’t afford to go back to being a non-special student again. Do you understand how hard that would be to move on from? I’d have to drop out, it would be humiliating.”

“I’m not going to kick you out,” Hiyori says quickly. “I’m not. I never was.”

That stops Jun in his tracks. “What?”

“I would never kick you out,” Hiyori repeats, his tone softening. “Eve’s not Eve without you.”

Oh, how Jun wants to be angry still. But Hiyori’s words douse the fire inside him and now he’s just…confused. Tired, more than anything. He closes his eyes and takes a deep breath. 

“I’m going back to the dorm,” he says.

“Can I come with you?” Hiyori asks tentatively.

Jun starts walking back towards the building. “I don’t care. Do whatever you want.”

Hiyori falls in step behind him. “Thank you.”

“It was your room first,” Jun mutters, stepping back onto the pavement. “It’s not like I can stop you.”

“If you said no, I wouldn’t come,” Hiyori says, not hesitating even a little. “It’s okay if you want to be alone right now.”

These inconsistencies are really starting to give Jun a headache. He just wants Hiyori to make sense.

Neither of them says anything on the walk back to the dorm. Jun’s not in the mood, frankly, and Hiyori’s probably afraid of saying something and setting Jun off again.

Now that he’s not angry anymore, Jun’s starting to regret his outburst. It’s not like he could’ve controlled it, really, but he hates that he lost it in front of Hiyori. He’s never felt rage like that before. He didn’t even know he could feel that angry. He’s been through way worse before. Reimei fucking sucks, yeah, and living with Hiyori is only barely better than being in the labor camp, but it doesn’t even come close to how he grew up. Jun went through hell every single day as a kid. The first fifteen years of his life were one never-ending nightmare, so how is it that Hiyori is the thing that finally made him snap?

But that’s a silly question. He knows how. It’s because Hiyori is the most annoying person on the planet, because he’s not worse than Jun’s dad but he’s somehow a million times more infuriating, because he knows exactly how much Jun hates to be touched and he still does it anyway. And to top it all off, he keeps doing that stupid thing where he’s nice to Jun. As if he cares about Jun.

They get back to their room, and Jun sits down on the couch without another word. He curls up in the corner and stares at the wall. Hiyori doesn’t move for a minute, and then Jun feels the couch shift as he sits down at the other end. Jun’s gaze doesn’t stray from the plain white wall across the room. Hiyori doesn’t say anything, either, but Jun can feel eyes fixed on the back of his head.

They’re going to have to talk about this. This isn’t the kind of thing that they can just pretend didn’t happen. Jun isn’t going to let Hiyori pretend this didn’t happen. Ignoring it would mean things going back to the way they were before, the way they’ve been for the last five days, the way they’ve been for the last two months, and Jun isn’t willing to let that happen. Hiyori seems to know it, too, based on the fact that this is probably the longest he’s been silent in the entire time they’ve known each other. If he was going to try to pretend, he would’ve made an attempt to brush this off or change the subject by now. So Hiyori knows they have to talk about it, but he’s making it pretty clear that he won’t be the one to start the conversation.

Jun sighs, and he can’t see it, but he feels Hiyori straightening up, getting ready for whatever Jun might say. Jun hasn’t really thought that far ahead, but there’s one thing Hiyori said that he can’t stop coming back to.

“What did you mean,” Jun asks, “when you said you were never going to kick me out?”

Hiyori’s response is immediate.

“I mean there wasn’t a moment where I even considered it,” he says. “I chose you for a reason. I wouldn’t throw that away by sending you back to hell.”

“I don’t believe you,” Jun says. “One of the first things you said to me was that you picked me up on a whim and you would drop me again if I wasn't good enough.”

Jun can hear Hiyori fidgeting next to him on the couch. He still doesn’t turn his head to look.

“I was lying,” Hiyori confesses. “I guess you could call it a test of sorts.”

“Why would you lie about that?”

“I needed to motivate you to work hard,” Hiyori explains. “And I didn’t want you to be full of yourself if you thought you were so special.”

“What, like you are?” Jun says, his lips turning up a little in spite of himself.

Hiyori huffs indignantly. “Exactly! If both of us acted like I do, we would never get anything done!”

“At least you’re self-aware.”

Jun finally turns his head to look back at Hiyori, whose knees are drawn up to his chest and he’s smiling ever so slightly while he looks at Jun. He catches Jun’s eye and a more serious look appears.

“Jun-kun, I won’t touch you anymore,” he says softly. “I’m ending our experiment early. It…wasn’t fair of me to force you into that. And it clearly wasn’t working, anyways.”

Relief washes over Jun. “Thank you,” he whispers.

Hiyori nods. “I can’t do anything about the song, though. We still have to get that down. But maybe if I don’t touch you otherwise it’ll be less awful for you when I have to.”

“Maybe,” Jun echoes softly.

Hiyori hesitates again, like there’s something more he wants to say. Jun waits; he has no idea how to fill the silence now that Hiyori’s acting so differently.

“Jun-kun,” he says finally. “I—I’m sorry for lying about kicking you out. I shouldn’t have held it over your head like that.”

Jun can’t even be angry anymore. “It’s fine,” he says. “It’s not like you were saying anything crazy, anyways. I should be the one apologizing for yelling at you.”

“What do you mean, I wasn’t saying anything crazy?” Hiyori asks. He looks confused, his brow furrowing as he stares at Jun. “I was undermining your talent. That wasn’t nice at all.”

“You can’t undermine my talent if I don’t have any,” Jun mutters, looking away.

“What?”

The way Hiyori’s looking at him makes him want to squirm. He can feel Hiyori’s eyes burning a hole in the side of his head and he almost loses his nerve. Somehow, this feels like one of those things that Hiyori will be upset with him for saying. But it’s the truth, isn’t it?

“I’m not supposed to be here,” Jun says, holding his knees to his chest. “I wasn’t a special student until you made me one. I’m not—I’m not good enough.”

Hiyori laughs.

Jun looks back over at him. “I didn’t say that to be funny.”

“No, that’s not what I’m laughing about!” Hiyori says quickly. “But if that’s what you’re worried about, I have something to tell you!”

“…Which is?”

“You were supposed to be a special student,” Hiyori says simply.

Wait.

What?

“The hell do you mean, I was supposed to be a special student?” Jun asks, his eyes narrowing.

“You actually did really well on all the entrance exams,” Hiyori continues. “You scored well within the margins required to be a special student.”

This…doesn’t make any sense. This can’t be right. It has to be a lie. “If I did so well, then why wasn’t I accepted as one?”

Hiyori looks a little apologetic for a second. “Your dad.”

Jun must be mishearing.

“What?”

“I don’t really know much about your dad, but he used to be an idol, right?” Hiyori asks. Jun nods warily. “Well, the principal told me that it was because he disgraced the name Sazanami, or something.”

The words slip out of Jun’s mouth before he can stop them. “Are you fucking kidding me?”

“I wish I was,” Hiyori says sheepishly. “But that’s the way it was explained to me. His reputation was tarnished, and the COS PRO higher ups didn’t want to risk you causing a scandal, too.”

It’s like the entire world is tilted off its axis right now. “Unbelievable,” Jun says faintly. “Is there anything he hasn’t ruined for me?”

Hiyori looks a little uncomfortable. “I mean, at least it’s all sorted out now, right?” he offers. “You’re a special student now, so it all worked out in the end.”

“You know what would happen if he found out that I basically wasted my first year here by being a non-special student?” Jun asks, still reeling. “He’d kill me. He’d actually kill me. And you’re telling me it’s his fault?”

“That’s…what I heard, yeah,” Hiyori says, still looking uncomfortable.

Jun looks over at Hiyori suddenly, only just now connecting the dots with what Hiyori said earlier. “Hang on,” he says. “You said the principal told you. Why were you talking to the principal? Why do you even know any of this, actually?”

Hiyori smiles softly, finally looking a little happier. “You’re obviously really talented, Jun-kun. Last month, once we’d started rehearsing, I went to the principal and asked about your entrance exams. I wanted to know how they’d missed someone so skilled and thrown you in with the non-special students. It did take some convincing, but I got my answer eventually. You know I don’t take no for an answer!”

This resurgence of outrage at just how unfair this is fades away, and now Jun just stares blankly at Hiyori. One tiny detail sticks out from Hiyori’s explanation.

“You think I’m…talented?” he asks, doubt infecting his voice.

“Of course I do!” Hiyori says without hesitation. “You are talented, Jun-kun. There’s no think about it, either. You’re objectively good enough to be a special student. It’s not fair that you weren’t one all along, but I’m glad I was at least able to fix it before it was too late for you.”

“I—Thanks?” Jun says. He doesn’t really know if that’s the right thing to say, but he hopes it isn’t the wrong thing.

“You don’t have to thank me,” Hiyori says. “I didn’t do anything you didn’t deserve in the first place.”

Jun doesn’t know what to say. Deserve is a hard word for him. He’s not used to deserving anything other than pain and misery and the hardest life possible. The idea that he deserves something good, like being promoted, is one that he doesn’t know how to believe. He lets silence fall, looking down at his knees and hoping that’ll be the end of it.

It is, for a while. Hiyori doesn’t fill the silence, so they just sit there, on opposite sides of the couch, waiting for something, but what that something is Jun isn’t sure. And then, Hiyori turns his head to look at Jun, and opens his mouth.

“Jun-kun?” Hiyori asks softly.

Jun looks over at him. “Yeah?”

“Are you still mad at me?”

Jun sighs. “I don’t know,” he says. “I don’t think so.”

A lot has happened in the last hour, and Jun feels a hell of a lot right now, but he’s pretty sure none of it is anger at Hiyori anymore. 

Hiyori looks away, staring down at his hands in his lap. “…Do you hate me?”

“I don’t,” Jun admits. “Sometimes I wish I did, but I don’t think I can.”

It’s maybe not a good idea to be so honest about it, but Jun can’t regret his words when he sees how they make Hiyori visibly relax.

“Thank you,” he says. “I…really don’t want you to hate me, Jun-kun. I don’t want you to be scared of me, either.”

Jun doesn’t think he’s ever seen Hiyori this unmistakably vulnerable. It’s impossible not to reciprocate, not to match his honesty right now, and for the first time Jun actually believes that Hiyori really didn’t realize quite how awful he was being.

“You’re not scary right now,” Jun says, almost shocked at how naturally the words come out. “And I think this is probably the longest you’ve ever been nice to me.”

“I’ll be better,” Hiyori promises. “No more unnecessary touches, and no more threatening to kick you out.” He pauses for a second, and then an apologetic smile upturns his lips. “…Wow. It really sounds awful when I say it like that, huh?”

Jun laughs. “It does,” he agrees. “But thank you.”

Hiyori looks back at Jun again, and there’s a warmth in his eyes that Jun isn’t used to seeing. It reminds him of the way Hiyori looked at him when he heard him singing for the first time.

“Can I ask a favor in return?” Hiyori asks. He sounds hesitant, but Jun nods, so he continues. “I know it doesn’t excuse my behavior, but I didn’t know how awful the last few days were because you were hiding how you really felt from me. I know it was…because of me in the first place, but I’d appreciate it if you didn’t lie about it or pretend anymore.”

Hiyori’s request makes Jun feel weirdly seen. He doesn’t respond right away, because he doesn’t really know how to. Jun’s used to pretending in front of everyone. He doesn’t know if he’s ever actually been completely honest about just how bad touch is. Hiyori himself is probably the closest he’s ever gotten to it, and that’s just because Hiyori somehow excels at touching Jun when he’s not expecting it.

But…Hiyori does have a point. Yeah, Jun was hiding it because he was scared Hiyori would kick him out, but his whole outburst might have been avoided if he’d actually told Hiyori how awful it was for him.

“I can try,” he says finally. “No promises if you start getting shitty again.”

Hiyori smiles. “Deal.”

Jun smiles back for a second, then looks down at his hands as a weird pang of guilt hits him. “Sorry again for yelling at you so much.”

“I deserved it,” Hiyori says. “I think I needed it, honestly. I’ve actually learned the error of my ways this time, and now I get to prove to you that I can be better. And hopefully, if I’m better to you, then you’ll get better, too.”

“I don’t think that’s possible,” Jun admits quietly, the words falling from his lips before he can stop himself.

“Of course it is,” Hiyori says, his voice confident. Jun glances up, because he wasn’t expecting such an emphatic response, and Hiyori catches his eye and his gaze softens even further. “Everyone can get better. What kind of horrible ordeal would life be if nothing ever changed or got better? How dreadful, right? You just can’t force it, I think. Pretending you’re okay doesn’t fix anything, does it? No, it really doesn’t, Jun-kun. It just puts off any actual growth you could be experiencing. So I think not pretending will be good for you, I really do.”

There’s an undertone to Hiyori’s sunny conviction, one that Jun kind of doesn’t think is meant for him. So he just focuses on the optimism, which is admittedly infectious. It’s easy to believe that Hiyori really will be better when he says it so definitively like that. And if Hiyori’s right about that, then who’s to say he’s not right about Jun, too?

Call him foolish, but Jun wants to believe Hiyori. So he does. He decides to put an admittedly stupid amount of faith in Hiyori, and he resolves to stop pretending. And, with any luck, Hiyori will be right.

Jun will get better.

Chapter Text

Jun’s getting worse.

Hiyori’s stopped touching him outside of practice. He’s able to just focus on school and rehearsals now, without worrying about how horrible it is when Hiyori touches him. Ishikawa and the others gave up on bothering him after the first week, too, so now he can relax a bit at school again. These are good things. He should be having better days. Hiyori’s kept up his end of the bargain. He’s been better to Jun, he really has.

So why is Jun just getting worse?

They can’t even get through Trap For You anymore without having to stop at least once. Half the time, Jun can’t even force himself to put his hands on Hiyori, and he flinches horribly every time Hiyori has to touch him. It’s not even remotely workable at this point.

Hiyori’s getting annoyed by it. He has to be. It doesn’t matter that he’s been a lot nicer to Jun ever since their fight, because it’s getting ridiculous at this point. All of their progress has basically been thrown out the window. They might as well be back at the start of rehearsals, except over three weeks have passed since then and they’re running out of time before they debut. There’s just over a month left, and right now, it feels like improving is impossible.

“Okay,” Hiyori says finally, stopping the music before they’ve even made it to the first chorus. “We need to talk about this.”

“I’m sorry,” Jun says automatically. He tenses on instinct, waiting for Hiyori to start yelling.

“I don’t need an apology,” Hiyori says. He doesn’t sound angry. “I need to know what’s going on so we can fix it.”

Jun relaxes the tiniest bit. “I don’t know,” he says.

“Is it something I’m doing?” Hiyori asks.

Jun shakes his head. “It’s not you. It’s my fault.”

“How is it your fault?”

Because everything is my fault, Jun almost says. But Hiyori won’t like that answer, so he has to give another. “I’m the one who can’t do the song anymore, not you. So it has to be my fault.”

Hiyori sighs and sits down, leaning against the wall. “That doesn’t even make any sense, Jun-kun. If it was something you could control, you would’ve fixed it by now. I know how badly you want to do well. You wouldn’t sabotage yourself on purpose, so it has to be something else.”

Jun wants to protest. There’s no way that this isn’t his fault, right? But Hiyori has a point. He does want to do well. He needs to have a successful debut, to prove himself. He wants the song to be a success more than even Hiyori does, probably, so why would he do something to stop that?

“But…” he starts. He sits down a few feet from Hiyori and tries to rationalize. “But if it’s not your fault, and it’s not my fault, then I don’t know what’s wrong.”

“Maybe it is my fault,” Hiyori says. “I don’t like that idea very much, of course, since I’m such a wonderful person, but I can’t think of anything that’s changed, other than the fact that I’ve stopped touching you outside of rehearsals.”

“That’s a good thing,” Jun says, just barely over a whisper. “Why would that make me worse?”

“Have you been sleeping enough?” Hiyori asks.

Jun winces, thinking about how many nights lately he’s tossed and turned for over an hour just to be woken up only a few hours later by a nightmare. “Kind of,” he says.

“Kind of?”

Jun looks away. “Sleep is hard sometimes,” he says. “I get, um, nightmares. Usually they’re not that bad, but sometimes they get worse for a bit.”

“So could that be it?” Hiyori asks. “You’re having trouble sleeping, so touch is worse?”

Jun shakes his head. “I think it’s the other way around. Touch is so bad it’s making my nightmares worse.”

“There has to be something,” Hiyori says. “This wouldn’t just come out of nowhere. When’s the last time it was this bad?”

Jun does his best to think back. It definitely hasn’t been this bad in the time that he’s known Hiyori. He remembers the labor camp, his life as a non-special student. He’d been on edge constantly, doing everything he could to avoid getting picked on and beaten up by the special students. But still, he remembers being pushed around in the halls, being grabbed by Kaname, and he doesn’t remember it being this impossible to bear.

“I think…I think it was before I started at Reimei,” he says. He still can’t look at Hiyori. Somehow, admitting this feels like the worst thing he could possibly say right now.

“When you still lived with your father?” Hiyori asks, his voice unreadable.

Jun nods, unable to say more.

“So when you were still getting hit,” Hiyori says, more to himself than to Jun.

This is a horrible conversation. This is an insult to Hiyori, isn’t it? Jun is reacting to him the same way he reacted to his dad when things were at their worst. And all Hiyori’s done is finally stop forcing things.

“Well, obviously the circumstances aren’t the same,” Hiyori says, and his voice is back to its usual confident tone. “So there’s got to be something else. But I think we’re on the right track. What changed with Reimei? Why was it better once you started here?”

“It had to be,” Jun says automatically. “I didn’t have a choice.”

“What do you mean?”

Jun finally glances back over at Hiyori, who’s looking back at him without an ounce of annoyance or anger on his face. “The first thing that happened when I got to Reimei, before I even got to the entrance ceremony, was me getting beat up by some asshole special students. That’s just the kind of school this is. And pretty quickly, I realized that if I was going to survive here, I couldn’t let anyone figure out that I can’t stand being touched. I mean, you know how bad it is now, but it was so much worse before Kazehaya-senpai and Tojo got hospitalized. The special students were practically sadistic. If they realized I had a weakness, I would’ve been everyone’s target for the rest of my life. So I just forced myself to deal with it as much as I could. I got really good at not reacting to touch.”

Hiyori’s eyes widen. “Has anyone hurt you since you got promoted?”

“Nope,” Jun says, shaking his head. “Sometimes the special students look at me funny in the halls, like they want to, but no one’s tried anything. I think they learned their lesson after the riot.”

“They also probably know that you belong to me, and if any of them so much as touched a hair on your head, I’d have them kicked out and blacklisted from the idol industry,” Hiyori says with a nod.

Jun looks at Hiyori, furrowing his brow. “Since when do I belong to you?”

“Since I picked you up,” Hiyori says, like it should be obvious.

“I don’t remember agreeing to that,” Jun mutters.

Hiyori cocks his head. “It was in the contract you signed, Jun-kun. Didn’t you read the fine print?”

Jun balks. “Are you being serious?”

Hiyori grins, then, and giggles. “Nope! That’s just a little joke. I don’t need a legal document to make you mine, my charms should be more than enough!”

Jun rolls his eyes, but he’s not as annoyed by Hiyori’s delusional confidence as he would’ve been even just a month ago. “If you say so.”

“Well, that aside,” Hiyori says, a more serious look returning to his face. “I think I figured it out. At least, I have an idea that makes sense to me.”

“Which is?” Jun prompts. He can’t imagine that Hiyori’s actually figured anything out, but on the off chance that he has a point, Jun wants to know.

“This is the first time in your life that you haven’t had to pretend to be okay with being touched,” Hiyori says simply. “No one but me touches you anymore, and I only do it when I have to. And since I asked you to, you’ve stopped pretending in front of me, and I haven’t given you any reasons to change that. You’re just about the safest you’ve ever been, so I think your body just…swung in the complete opposite direction as a result. You don’t have to pretend, so you can’t.”

Jun’s words escape him. How the hell did Hiyori of all people figure it out? But it makes sense. Almost too much sense. “How did you—” he starts. But he can’t finish his thought, so he just shakes his head instead.

“Honestly, I don’t even think touch is that much worse than it was before,” Hiyori continues. “I think it just seems worse in comparison to how much better you’ve felt lately. Well, except for the last few days. But I’m assuming that’s because you’re getting in your own head about all of this, and that’s making you feel worse.”

Again, Jun can’t speak. Hiyori waits for him, sitting patiently while Jun tries to collect his thoughts.

“I mean—I guess?” Jun manages. “How did you—I mean, it sounds obvious when you say it.”

“You’re too caught up in your own brain,” Hiyori says with a soft smile. “And you love to blame yourself for everything. Since I’m not you, I can step back and look at the bigger picture. I know you pretty well by now, Jun-kun. I’m figuring you out, bit by bit.”

Hiyori’s words make Jun feel weird, in a way he couldn’t articulate if he tried. Hiyori knows him. Hiyori knows him, and doesn’t hate him. Hiyori knows things he’s never told another soul, and he doesn’t use them against him. And Hiyori’s been undeniably nicer to him, in these few weeks since Jun blew up at him. Is this what it’s like to have…a friend? Are he and Hiyori friends now?

But this isn’t the time to be worrying about that. He has a problem, and even though Hiyori’s put a name to it, he still doesn’t have a solution.

“Okay,” he says. “So, assuming that you’re right, how do I fix this?”

“I haven’t gotten that far yet,” Hiyori admits.

Jun exhales and looks up at the ceiling. “Do I just have to go back to pretending?”

“I’d really rather you didn’t,” Hiyori says softly.

“What other option is there?”

“I don’t know.” Hiyori stretches his legs out and stands up. “But I think we’re wasting time being here right now. We’ll end practice here for today, and let’s just take tomorrow off, as well. Maybe giving you a break will be good.”

“But we only have so many more rehearsals left before we debut,” Jun protests. “I can keep going.”

Hiyori looks down at him. “Not like this, you can’t. You know as well as I do that the last four rehearsals have been a waste. It’s okay, because we still have time, but we can’t keep going like this. So we’ll take tomorrow off and see if that helps at all.”

“But—”

“You’re not changing my mind on this, Jun-kun,” Hiyori says. “Just try to rest. Take it easy and make sure you’re sleeping as well as you can. Overworking yourself will only hurt you.”

It’s impossible to argue with Hiyori when he gets like this, so Jun just sighs and nods, standing up to help Hiyori tear down their rehearsal setup.

At least Jun doesn’t have to worry about a nightmare that night. He doesn’t sleep a wink. He tosses and turns, painfully restless, as he imagines every way that their debut will go wrong. If he can’t improve, if he can’t fix this, then he’s a goner. But how does he fix it? That’s the problem, the puzzle he can’t solve. And he’s running out of time.

School the next day is a blur. He honestly couldn’t even pretend to say that he remembers a single distinct moment from it. And then he and Hiyori get home, and he has nothing to do.

Take it easy, Hiyori had said. Easier said than done. Jun itches with the need to do something, to find a way to work through this road bump. His leg bounces incessantly as he sits and stares at his homework, the blank page staring back at him, taunting him.

He stands up, unable to sit still any longer. “I’m going to the gym,” he announces.

Hiyori glances up at him. “You’re supposed to be resting.”

“Just for a bit,” Jun says. “I don’t wanna fall behind on my weight training.”

“One day off won’t kill you, you know.”

Funny. Jun certainly feels like he’s dying with nothing to do. “Just for a bit,” he repeats. “Please.”

Hiyori sighs. “Fine. Is an hour enough time to do everything you need to?”

“You’re giving me a time limit?”

“I’m making sure you don’t overwork yourself,” Hiyori corrects. “I’m being serious about this, Jun-kun. You need to rest. So, is an hour enough time?”

“Barely,” Jun mumbles. “It takes time to set up and stuff.”

“Oh, don’t pout,” Hiyori says.

“I’m not pouting,” Jun protests, cheeks burning. He’s not pouting, is he? That’s childish, and he’s definitely not childish. Right?

“You’ve been spending too much time around me,” Hiyori says, shaking his head. “You most certainly are pouting, Jun-kun. But you’re in luck, because I’m such a nice person. Go on to the gym and do whatever it is you do in there, and I won’t expect you to be back for a whole hour and a half. Is that fair?”

“I guess,” Jun says. He drops down to the floor next to his bed and pulls his gym bag out. “Am I supposed to thank you for letting me go?”

Hiyori grins. “I’ll never say no to a bit of gratitude! But, in this case, you don’t have to do anything. I’m not telling you whether or not you can go, I’m just asking you to take care of yourself.”

“Yeah, well, thanks, I guess,” Jun mutters, heading to the door. “I’ll be back in a bit.”

He really intends to listen to Hiyori. He doesn’t set a timer, or anything, but he goes in with the intention to just do a few sets. Just a few sets to clear his head, and then he’ll change and go back to the dorm.

But a few sets go by, and Jun’s not ready to stop just yet. He can do one more. He’s still got time before Hiyori’s expecting him to be back.

And then one more set turns into two, then three, then four, and suddenly he’s lost count. The only thing on his mind is the need to push just a bit more, to go for just a little bit longer. This, at least, is something he can control.

He should take a break, maybe. He can definitely keep going, but his arms are getting a little tired and his breaths are coming harder than usual. So he sits up, and makes direct eye contact with a frowning Hiyori.

Why is Hiyori here? He should be waiting in the dorm, shouldn’t he? It hasn’t even been that long. Jun’s barely tired yet.

“Did you get lonely, or something?” he asks, keeping his tone light despite the underlying fear that he’s about to be in trouble.

Hiyori’s frown deepens. “Please tell me you haven’t been working out this whole time.”

“‘Course I have,” Jun says warily. “You gave me an hour and a half, so I’m using it.”

“Jun-kun, you’ve been gone for over two hours.”

“What?”

There’s no way. He’s only been here for a little bit. Right?

Hiyori sighs. “Come on, Jun-kun, let’s go back to the dorm. You definitely need to rest after this.”

Jun stands up, and very nearly falls over as blood rushes to his head. His knees buckle and he reaches out to grab onto the closest thing he can to find his balance. As soon as he’s steady, he glances down and sees that oh, the thing that he grabbed onto is Hiyori’s arm. He releases it quickly, not wanting to take any chances, but he can’t help but notice that he didn’t react to it like he has been lately.

Rather than pointing that out, though, Hiyori just looks at him with growing concern. “Are you okay?” he asks. “You’re not going to pass out, are you?”

“I’m fine,” Jun says. His cheeks burn and he stares at the ground between them. “Just stood up too fast.”

“You pushed yourself too hard,” Hiyori says softly. “You need to lie down, Jun-kun.”

Jun reaches down to grab his gym bag and skirts around Hiyori, heading towards the door. “I said I’m fine.”

This is humiliating. He’s not supposed to be weak in front of Hiyori. It’s bad enough that he lost track of time and made Hiyori worry about him in the first place. But nearly collapsing in front of him? This is worse than the last three weeks of pathetic rehearsals. At least he has a reason for his touch aversion. This is just embarrassing.

Hiyori follows close behind, not saying anything. His silence is almost worse than the alternative, especially because he’s been so much nicer lately. His words probably wouldn’t be a scolding of Jun for wasting his time, though they probably should be. The way he was looking at Jun in the gym… There was genuine concern on his face. Jun doesn’t have any idea what he’s supposed to do with that knowledge.

Is it possible that Hiyori actually cares about him now? Sure, it’s possible, but that doesn’t mean it’s likely. Jun isn’t the type of person who should be cared about. He’s certainly had that sentiment beaten into him enough times to know it by heart. But Hiyori’s different. He’s different from Jun’s dad, he’s different from Kaname, from Tatsumi, from every single special student at this stupid school. He’s different than he used to be, even a month ago.

There’s a softness in his voice when he talks to Jun now. His words may still be sharp, though not as sharp as before, but his tone contrasts his words so strongly that even Jun can’t say that his complaints and his threats have any conviction behind them. And then there’s the way he talks when his words aren’t loud and rude and selfish. He acts like he knows Jun now, and the worst part is that he isn’t wrong. He certainly knows Jun better than anyone else ever has. So…maybe he does care about Jun. At least, as much as it benefits him to do so.

But that doesn’t mean Jun can get his hopes up.

As soft as Hiyori’s been lately, he still has these moments where all the gentleness leaves his body, replaced with a horrible sharpness, made worse by how much it contrasts. Jun almost wishes it was still as constant as it used to be. This juxtaposition is really starting to get to him. It’s impossible to feel comfortable, knowing that at any minute, he’ll say the wrong thing and Hiyori will close himself off completely and remind Jun just how little he really means.

His presence here is still as precarious as it was initially. Hiyori may say that he never planned on kicking Jun out in the first place, but that means nothing if their debut is a failure. And at this rate, that possibility is looking more and more likely. So Jun can’t let his guard down, even for a second. He can’t rest, he can’t relax. He can’t afford to.

Hiyori unlocks the door and gestures for Jun to go first. As soon as Jun’s in the room, he drops his gym bag by his bed and heads to the bathroom.

“Jun-kun,” Hiyori calls out behind him. “We need to talk about this.”

Jun pauses with his hand on the doorknob and turns to glance back at Hiyori. “There isn’t anything to talk about. I told you, I’m fine. And I need to shower.”

“You can shower, but when you’re done we’re going to talk,” Hiyori says with an air of finality.

Jun opens his mouth to complain, but Hiyori’s words from earlier lodge themselves in his brain before he can say anything.

You most certainly are pouting, Jun-kun.

He’s not about to pout like a child again, so he just rolls his eyes and opens the bathroom door. “Whatever.”

Hiyori lets him go, and Jun’s finally free of the horrible feeling of being seen. He hesitates, torn between the desire to take a quick shower to prove that he’s fine, and the knowledge that as soon as he leaves the bathroom Hiyori’s going to make him talk about things that he does not at all want to talk about.

He settles on a normal shower, or at least as close as he can get without second-guessing every action. As much as he hates to admit it, his muscles beg for rest. All he wants is to sit down, to let his arms stay by his sides, if only for a moment. But he forces himself to stay upright, to go through the motions, telling himself that he’ll feel better once the hot water really starts to kick in.

The hot water helps, but only a little. Not enough to fix the aching, just to dull it a little. And then, he’s out of time. He has to go out and face Hiyori, lie through his teeth that he didn’t push himself too hard.

And to make matters worse, he didn’t bring a change of clothes with him into the bathroom in his hurry to get away from Hiyori, and his shirt is drenched in sweat. Putting it back on is out of the question, which means he has to go back out into the room without a shirt on. It wouldn’t be a problem if Hiyori wasn’t there, but Jun’s under way too much scrutiny right now for him to have much hope that Hiyori won’t notice. He’ll just…have to cover up his stomach with his balled up shirt, and hope Hiyori won’t look too closely.

Jun opens the door and makes a beeline for his dresser. He pulls out a random shirt, the first his hand touches, and puts his back to Hiyori. He lets his dirty shirt fall to the floor and pulls the new one over his head as quickly as he can, then turns back around to find Hiyori looking at him again.

“Are you shy, or something?” Hiyori asks, cocking his head. “Aren’t we past all that by this point?”

“I’m not shy,” Jun says, bending down to pick his shirt back up. “Maybe I just don’t want you staring at me. Knowing you, you’d probably find some way to critique the way I look.”

Hiyori puts a hand to his chest, looking affronted. “I’d do no such thing! But that’s not important right now, is it? Sit down so we can talk, okay?”

Jun sighs and sits on the edge of his bed. “This is a waste of time.”

“Okay, then let’s make this quick. Why did you ignore me when I told you to be back in an hour and a half?”

Hiyori looks directly at Jun, challenging him. Jun breaks their eye contact first, and he knows already that he’s about to lose this conversation. He sighs. “I didn’t ignore you. I just didn’t realize it had been that long.”

“You didn’t time yourself?” Hiyori asks.

Jun shakes his head. “I was just gonna do a few sets, so I didn’t think I needed to set a timer.”

Hiyori’s eyebrows draw together. “So what happened?”

“I just lost track of time.”

“For almost an entire extra hour?”

“I was in the zone.”

“Right. And I suppose that explains the fact that you didn’t take any breaks, as well?” Hiyori asks.

“I wanted to push myself a little.”

Hiyori sighs. “Jun-kun, I absolutely loathe working out, and even I know that exercising for that long isn’t good for you.”

“I’m fine, though,” Jun says stubbornly.

“You nearly collapsed when you stood up.”

“But I didn’t.”

“Jun-kun.”

“Why do you even care so much?” Jun asks sharply. “I said I’m fine. Why isn’t that enough for you?”

Hiyori looks like he wants to say something, but he falters. “I—”

“I’m alive, aren’t I? What more do you want from me?”

“I want you to be okay,” Hiyori says without hesitation. “I want you to take care of yourself.”

That takes the wind out of Jun’s sails. “What?”

Hiyori doesn’t say anything at first. And when he finally does, the sincerity that he just had is completely gone.

“If you keep overworking yourself like this, we’ll never get the song to where it needs to be,” he says. “You need to rest so you can keep improving.”

Oh. For a second there, Jun had almost thought that Hiyori actually cared about him. But of course, reality is back to keep him in check. Hiyori doesn’t care about him, not past what he can provide for Hiyori.

“Right,” Jun says, looking back down at his hands. “Of course. The song.”

“Jun-kun—”

Jun looks back up at Hiyori. If he didn’t know better, he’d say Hiyori looks almost conflicted right now. But then Hiyori shakes his head.

“Never mind,” he says. “It isn’t important. Just…please, rest.”

“I’m fine,” Jun says again. “I don’t need to rest.”

Hiyori doesn’t say anything for a minute. Jun half thinks he’s just given up on the conversation. That’s fine. Hiyori doesn’t care about him, so he doesn’t care what Hiyori’s doing.

“Let’s go to a café,” Hiyori says abruptly, not looking at Jun.

“What?”

“I want to go to a café,” Hiyori repeats, faltering a little. “And you’re going to come with me.”

Jun sighs. He isn’t getting out of this, and he knows it, but he might as well try. “I don’t remember agreeing to go with you.”

“I’m not about to leave you alone,” Hiyori says, like it’s obvious. “Not after what you just pulled. So you have to come with me.”

“What if I don’t want to?”

Hiyori looks around, clearly trying to think of a way to convince Jun. “I’ll buy you anything you want. It’ll be my treat.”

Huh. He isn’t insisting in the way Jun had assumed he would. Maybe Jun really can get out of this.

“I’d rather stay here,” he says cautiously.

Hiyori meets his eyes, soft and almost a little vulnerable. “Please?”

“Okay.” The word falls from Jun’s lips before he even realizes he’s speaking. He has no idea why, but he can’t even imagine saying no to Hiyori right now. Which is stupid, because there’s absolutely no reason he should be saying yes in the first place.

But then Hiyori smiles, not as soft as he was, but bright and happy and genuine, and Jun’s reluctance to go with him sort of slips away.

“Good!” Hiyori says. “Let’s go, then! There’s a café not too far from here that I’ve been dying to try out. What good weather!”

Hiyori stands up and goes to put his shoes on, and there’s nothing for Jun to do but follow.

As he finishes slipping his shoes on, he pauses, a sudden thought crossing his mind. “Wait,” he says. “Are we allowed to leave the school?”

“Why wouldn’t we be?” Hiyori asks, looking at him a little weird.

Right. Jun’s a special student now. He keeps forgetting that, somehow. “Never mind,” he mutters. “Non-special students aren’t allowed to leave. I forgot that rule doesn’t apply to us.”

Hiyori pulls the door open and ushers Jun through it. “Don’t they just need permission?”

“Why would anyone give a non-special student permission to leave Reimei?”

It’s not a real question, and Hiyori knows it isn’t. He frowns a little and nods, then steps away from the now-locked door and leads Jun through the halls and out of the building.

They make it to the gate, and then they stop. Hiyori doesn’t seem to be in any hurry, and Jun can’t help but wonder what exactly his plan is from here.

“Is there even a café near here?” Jun asks, looking sideways at Hiyori. “Last I checked, the nearest sign of civilization was a konbini like a mile away.”

“Oh, don’t worry, we’re not walking!” Hiyori says. He grins, like that clears anything up.

“Then how are we supposed to get there?”

It’s hard, harder than it should be, for Jun to keep annoyance out of his voice. But he doesn’t really want to upset Hiyori right now, not when he’s oscillating between weirdly nice and painfully harsh so rapidly. He wants to keep Hiyori in a good mood for as long as possible.

It definitely does not have anything to do with the soft way Hiyori was looking at him earlier.

“Oh, I requested a car for us!” Hiyori says. Like it should’ve been obvious.

“A car,” Jun repeats.

A car? Hiyori can just…request a car. And one will come.

Hiyori nods. “Yep, yep! It should be here any minute, really.”

As if on command, a sleek black car rolls up outside the school, right in front of them. Jun’s trying to take this whole thing in stride, but come on. This is the type of rich person trope he’d always thought couldn’t possibly exist in real life, or if it did, it was reserved for the ultra rich.

Well. In all fairness, Hiyori is ultra rich. But the casualty around it all is just…so jarring.

Hiyori looks at Jun expectantly. Jun looks back for a second, then realizes that Hiyori is probably expecting him to act like a chauffeur and open the door for him. Jun thinks about going along with it for a second. It’s certainly the path of least resistance. But he’s already going out with Hiyori in the first place, and he kind of hates how docile he’s getting. He doesn’t even like Hiyori, so why should he open a stupid car door for him?

So, instead, Jun walks around the car to the other side, opens that door, climbs into the backseat, and pulls the door shut behind him.

There’s absolutely nothing for approximately two seconds, and then the other door opens and Hiyori’s disgruntled face appears in the gap. “What’s the big idea, Jun-kun?” he asks, reluctantly climbing in to sit next to Jun.

“What?” Jun asks, feigning confusion.

Hiyori sticks his lower lip out in a pout. “Why didn’t you open the door for me?”

“Oh, I didn’t know I was supposed to,” Jun says innocently. He swallows down the smirk that threatens to blow his cover.

“It’s rude,” Hiyori says, his pout deepening. “Bad weather, Jun-kun! Opening a car door by myself is low class! I’m not low class!”

Just like that, all the fun is sucked out of Jun’s mini-protest. Though probably unintentional, Hiyori’s words just reinforce the fact that Jun’s out of his element here, and he’s really at the mercy of Hiyori right now.

Jun turns his head to look out the window as the car starts moving again. “I am, though.”

A weird sort of silence falls in the car. Jun doesn’t want to turn his head back to look at Hiyori. He doesn’t want to see anger on his face, or pity, or anything else that’ll just remind him how much of his new life is entirely due to Hiyori’s whims.

“It’s okay,” Hiyori says, far softer than Jun was expecting. All of the indignation has left his voice. Jun glances over at him, in spite of himself, but as soon as he catches Hiyori’s eye Hiyori looks away, instead staring at the leather headrest in front of him. “I keep forgetting you’re not used to this way of life. I can’t be mad at you for not knowing etiquette that you were never taught.”

Jun doesn’t know what to say to that. If he says the wrong thing, Hiyori will close himself off again, and then he might actually get mad at Jun. So Jun decides to do what he thinks is the safest option, and he changes the subject.

“Is this like…your family’s car?” he asks.

Hiyori finally looks back over at Jun, and he shakes his head. “The agency’s,” he says. “My family does have several drivers, of course, but Reimei is far enough away from our estate that it’s more trouble than it’s worth to have someone drive all the way out here!”

Our estate.

Jun wonders, distantly, if he’d even be able to comprehend just how much money Hiyori has.

“So COS PRO has cars?” he asks, deciding it’s better not to think about it.

“Yep!” Hiyori says brightly. “Generally, they’re used to take idols to and from jobs and lives, but there’s no rule saying you can’t request a car for a non-work related reason!”

“Isn’t that a waste of the agency’s money?”

Hiyori laughs. “Absolutely not! We’re simply taking advantage of the resources offered to us as idols under COS PRO!”

Jun wants to protest, but Hiyori does have a point. Besides, considering how much money he’s paid just to attend Reimei, he figures one unnecessary car ride won’t bankrupt them.

Jun turns back to the window and watches as the trees give way to buildings and they reenter the city. Hiyori doesn’t force a conversation, instead letting Jun watch the scenery go by until the car slows to a stop and they arrive at the café. They exit the car, and Jun finds himself really outside of Reimei for the first time in over a year. A few people walk past, and he’s hit with the realization that they’re just regular people. They have no idea what goes on in the idol training school just a short drive away. He almost envies them.

“Jun-kun?”

Hiyori’s voice snaps Jun out of his thoughts. He looks over at Hiyori, standing next to the door and looking at him weird.

“Coming, sorry,” he says. He steps forward, and they head into the café together.

It’s a space that’s perfectly tailored, it seems, to Hiyori’s exact tastes. It’s bright and lively, and decorated in an almost ornate way while still being cozy and not too pretentious, and it smells amazing. Jun can’t help but feel out of place here, but he’s sure Hiyori will be overjoyed.

But when he looks at Hiyori, he’s surprised to see a little frown on Hiyori’s face. He doesn’t look upset, really, but he looks…almost unimpressed.

“Is something wrong?” Jun asks, really hoping the answer will be no.

Hiyori shakes his head a little. “Not really, I guess,” he says, though his tone contradicts his words. “It’s just…smaller than I expected. Less fancy.”

Jun raises his eyebrows. “This isn’t fancy?”

“Look,” Hiyori says, gesturing towards the counter. Jun’s eyes follow, but he isn’t quite sure what he’s supposed to be seeing. “It looks like we’re supposed to order up there.”

“So?” Jun says. He absolutely doesn’t know what Hiyori means.

“So,” Hiyori says, huffing the word out, “that means there isn’t table service.”

“I still don’t get what you’re upset about,” Jun says, looking back at Hiyori. “This is just how cafés work, Ohiisan.”

It’s Hiyori’s turn to look confused. “No, it’s not,” Hiyori says. “I’ve never actually gone to a café that didn’t have table service.”

“What?”

“At least in Japan,” Hiyori amends. “It’s different overseas.”

Sometimes, Hiyori is so rich that it ceases to be funny. Jun’s scarcely left this prefecture, and here Hiyori is casually mentioning his experiences in different countries.

He decides not to comment on it.

“This is probably the fanciest building I’ve been in in my life,” Jun says instead. “But if it’s not nice enough for you, we can go somewhere else, I guess.”

Hiyori looks at Jun for a moment, then back over at the counter. He cocks his head to the side, then looks at Jun again. “We can eat here,” he says finally. “It’ll be interesting to see how a commoner café works in Japan.”

Jun resists the urge to roll his eyes. The out of touch rich boy is stooping to his level and settling for something so unsophisticated. How kind of him.

Hiyori leads the way to the counter, and they look over the menu board. It’s all standard stuff, Jun thinks, though despite Hiyori’s classification of this place as common, it’s decidedly more expensive than any café Jun’s ever been to. He glances over it a few times, trying to decide what he wants, and then his eyes catch on something.

There’s a special flyer, right next to their regular menu, advertising a limited time strawberry parfait.

Jun’s eyes widen as he sees it, and his mouth waters at the thought of fresh strawberries. His absolute favorite, and it’s been forever since he’s had any.

But then his eyes fall on the price, and his heart sinks. Of course it’s ridiculously expensive. Hiyori did say he’d buy Jun anything he wants, but Jun can’t ask him to spend that much money on something he doesn’t need. It’ll be okay. He’ll survive without a strawberry parfait. But still, he has to hold in a sigh, thinking about what could’ve been.

“Go ahead when you’re ready,” Hiyori says. “I’ll order after you and then pay.”

Jun nods, and then orders a plain black coffee. It’s what he’s used to, and getting it fresh from a café instead of having instant is enough of a treat that he’ll be satisfied.

Hiyori looks at him, waiting for him to continue, but he just shakes his head and gestures for Hiyori to order.

“Hmm, let’s see…I’ll have a barley tea, a slice of salmon quiche, and one of the strawberry parfaits!” he says, smiling brightly at the cashier and pulling out his wallet.

Jun’s heart sinks even further, somehow. Of course Hiyori’s going to get the one thing Jun wants the most, and now he’s going to have to sit and watch Hiyori eat it. This is going to be torture.

They sit down in a booth in the corner of the café while they wait for their things, and Hiyori frowns at Jun.

“Really?” he asks. “I tell you I’ll buy whatever you want, and all you want is a plain black coffee?”

Jun avoids eye contact. “I don’t need anything else,” he says, trying to mean it.

“I didn’t offer to buy what you need, I offered to buy what you want,” Hiyori says. “There’s a difference, you know.”

“It’s fine,” Jun insists. “You don’t need to spend your money on me.”

Hiyori raises his eyebrows. “Jun-kun, I could buy out this entire café if I wanted to. A few hundred yen is nothing.”

Jun wants to protest, but before he can, an employee comes up to their table with their order. Hiyori’s three items are set in front of him, making Jun’s single black coffee look pitiful in comparison. Jun tries not to look at the parfait across the table from him, but it’s huge, and the strawberries on top are such a bright red that his eyes keep straying to it, and he can’t help but imagine how sweet it would taste.

Hiyori takes a sip of his tea, then pushes the parfait across the table and towards Jun.

Jun’s eyebrows draw together as he looks up at Hiyori. “What are you doing?”

“It’s for you,” Hiyori says simply.

Jun looks down at the parfait in front of him, then back up at Hiyori. “But…you ordered it.”

“I ordered it for you,” Hiyori says. Like that was supposed to be obvious.

“But—”

“You wanted it, so I got it for you,” Hiyori says, not letting him finish his protest.

How did Hiyori know? It’s not like Jun said anything. Maybe his face gave it away, but still. He couldn’t have looked at the promotional flyer for more than ten seconds. And even then, why did Hiyori get it for him? Just Jun wanting it isn’t reason enough, right?

“I…don’t understand,” he says slowly, searching Hiyori’s face for the reasoning.

Hiyori takes another sip of his tea. “What don’t you understand?”

Jun hesitates. This is another one of those things that Hiyori doesn’t like him to say, but he doesn’t want to lie. And he really does want to understand.

“Why you ordered the parfait for me in the first place,” he admits, resisting the urge to shrink down in his seat.

“Well, I was hoping you were going to order it, Jun-kun,” Hiyori says. His voice has a hint of admonishment in it, like he’s lecturing Jun for daring to not think about his wants. “But you didn’t, which is fine, I guess, since we’re still working on you believing that you’re allowed to be happy. And that’s not your fault, of course! So I wasn’t going to punish you for not asking for something you want, so I decided to get it for you anyways!”

Jun looks back down at the parfait in front of him, at the beautifully layered fruit and whipped cream and the ice cream that’s about to start melting if one of them doesn’t start eating it soon. “Are you sure I can have it?” he asks tentatively.

Hiyori smiles at him, a soft and genuine smile again. “I want you to have it,” he says. “And I don’t want you to feel bad about it, either. It’s my treat, so enjoy it, okay?”

Enjoy it. Easier said than done, but the parfait does look really good. And it’s for him, so he nods and picks up the spoon, picking out a careful bite with a little bit of everything and the prettiest strawberry slice he can find.

As Jun puts the bite into his mouth, he almost starts crying. It’s so good, so sweet and tart and creamy and perfect. It’s a million times better than he’d been imagining.

“Is it good?” Hiyori asks, finally picking up his own fork and taking a bite of his quiche.

Jun nods, and his lips turn up into a big smile. “It’s delicious,” he says, picking out another perfect bite.

Hiyori grins back at him. “Good! I’m glad.”

“Thanks, Ohiisan,” Jun says. He feels a weird sort of softness for Hiyori right now, and for the time being he can really believe that Hiyori cares about him, not just about the song.

Hiyori breaks eye contact, and Jun could swear his cheeks are the slightest pink as he looks down at his tea again. It doesn’t make sense. There’s not a reason for him to be blushing right now, unless Jun’s missed something. It’s probably just Hiyori acting weird again, which he seems to be doing more and more lately around Jun.

Jun takes another bite, and he winces. The strawberry he just got is sour. It’s still delicious, and the sweet creaminess of the ice cream helps to balance it out, but he just…wasn’t expecting such a sour bite. As he brings the spoon up to his mouth for the next bite, he’s preparing himself for it to be just as tart. But to his surprise, it’s as sweet as candy this time, maybe even sweeter. The difference from the last strawberry makes this bite his favorite so far, without a doubt. The tartness makes the sweet bites even better, but the sweetness doesn’t make him like the tart bites any less. And not knowing what he’s going to get is making eating the parfait even more enjoyable, because there’s novelty in the experience.

He glances up at Hiyori, who’s humming to himself and smiling as he takes a bite of his quiche. He looks genuinely happy right now, with no trace of the harshness from earlier. Whether that’s because of the quiche or something else, Jun doesn’t know. But it’s nice to see Hiyori looking this soft, this pleased. It makes him wish, for a fleeting second, that Hiyori could always be like this.

But as he looks back down at his mostly-gone parfait, at the perfect sweet-and-sour strawberries, he thinks to himself that maybe it’s not so bad. Maybe the weird moments where Hiyori retreats back into his shell make the moments like this even more special.

“This is nice, isn’t it?” Hiyori asks, catching Jun’s eye again and snapping him out of his train of thought. “A little outing to get some fresh air and a change of scenery.”

Jun looks around them, at the people sitting and standing and talking and existing, completely separate from him and Hiyori and the world they live in. “It’s weird,” he admits. “I haven’t left Reimei in a long time. I’d kinda forgotten what the real world was like.”

“It’s only been two months since the year started,” Hiyori says. “That’s not that long.”

“I didn’t go home between terms,” Jun says quietly, looking down at his cup of coffee as he feels Hiyori’s eyes fixed on him.

“Oh,” Hiyori says, sounding surprised. “That’s allowed?”

“It’s uncommon, but not unheard of,” Jun says. “Special students do it more often, I guess, because of work and stuff. Most non-special students jump at any chance to leave the school, but…what’s waiting for me at home is worse than staying here, even when I was in the labor camp.”

Hiyori pauses for a minute. “That makes sense,” he says. “So…when’s the last time you left Reimei?”

Jun looks up at him, then, meeting Hiyori’s eyes. “I haven’t left Reimei since the start of my first year.”

Hiyori frowns. “Not once?”

“Not once,” Jun echoes, shaking his head. “I tried one time last year, but I only got as far as the front gate.”

Hiyori kind of looks upset. Jun wishes he wouldn’t.

“It’s okay, though,” he says, trying to convince Hiyori. “I got used to it. It’s not so bad at Reimei, y’know? And during breaks, when there aren’t really any other students, there’s less work to do, so it’s still a bit of a break.”

“That’s awful weather, Jun-kun!” Hiyori says, still frowning. “I’m going to take you out more. Once we start getting regular work, we’ll be everywhere, but until then, you have to go out more! I can’t believe you’ve basically been a prisoner in Reimei this entire time.”

Jun shrinks down a little in his seat and looks at the table between them. “Ohiisan, really, it’s okay,” he says. “It’s…better than home, so it’s fine.”

“I’m still taking you out more,” Hiyori promises.

Jun wants to protest, because he’s really not comfortable with Hiyori spending money on him this time, much less multiple times after this, but something stops him from being able to. Maybe it’s the fact that he’s actually enjoying being alone with Hiyori. Maybe it’s the way Hiyori seemed so happy when Jun finally accepted the parfait. Maybe it’s because Hiyori’s been treating him like a person who matters, and it’s getting easier to believe that he really might be. Maybe he just has poor judgement. Whatever it is, Jun decides to just go with it.

“If you’re sure you want to,” he says. “It might be nice to get out every once in a while.”

Hiyori smiles at him again, bright and cheerful. “Good! I was honestly expecting more pushback from you, but I’m happy you agree!”

Hiyori’s been saying stuff like that more lately. I was expecting you to or I knew you would or I know you pretty well. Jun isn’t used to hearing anything like that. He isn’t used to anyone knowing him well enough to have an idea in their head of how he acts and be right about it. But Hiyori is right. It’s like he heard Jun’s mental protests without Jun even having to open his mouth, and Jun finds himself, for probably the fifth time today, being weirdly seen, and he still doesn’t know how to respond to it. Luckily, though, he’s saved from having to come up with a response because Hiyori launches into a very detailed review of his quiche and tea.

Overall, Hiyori seems very pleased with this whole outing. Good quiche, good tea, perfect environment, and for whatever reason, Jun is unable to say no to him right now. Honestly, Jun’s pretty pleased with the excursion himself. Which is surprising, because pleased isn’t an adjective he’d ever really use to describe himself. But his coffee was good, and the strawberry parfait was probably the best thing he’s ever had the privilege of eating, and it’s really nice to be outside Reimei’s confines. And, really, he’s enjoying being around Hiyori right now.

When they’ve both finished their food and drinks, they stand up to leave. Hiyori appears to be heading straight for the door, but Jun’s not about to be that inconsiderate to the waitstaff, so he gathers their dishes and brings them back to the counter before hurrying after Hiyori.

“What took you so long?” Hiyori asks while they wait for the car to pull back up.

“I was cleaning up the table,” Jun says, coming to a stop right next to Hiyori.

Hiyori’s brows draw together. “Why? The staff can take care of that, can’t they?”

Jun stares at him a little incredulously. “Are you serious?”

“Why wouldn’t I be?”

“It’s rude,” Jun says, feeling a weird role reversal right now. Normally it’s Hiyori who explains things that he thinks should be obvious to Jun. Jun can’t really be surprised, because he’s pretty much gathered by now that there’s never been a time in Hiyori’s life where he had to take care of himself, where he wasn’t waited on hand and foot by someone poorer than him.

Not that Jun is doing anything to break him of that habit, of course.

“Is it really?” Hiyori asks, looking surprised. “Isn’t that their job?”

“There was a bin on the counter labeled ‘dirty dishes,’” Jun says. “You’re supposed to clean up after yourself at commoner cafés.”

Hiyori looks…almost embarrassed. “Oh.”

“Yeah,” Jun says. “They’d take care of it if we didn’t, but it’s rude to make them. Most people don’t get paid enough to clean up after you, you know.”

“…Yeah,” Hiyori says softly. “That’s true. I didn’t really think about it like that.”

The car rolls into view, and as it approaches, Hiyori smiles his soft smile again at Jun, shedding the seriousness in his voice and face. “I thought I was an expert in etiquette, you know. I guess there are a few things I still have to learn. Thanks for teaching me something today, Jun-kun.”

As the car slows to a stop, Jun moves without thinking, opening the door nearest to them and stepping back, gesturing for Hiyori to get in. Hiyori looks at him for a second, hesitating, but then his smile widens and he climbs into the backseat. Jun shuts the door behind him and walks to the other side of the car and gets in.

“You opened the door for me,” Hiyori says, joy evident in his voice.

Jun looks over at him and smiles a little. “Yeah, well, don’t make me regret it.”

Hiyori laughs his pretty laugh. “Never,” he says lightly. “I need you to keep doing it, don’t I? I’ll do whatever it takes to make sure you like me enough to open doors for me.”

The car ride back to Reimei is short, much shorter than it felt on the way out. Jun’s not quite sure why that is, but it feels like only a couple of minutes of easy conversation between him and Hiyori before the car is slowing to a stop again and the wrought iron gate comes into view. Jun gets out first and diligently moves to the other door to open it for Hiyori. Hiyori looks pleased again, and they walk back into Reimei together.

“Feeling better?” Hiyori asks as they step back into their dorm.

Jun nods, slipping his shoes off. “Lots better.”

Hiyori grins. “Good! So just take it easy for the rest of the day, okay? We’ll try the choreography again tomorrow in rehearsal, and hopefully it’ll go better.”

At the word rehearsal, a knot of anxiety forms in Jun’s stomach. Somehow, he’d managed to forget about that tiny detail, what with all the excitement of the evening. But there it is again: the looming prospect of his failure, a future he seems to be hurtling towards at an unreasonably fast pace. He just nods, unwilling to bother Hiyori with this when they finally had a nice time together.

The evening progresses like normal, for the most part. Jun makes himself a quick dinner, since Hiyori ate actual food at the café and it’s decidedly past dinnertime when they get back to Reimei, and they both finish up their homework, settling into their separate nighttime activities. Hiyori takes a bath and spends well over an hour in the bathroom doing god knows what to his face, and Jun takes the opportunity to watch the choreography video with an air that verges on obsession. Maybe if he watches it enough times, commits the movements to memory, burns the touches into his mind, he’ll be able to do it.

It feels like a last-ditch effort, and he doesn’t even know why. It’s not like Hiyori will kick him out tomorrow if he’s not able to get through the song again by then. So why does it feel like something awful will happen if he can’t get it down?

His feeling of dread only grows the more he watches the video, but he can’t force his eyes away from his phone screen. His vision starts to get blurry as he stares unblinkingly at the choreography, and he knows distantly that he’s not helping himself at all by doing this, but he just can’t make himself stop. He should be able to do this choreography. He’s trained for this, dammit, and this isn’t even that hard. Jin Sagami would be able to do this. His dad would be able to do this.

Well. Would have, probably. The last time Jun saw him he was a shell of a man, barely functioning unless it was to berate Jun or hit him. He could still direct, sure, but it’s been a long time since his dad actually demonstrated any moves for him.

Jun’s mind has strayed enough that he can stop watching the video, but the next thing he does is arguably worse. Before he even realizes it, he’s typing Jin Sagami’s name into a search bar and pulling up the videos he hasn’t had time to watch in months. The familiar lights and moves are comforting, for a moment, but then the feeling of dread is back and only getting stronger. Jin Sagami would be able to do his choreography. Easily. As easily as Hiyori was able to do it. It’s him that’s the problem, not anyone else. He’s a lousy excuse for an idol, because he can’t even perform a four minute song that was created for him. He’ll never make it. He’ll never be as good as Jin Sagami. He’ll never make his dad proud.

He’ll never be good enough to justify his existence.

“Jun-kun?”

Hiyori’s voice startles Jun, but still he can’t tear his gaze away from his phone.

“What are you doing?” Hiyori asks, sounding almost hesitant.

“Watching something,” Jun says vaguely, not moving from his curled-up position on top of his blankets.

“Watching what?”

“Idol videos.”

That catches Hiyori’s attention. “Oh!” he says excitedly. “Which one? Show me!”

Hiyori’s words seem to break the spell that Jun’s been stuck under, and suddenly he’s able to move. He looks up at Hiyori, standing above him with damp hair and a towel draped around his neck, and he turns his phone around to let Hiyori see.

Hiyori squints at the screen, then cocks his head to the side and looks back down at Jun. “Jin Sagami? This is an old video, isn’t it?”

Jun fights a weirdly protective urge to take his phone back from where Hiyori can see it. “I guess,” he says. “I dunno, I watch it a lot.”

“Is Jin Sagami your favorite idol?” Hiyori asks appraisingly.

Poor Hiyori has no idea how loaded of a question he just asked.

Is it worth it to explain it to him right now? Probably not, but then Jun has to figure out how to answer the question without delving into his weird feelings about Jin Sagami.

“Maybe,” he settles on. “He’s…the one I want to be like, I guess. I don’t know about favorite.”

Hiyori stares at him for a minute, then grins. “Good! Your favorite idol should be me, of course.”

Jun resists the urge to roll his eyes as he pulls his phone back. “Whatever you say, Ohiisan.”

“I’m gonna turn the light off, okay?” Hiyori says, moving towards the switch. Jun makes a noise of assent, so Hiyori flicks it off and gets into bed. “There’s nothing wrong with watching idol videos for inspiration, but make sure you don’t stay up late, Jun-kun. You need sleep and you told me yourself you haven’t been sleeping well lately. I’m going to bed now, but please don’t be too long after me, okay?”

“I know,” Jun mutters. “‘Night.”

Hiyori returns his goodnight and rolls over, getting comfortable in a way that Jun can’t fathom.

Hiyori has a point. He’s right, like he usually is. Jun needs to go to bed, and hopefully he can actually sleep tonight. So he puts his phone away and migrates under the covers, then shuts his eyes and tries to sleep.

His mind still races, and right away he knows it’s not going to be easy. He’ll probably pass out eventually, since he didn’t sleep at all last night and he’s still—though he hates to admit it—exhausted from overdoing it at the gym earlier, but it’s something he’s going to have to fight for. If he could stop thinking about stupid rehearsal for five minutes, maybe he’d have a chance of falling asleep.

Jun doesn’t want to fail. He can’t fail. Failure isn’t an option. If he fails, he’ll have to drop out. If he drops out, he’ll have to move back in with his dad. He cannot do that.

It doesn’t matter how nice Hiyori wants to act, because if they can’t debut, he’ll have no choice but to find a new partner. Hiyori can do it, Jun can’t. If that doesn’t change, if Jun’s never able to do it, all Hiyori needs to do is find someone who can.

But Jun’s out of ideas. It’s not like he can magically fix his touch aversion overnight. He literally just has to hope that a good night’s sleep and a day off will make it so that he can touch Hiyori tomorrow without flinching so badly that they have to cut the music.

Eventually, his thoughts start to slow, and sleep is becoming a promise rather than just a possibility. Jun’s managed to push the rest of his worries away, leaving only the certainty that something is going to have to change if he doesn’t want to fail. And then finally, after far too long, he drifts off into a fitful sleep.